It’s no secret that we are big Duranies at The Song Sommelier. Our Post from over a year ago celebrated the band’s 40th, but in a sort of stilted way - since up until recently some of the band’s ‘lost years’ catalogue was still unavailable on streaming catalogues.
No less than three albums had been in digital limbo: 1997’s Medazzaland, 2000’s Pop Trash and the band’s second ‘debut’ as a reformed five piece, 2004’s Astronaut. All three have been brought back to market via a new deal with BMG Rights Management, part of the hybrid label/publishing/management company BMG run by Hartwig Masuch - famous for working with legacy artists still working their way toward late career peaks.
I’m not kidding that I felt a rush of excitement about this, because those three records contain a few of my genuine DD favourites - now added to the ‘Redux’ 40th anniversary playlist. We will re-launch the playlist with brand new artwork and a special account of the period in our podcast The Art of Longevity, soon!
Since you may well be rusty on the three records (or perhaps shame on you, unfamiliar entirely), this is a whistle-stop tour to fill you in.
Medazzaland is the genuine oddity in the whole Duran catalogue and I love it. I first came across it in a ‘special offer’ rack in a record shop in NYC, since the record didn’t even get a European release. By that time I’d lost touch with the catalogue a little bit, overrun as we were in those days with the glut of Britpop. I remember when I first heard it and found the sheer weirdness of the opening track an absolute delight. So this is what happens when pop legends get weird!
At that time Duran Duran were down to a trio of Simon, Nick and Warren of course. John Taylor left the band in January 1997 before recording was complete. Medazzaland contained the single Electric Barbarella, infamous for being the first ever MP3 download - so there - a little bit of digital music history is bound-up with a very little-known DD record.
Medazzaland’s title track was inspired by Le Bon's treatment with the mind-altering drug midazolam during dental surgery, leaving him in a disconnected state for some time afterwards. To my mind, the theme of disconnection seems to run through much of the record, including the band’s new relationship with ‘fame’ (i.e not so in the spotlight) on tracks such as ‘Buried in the Sand’ and ‘Undergoing Treatment’.
Standout tracks: Medazzaland, Big Bang Generation, Out Of My Mind, Midnight Sun, So Long Suicide.
The disappointing commercials for Medazzaland effectively led to the end of the band’s long-time relationship with EMI, who were so indifferent toward the record they handed the master rights back to Duran Duran. It was rumoured that the band would independently release the album in the UK, but they went on to sign with Hollywood Records, then part of the Disney empire (Nick Rhodes said "Never was there a place that felt less like a record company: Seven giant dwarves hold up the building”). And then came Pop Trash.
Pop Trash starts off with something of an understated Duran Duran classic, the ballad Someone Else Not Me (which is sort of a cousin song to their previous biggest hit Ordinary World). It was said that during the record’s creation process, Simon Le Bon was suffering from writer's block, and so Nick and Warren took on more of the songwriting, with the result being DD’s second consecutive ‘experimental’ record.
How it was ever thought that the collection of songs on Pop Trash would bring back the band’s former pop chart glory is anybody’s guess (though we would love to know the real story). The thing is, in retrospect it doesn’t matter anyway. Pop Trash is very much a Duran Duran record in a similar vein to The Wedding Album, but with fewer obvious hits.
I saw the band play a sold out show (part of a sold out tour) in support of the album at Wembley Arena. They may not have been at their very best (I particularly remember LeBon taking a few very deep breaths before taking a run-up and leaping off the drum riser for the Rio finale) but they were at their most untethered, slightly bonkers. LeBon’s performance during the woozy, spaced out Hallucinating Elvis was comedic and terrific, I adored it. Not only that, but they rocked out too. Last Day On Earth (along with So Long Suicide from Medazzaland) are essentially hard rock numbers by a pop band that had gone way off the rails.
Needless to say, Pop Trash bombed commercially, putting the band officially in the doldrums with three previous albums commercial disappointments by their standards. However, fact: I played the album non stop in the car for almost a year and without fail every single passenger asked me first who it was and second, could I ‘burn a copy’ (remember those days when the record industry lived in mortal fear of burning, illegal downloading and other forms of technology enabled meltdown!).
Standout tracks: Someone Else Not Me, Playing With Uranium, Starting to Remember, Pop Trash Movie, Last Day On Earth.
If those two ‘experimental’ albums don’t float your boat, they clearly didn’t do much for Le Bon’s either. You can immediately hear on Astronaut that the Duran Duran singer sounds thoroughly re-energised. The official ‘comeback’ record as a five piece, released in 2004 (with DD now on a multi-album deal with a major label no less, Epic Records) is ten times brighter than its two predecessors. The production is crisp (and expensive) and the three minute song is to the fore - absolutely no room for wayward experiments here, though it could have benefitted from being trimmed down a couple of tracks.
The idea with Astronaut was to return to former pop glory and it very nearly went that way. Although it received predictably mixed reviews from critics, the record reached number 3 on the UK Albums Chart to become the band's highest-charting album in the UK since Seven and the Ragged Tiger - 21 years before in 1983. The album also made the U.S. Billboard top 20 and reached the top ten in six other countries.
Standout tracks: Want You More, What Happens Tomorrow, Finest Hour, Still Breathing
It’s not clear what took Astronaut so long to arrive on streaming services, since the next outing, 2007’s Red Carpet Massacre, has been on there from the start. The band’s announcement on these new additions to streaming puzzled me as well since it included All You Need Is Now, which has also been on streaming for a good while.
Medazzaland and Pop Trash seemed genuinely lost at one point though, so well done camp Duran Duran and BMG for finally doing a deal. For the fans it’s worth it of course, but if Duran Duran are little more than a curiosity to you in these crowded days of limited attention spans, have a listen or return to the refreshed and complete Redux playlist. It’s great fun.
