As I mentioned with Haircut One Hundred, it feels like 1982 is a year of two halves, musically speaking. Either you go deep and dark like the past two albums, or you go light and breezy like this one. Perhaps because at the time I write this I’ve just finished reading Roger Zelazny’s Jack of Shadows for my Appendix N series on this blog, which defines how I see it (the book is set on a world where one side is in perpetual night, inhabited by fey-like creatures and magical laws, while the other side is in light and modern, technological, but sterile).
This is one of those albums that spawned a
lot of singles – Rio, My Own Way, Hungry Like The Wolf, Save A Prayer. It’s
mostly upbeat, and again has that “blue-eyed funk” element that I associated
with Haircut One Hundred, but also much more of a pop-rock feel to it. There’s
lots of little snips of sound effects, girls giggling, even a fun vibraphone
solo on New Religion.
I was trying to think, while I was
listening to it, what made it so very quintessentially Eighties in sound –
this, perhaps more than Japan, Haircut One Hundred, Heaven 17, Human League, or
OMD really sounds like such Eighties staples as slick consumerism, shiny suits,
thin ties, guitar keyboards, and big hair. In part it’s the clear melodic
quality to Simon LeBon’s voice – this is some good old-fashioned singing,
stripped of the growls and screams and drones that come with post-punk and New Wave. In part it’s the low mix of Andy
Taylor’s guitar, and the slight fuzzy drone tonal quality of it, like a
watered-down Fripp, partly the mix of John Taylor’s drums that make them sound
almost electronic (the ubiquitous Linn drum machine), partly the keyboards of Nick Rhodes that add texture and
hooks without wandering into the virtuoso (and often overpowering) flourishes
of Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman.
Apparently the production smoothed the
sound out too much for the tastes of some band members, but there’s no arguing
that it proved commercially very successful for the band. They also made the
most of the new MTV channel – although the video for Rio is a relatively simple
affair of the band fooling around on a yacht, Duran Duran quickly gained a
reputation for hugely extravagantly staged videos (the one for Union Of The Snake
being particularly OTT).
And, actually, I found I liked this a lot
more than I thought. Fundamentally the tunes are all pretty good regardless of
the sheen; it’d be interesting how they’d come out if stripped of the Eighties
sound and returned to the basics.
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