Hall of Shame: Duran Duran – Paper Gods (2015)

Way back in a rather tumultuous year called 2001 there was an album with the title of Get Ready. It was released by these guys who called themselves New Order. New Order had not released an album since 1993. New Order had some seriously huge dance singles in the 1980s with “Blue Monday,” “Confusion,” “Temptation,” and “The Perfect Kiss” just to cover the precious few that made it across the Atlantic. New Order’s “comeback” album was not a rehash, nor was it a throwback, nor was it a dance record, nor were New Order ever really a dance group. Forgetting that 2001 was a desert for good music, Get Readywas the best record to come out that year, the prior year, and the following year. It’s a mother of an album, a monolithic structure, a “hey kids, we’re gonna fuck your worlds up by showing we were better before and we’re better now” kind of thing.

Duran Duran are not now nor were they ever New Order. They weren’t Depeche Mode. They weren’t A Flock of Seagulls. They weren’t even Spandau Ballet. They were, however, all hype and no substance. They were shit with no feeling of relief afterward. They were and will always be one of the lesser New Romantic bands in terms of songwriting. For all intents and purposes, they are The Eagles of the 80s, producing a few well-known classic radio staples and doing fuck all afterward.

So why in the ever-loving mother of Christfuck cunt-lipped dogshit fecal-fetish are they so desperate for money and the attention of vapid Millenial nostalgics that they decided to release this miserable fuckheap of a shitty record?

How sad it is that the old people need to dance and the young kids need to give them their approval just for some self-validation after all these years. Like hearing your Boomer parents calling things “radical” and “bodacious,” Paper Gods gives you the feeling of pulling that Eiffel 65 CD off the shelf at your local pawn shop. Dirty, old, and extremely out of touch with anything over the past twenty years.

Like a neglected and dusty Nagel print, Duran Duran seem to love hanging things on the wall that aren’t cleaned up to look halfway-decent in a modern context, not even in an ironic way. Actually, even a Nagel reference out of line here, as this album sounds more like 1995 than 1985 (despite the Rio lips on the front cover). Not even Nile Rodgers and Mark Ronson can save “Pressure Off,” the one track that sounds like it had the most promise (as in being a total Bruno Mars cop) before the mastering stripped it of any kind of soul. If funky old Nile and Ronson can’t help a track, it’s face-down Brian Jones-dead in the water.

In conclusion since I’m sick of thinking/writing about this, it’s depressing that a band could make an album that sucks this much. It doesn’t even succeed at pandering. It’s borderline unlistenable. It’s actually classic Duran Duran.

by Blake Thomas