Category: Music

Music Review: Duran Duran: Danse Macabre

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It’s been a while since I did a music review. I don’t think I even did one for Duran’s last album, Future Past, which was released two years ago. But the excitement was high for the new Hallowe’en-themed album, so it’s time to get back into the habit! Thoughts listed track by track…

Nightboat

This re-recording sounds even eerier than the original, and sort of more epic. Like a film soundtrack. It does lose some of the punk energy I loved in the 1981 version, though.

Black Moonlight

This is more of a banger every time I hear it. A ‘dancing around the room’ kind of song! Love that funk bassline. I also love that it’s been all over the BBC this Hallowe’en week.

Love Voudou

A funkier and less spiky update of the original ‘Love Voodoo’ from 1993. I think I prefer this version!

Bury A Friend

My favourite Billie Eilish song so I was excited about this one. It did not disappoint. Fully Duranised and nicely rock-infused.

Supernature

Loses none of the disco feel of the original Cerrone version. Love the backing chorus at the end.

Danse Macabre

Probably the most Hallowe’en-y song on the album. My favourite lyrics (I am a Hallowe’en girl so frankly I was sold from the opening) and it’s another one that’s highly danceable.

Secret Oktober 31st

I always found the original slightly dirge-y (I wrote a piece for Cherry Lipstick to that effect) but this version is a bit better – it has a twinkly lightness about it at the start and then gets a bit filmic by the end. Much more interesting.

Ghost Town

A classic from the Specials back in the day so I wasn’t sure what to expect. They’ve injected it with a lot more fun and it made me smile (and then laugh when it got extra reggae in the middle). A more serious cover would probably have fallen flat but this one struck the right note.

Paint It Black

Another personal favourite from childhood. What I love about the Rolling Stones original is its harsh spikiness and that was lost here. However, it does sound spookier (and the guitars are pleasingly ’80s) so I think it’s a version that will grow on me.

Super Lonely Freak

Duran played this mashup of ‘Super Freak’ and ‘Lonely In Your Nightmare’ when I saw them in Leeds earlier this year. I hadn’t realised it had originated from the Hallowe’en 2022 Vegas gig, but I did enjoy it in concert (even if I was worried for a moment that it had replaced the wonderful ‘Girls On Film’/’Acceptable In The ’80s’ mashup that I love! But they kept that in too so yay). Glad to see it immortalised on record… and the sax section is fantastic.

Spellbound

Being a recovering goth, I am a huge Siouxsie and the Banshees fan. The original has been played at every goth club night since 1981 and so I know it intimately. This version lacks a little of the punk energy, but it would fit in very nicely with later goth rock from the second half of the ’80s.

Psycho Killer

A smoother and more epic version of the Talking Heads original. Gorgeous double bassline (the second provided by Victoria De Angelis of Måneskin, complementing John Taylor) and lovely instrumental work all round.

Confession In The Afterlife

A slow and serious ending to what has otherwise been a fun and danceable album. Pretty tune and a nice guitar solo but it feels like a bit of an odd duck on this record.

Gig Review: Duran Duran at O2 Academy Birmingham, 14th September 2021

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It’s been two and a half years since I last did a gig review on here! I’m a bit out of the habit…

Like many other things in my life post-pandemic, going to gigs is not as frequent an occurrence as it used to be. I like my evenings at home on my sofa and it has to be something special for me to buy tickets these days. However, I have been to a few since the world started returning to normal (nine, by my calculations) and have one or two lined up for the future. It’s probably time I start catching up with some reviews again.

It was, of course, highly appropriate that my first post-pandemic gig back was my first time getting to see Duran Duran. They’ve been my favourite band for years now but for various reasons I just hadn’t had the chance to see them. When a couple of surprise dates were announced in September 2021, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

I reviewed this gig for both Daily Duranie and Cherry Lipstick at the time, so my much fresher thoughts are out there already and I won’t repeat those. Really it’s just nice to look back, in hindsight, at a really special experience – the suddenness of the announcement, heading down to Birmingham for the evening, the incredible atmosphere at the O2 Academy (a much smaller venue than the arenas Duran usually play) and the overwhelming feeling of experiencing something for which I’d waited a long time. Not to mention excitedly livetweeting the gig (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) 😀

Duran Duran

Now, for the first time in nearly four years, I shall update my Band Aid baby bucket list:

Updated Band Aid baby bucket list progress: song artists 11/37 (29.7%); message artists 2/7 (28.6%); total artists 13/44 (29.5%).

Playlist Pick: Arctic Monkeys, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’

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Rumours of the death of Playlist Pick Wednesdays were apparently premature. New Wednesday series now starting NEXT week instead. I haven’t had time to organise it this week with the game competition deadline and everything!

Today’s playlist pick is another classic from the mid-’00s, which is a period in pop-rock for which I have been a bit nostalgic recently.

I also thoroughly recommend listening to the Anton du Beke cover in order to celebrate his long-overdue installation as a Strictly judge (for 2021 at least…):

We did a quickstep routine to this in the ‘Strictly Dance’ exercise class I attended pre-pandemic. I will get back to that class someday.

Playlist Pick: John Carpenter, ‘Halloween Theme’

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This will be the last Playlist Pick for a while, as I’m starting a new Wednesday series next week!

I put a few tunes together for my current game on Beepbox yesterday and had to work fairly hard for them NOT to sound like they were aping John Carpenter. I don’t think I succeeded with all of them. Geth kept telling me he was visualising pumpkin lanterns.

It is a classic, though….

…and I found myself staring at my lineup of Halloween DVDs on the shelf this afternoon while lying down to start my recovery from Zombie Eye III: The Reawakening (my first uveitis attack in two years). I think the film may be getting a run out soon. Possibly even before this Hallowe’en.

And while my current game mostly doesn’t suit a Carpenter-esque soundtrack, there will be plenty more suitable opportunities in the future…

Playlist Pick: The Strokes, ‘Last Nite’

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In recent years, following the chart on and off, I’ve been a bit disappointed that rock music seems to have all but disappeared from the scene. I know it’s still going on in a more underground way (all forms of music are still going on in an underground way, as I know very well having been a goth for so long and more recently a synthwave fan!), but it’d be nice to see it back in more popular consciousness. Maybe there’ll be another big revival in a few years’ time.

Anyway, the earworm part of my brain has been casting back to the early-to-mid-’00s recently, when things were very different and there was a LOT of rock in the charts. A lot of it was rubbish, but I always liked this Strokes hit.

It takes me right back to the rock clubs of Edinburgh and a very different time in my life.

Playlist Pick: The Beatles, ‘Drive My Car’

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I had my first vaccine dose today and was trying to find a suitable song. Google has a lot of suggestions but none of them seem quite right. Earworm playlist is constant Duran Duran this week anyway as I’ve been listening to them so much!

Instead I’m going to go with a car-themed one for today.

I’ve always liked ‘Drive My Car’. It was a childhood favourite at a time when driving a car seemed like a fun, cartoony thing to do, rather than a stressful adult world of traffic jams and poorly signposted roundabouts. The 1960s can also seem fairly cartoony to those of us who weren’t there, and this song is a good example of that for me.

Playlist Pick: Duran Duran, ‘Invisible’

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There was only one song that was ever going to make my Wednesday playlist pick today. It’s ‘new Duran Duran single’ day!

I woke up early to listen to it on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 show this morning, and have been enjoying it on and off all day. I really liked it on first listen, which is unusual, as most songs take some time to grow on me.

The new album (which is coming out in October) also became available for pre-order at midnight last night. I may have ordered both the signed CD and the green vinyl. New Duran albums don’t come along very often.

Now off to listen to the single again…