Duran Duran’s latest album only takes you lower
Teeny-bopper faves’ new takes on modern classics fails to
impress
By Michael Tatum
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
It’s like Ernest Hemingway said: if you can’t come up with a new
idea, or a put a new spin on an old one, your art isn’t worth your
time or effort.
You’d figure the poseurs in Duran Duran, intellectually vacant
though they are, would be smart enough to realize this. Not to say
that they’re capable of that level of literary insight (let alone
musical insight) but you’d think nearly 15 years of churning out
teeny-bopper product would have taught them something. Instead,
they’ve given the world Thank You, the 4,678th record of cover
versions to be released this year.
Why? Most likely, they came to the realization that their
comeback album, Duran Duran, was a fluke and panicked. After all,
most pin-up boys never get a second chance  just ask the New
Kids On The Block.
At this point in their deplorable career, they simply can’t
afford another commercial bomb on the order of Liberty or the
Arcadia side project So Red The Rose (forgotten that one, hadn’t
you?). Why take chances on a typically vapid batch of originals
when you can seize tried-and-true songs from the catalogs of Sly
Stone, Bob Dylan and others?
Choosing songs ingrained in the public consciousness, however,
has one inevitable drawback: comparisons to the familiar originals.
Putting their questionable musical faculties to the likes of "I
Want To Take You Higher," and "Lay Lady Lay" Â songs whose
original versions are definitive  only serves to showcase
what imbeciles these pop music mercenaries really are.
Not that those who comprise Moron Moron’s fan base (14-year-olds
of all ages) would be acquainted with, say, Lou Reed’s "Perfect
Day" or Iggy Pop’s "Success." But you’d hope that the Moroners
themselves would, at the very least, be in touch with what made
those songs special. The horrendous Thank You illustrates that that
requires more emotional depth and musical acumen than they are
capable.
The two rap recastings are contemptible. The automatic,
non-danceable arrangements  particularly the robotic guitar
samples on "White Lines" Â bleach every last bit of funk out
of the songs, and if Warren Cuccurullo thinks the acoustic guitar
loop at the beginning of "911 Is a Joke" makes him Beck, he’s even
more of a loser than previously thought.
But the main problem with these hip hop sacrileges lays in Simon
LeBon’s trademark constipated vocal delivery. LeBon puts emphasis
on the wrong words, affects a high-pitched whine when he wants to
build excitement, and exhibits a mind-boggling lack of internal
rhythm that would shock Pat Boone. These two tracks should set
straight ignorami under the illusion that "anyone can rap."
And if the shoddy musical and vocal settings weren’t bad enough,
these remakes simply don’t carry the social significance of the
originals. People make fun of Melle Mel’s slightly clumsy delivery
on the original "White Lines," but at least he gave the song an
immediacy that its subject  ghetto kids under the temptation
of hard drugs  deserved. LeBon just comes off as the spoiled,
decadent, married-to-a-fashion-model rich kid that everyone knows
he is.
Just why does he think that the paramedics won’t come to his
part of town on "911 Is A Joke" Â is there a slum on Saville
Row we don’t know about? As a sociological experiment, he should
throw himself in front of a speeding truck to prove his
theories.
Then there’s the sanded down "Watching The Detectives," in which
LeBon trades Elvis Costello’s abrasive snarl in for an
am-I-Cassanova-yet? lounge croon that makes absolutely no sense in
the context of the song. Even worse, he eliminates any possible
excitement by excising the song’s climax  "Shoot! Shoot!
Shoot!" Â from the chorus. Admittedly, all of this could be
construed as self-parody, but since LeBon’s stage persona pretty
much boils down to a limp caricature of the far superior Bryan
Ferry, this seems unlikely.
So before A-ha assays cover versions of the Who, or Haircut 100
records a tribute to the Ramones, let Moron Moron’s Thank You serve
as warning to any artist who might be foolish to follow their
example. It’s like George Santayana said: those who can’t remember
the past are doomed to repeat it.