Dude, their first 2 albums were great. I see the sort of darker vein you’re grooving to with Save a Prayer and Chauffeur and think you’re sleeping on Night Boat.
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Hahaha. It’s always a matter of taste, of course.
For me they were in the category of Spandau Ballet, Haircut 100 and Human League…
Not that those were bad, but they were more “pop”! So, more Madonna than Front 242 
By the way:
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Love this tune 
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One of the best song of the 80s!
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You are way off the mark with that one, my friend! They were a cut or ten above Spandau, and in a completely different league to the Human League. As for Haircut 100… I went to a stag do 12 years ago. One of the ex member of Haircut 100 was there (I can’t remember his name, it wasn’t Nick Haywood), but I remember him telling me he was about to get evicted from his flat, “I’m absolutely broke…”
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Everybody thinks his or her band is " a cut or ten above" any other band
That’s called “being a fan”…
I was at a music label party, many years ago, Alan Wilder was there, sitting alone on the ground in a corner, largely being ignored by everybody. He was quite a nice and very grounded guy.
Mousse T (of “Sexbomb” fame, you know with otherwise fantastic Tom Jones) was also there, being the center of attention.
I didn’t get it! He was not even Tom Jones!!!
I think that Alan Wilder was much closer to being broke at that time than Mousse T. Did that make Alan Wilder’s music worse? Don’t think so!
Nothing against Duran Duran, big fan of Arcadia, but they still are in the Spandau Ballet category for me
This is something I actually disagree with. All the New Romantics knew each other, intermingled, worked and played together, and generally hung out at a single club together. Spandau Ballet’s drivel like “Gold” is not representative; check out their earlier stuff like “To Cut A Long Story Short”, which I actually stack ahead of a lot of later Duran Duran.
Human League also went way beyond “Don’t You Want Me”.
agree
Disagree completely here, it’s more that over time pop morphed to embrace the New Romantics. Starting out these guys were all counterculture AF.
Basically you can blame Stephen Strange for almost all of it, he started it 
What Duran Duran had that none of the others had (except Stephen Strange himself, and perhaps Tony Hadley from SB) was the business and culture sense to move beyond their roots and start driving pop’s direction themselves.
All of these bands had a mix of great and not so great musicians, IIRC. Duran Duran was mostly really solid.
This was never my favorite genre but I knew a lot of people deep in to it before it got big, and was there clubbing to a lot of it.
That’s just sad. And yeah, that was his reputation. That band was lucky to get him and lost a lot when he left.
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No disagreement here. Just like Simple Minds … their first albums were in some respect very avant garde!
Simple Minds was dead at least when Chrissie Hynde became Yoko Ono
I blame her for Simple Minds going stadium pop!
I think you’re thinking about Blitz, in Covent Garden. That was Steve Strange, and I think associated with Spandau, Boy George etc. Duran were initially Birmingham based, the Rum Runner. They were a beacon of light in the area I grew up in - north west of Birmingham. In the 70s and 80s it was a really depressed part of the UK. Duran were like shiny peacocks.
The whole New Romantic thing passed pretty quickly - New Romantic / Futurists etc, growing out of New Wave. As you say, Duran evolved and survived. The fact that they are still going, and still producing great music is testament to their talents. The Human League are touring soon - I won’t bother going to seen them. I went a few years ago and there was nothing new and exciting, just Don’t You Want Me and other faded hits. Spandau disolved in to fights over royalties… I met Tony Hadley once, on a flight to Brussels. Blimey, he’s tall!
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XTC is a great example of what psychedelic pop could have been.
That song (and album) is so much better than late-stage Tears for Fears. Andy Partridge is a genius and Roland Orzabal ended up just making bad beatlesesque jangle-pop, IMO.
I think TFF were a victim of their own success. The Hurting was special, unique. Songs From The Big Chair had good moments but was already starting in the wrong (IMO) direction; later stuff, just not remarkable at all IMO.
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Yes, The Blitz, and interesting - all this time I had thought DD were part of that group too. Thanks for the correction there.
And yeah, Strange drove almost all of the Blitz scene, and pioneered some of the music in Visage as well. Or rather, tried to; Visage was more popular among other musicians I knew than fans per se, despite top 10 hits
Man looking back at the lineup, Visage (like Magazine) was like a pre-supergroup. Strange, Midge Ure, John McGeoch, Billie Currie, Barry Adamson…
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Hard disagree here. Have you listened to their stuff before Bittersweet Symphony? Their early stuff had a hard psychedelic shoegazey lean to it. They have some great bass lines also I’ve worked off and on, on Already There for a few months).
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This is worth a listen:
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You know they “borrowed” that riff, @faydout ? 
Definitely an interesting guy.
RHCP “Under the Bridge” is doable if you’re slap impaired like I am….otherwise not touching Flea.
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I always thought the Verve were not to bright for trying to get away with that. Until recently when I saw a video that gave some additional details. Apparently it was from one of the Stones hit songs that they created an orchestral version of. The guy that actually arranged the stings was uncredited. The original Stones song, without the strings, was actually an old song that fell out of copyright. They covered it and copyrighted it. The big kicker is that the Verve wrote the lyrics and melody without the sample and did get permission from the record company before releasing Bitter Sweet Symphony, but the record company claimed they used more than what was agreed upon. You would think they would have wanted to hear the final version before agreeing to the sample, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
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Yeah I’m in the “Verve did nothing wrong” camp.
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Good call. Also my favorite song of theirs.
I figured Flea would be one of those bassists who is iconic but almost certainly has some more attainable groove stuff.