Speaker 1: This is a podcast from Minute Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirtle You Can't
Be Serious podcast. I am here with my good buddy
d Graves, and today we are going track by track
through Duran Duran's Rio album d I notice you've got
your cream colored suits on. We got the tropical thing.
Our good guest here, Melissa Mingles. She's got the cherry
ice cream lipstick on and her Duran Duran T shirt.
We are ready to go. D How you doing today?
Speaker 3: I'm grand, I'm Rio grand.
Speaker 2: Today We've got a special guest with us, Miss Melissa Mingled. Melissa,
you are a huge Deranduran fan and you are here
diving in with us Rio track by track. How are
you doing?
Speaker 4: I am doing so oh well. Thank you for letting
me horn in. I'm not sure how many times I
invited myself to join your podcast, but you guys, I know,
for me and a lot of buddies that listen, you
guys give us a lot of laughs, a lot of nostalgia.
It's just such a fun break from life, fantastic.
Speaker 3: I'm just sitting here, I'm marveling over She's got a book.
I have a book with tabs it's Rio by Annie Zeleski,
and it's thirty three and a third and it looks fantastic.
Speaker 4: It is fantastic. The thirty three and a third is
a series and they have a bunch of albums, and yes,
I found this little jewel. I work for a publisher,
so I gotta have a book. I have my Leslie
note binder with song lyrics and notes and so many
sticky tabs.
Speaker 2: You are ready to go.
Speaker 4: I'm ready. I'm ready.
Speaker 3: I've got people's last names written on my hand.
Speaker 2: Taylor, Yeah, that's easy, Yeah, right, Okay, Well, today we're
diving into the album Rio. This was released May tenth,
in nineteen eighty two. We were talking beforehand. It's kind
of funny because it was released in Britain in May
of eighty two, but some of the singles were even
released as late as nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 4: Yeah. As a kid, I just you see something on
MTV and listen to it and think it was cool.
But even as I was backtracking and looking at the
timeline of things, some of the songs from Rio were
written befour songs on their original album.
Speaker 2: What Are Your Memories of This One?
Speaker 3: I was six, so it's like all just a mishmash horrible.
I mean literally, So you remember when we first started
talking about them, I'm like, did were they somehow related
to Australia in some way And You're like, I don't
think so. I think they're just British. So the summer
after I was in second grade, I can remember that
they were all over the news when I went to
Australia with my family. We went on a vacation down there,
and they were all over the news, and I at
that age associated them with that country. After doing the study,
I'm like, oh, it's because they were the biggest hit
in Australia, Like they were bigger in Australia than the UK,
than the US anywhere, and they were about to come back.
They were about to come back in that year, in
nineteen eighty three, in November, and so basically the Australian
press was like, we have to get ready because it's
going to happen again, because crowd went nuts when they
showed up down there, and so that's my big memory
of the band. And then of course watching all the
videos on MTV.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to talk a little bit about the
MTV impact when Duran durand came out in nineteen eighty
one with the Girls on Film and all that stuff,
MTV was in its infancy. So August of eighty one,
MTV goes live. Remember the campaign I Want My MTV?
Of course.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the interesting thing to me, I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Okay, Tulsa,
Oklahoma was one of the pilot cities for MTV, so
I had my MTV.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the interesting thing to me is that the executives
from MTV needed some tangible evidence to bring to record
producers and artists and say, hey, listen, where we are
you are selling records. And one of those places that
they wentla was Tulsa. They went to a record store.
I think I told you. My go to record store
was Peaches in Tulsa, and that's one of the places
that they went and they talked to the guy and
they're like, what what are you selling right now? He's like,
we have sold three boxes of Duran Duran today, and
like literally that is one of the only places in
America that was moving Duran Duran. And so they were
jumping for joy that they could go back and then
say wherever MTV is we're selling your stuff.
Speaker 3: They even in Tulsa, they could divide it by the street,
like if one side of the street had MTV and
the other side of the street didn't have MTV, they
could set and it was with Duran Durant. The guy
that had MTV knew who Duran Duran was, and the
guys on the other side of the street did not
know who they were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where'd you grow up?
Speaker 4: I grew up in Oklahoma City. I remember if friends
had MTV first before we did, and I think that's
where I first saw Hungry Like the Wolf. That's what
became popular first, and it was just love at first sight.
As soon as we got MTV, my parents almost got
rid of it because we loved it a little too much.
You know, you couldn't this before we even had a
VCR a couple of years before that. So you had
to sit and wait for those videos. And if a
whole hour went by and they didn't play Duran Duran,
or you saw one that you'd already seen and you're
waiting for another one, I mean you had I can't
go to the dinner table right I haven't seen Hungry
Like the Wolf yet.
Speaker 3: I think it's funny that the parents almost get rid
of I can you saying that? Makes me remember my
dad used to threaten to throw the TV into the pond.
I'm trying to throw that.
Speaker 4: We cried and cried and cried, and my dad finally said,
all right.
Speaker 2: So Rio has nine songs, four singles, six videos. They're
one of the first bands to entirely embrace the MTV
music video I mean, on top of having great songs
that really propelled them to the top.
Speaker 3: Before we jump into it track by track, can we
talk about the cover a little bit?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yes?
Speaker 3: Please? Okay, So I'm going to say what I know,
which is that the Lady, which is one of the
most distinctive album covers ever, right for sure. It's by
an artist named Patrick Nagel. Yes, and this Lady is
one of the Nagel women. He was famous for doing
perfect women inside Playboy magazines with a very you know,
it's like an art deco style almost on these women.
They were very tall and then obviously very contrasting sharp lines,
and it is perfect.
Speaker 4: I think it still stands the test of time. When
my husband I were newly married in nineteen ninety four,
we had a Patrick Nagel studied French in college, but
one with the Eiffel Tower. I just love that Patrick
Nagel's style. But something about the black and white with
pops of color. You look at the image of the
woman and just long, gorgeous hair that could still be
something that would look cool today.
Speaker 3: So Nick Rhodes said, I think she has aged rather
beautifully like the Mona Lisa of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Yes, sure, that is awesome.
Speaker 3: We talked about in our last episode that they were
part of the new Romanticism movement, which was this combination
of like lamrock style and the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Roughly you think adam ant and that's it, right, and
they had done that for a bit, but they traded
that in for what would be the Miami Vice look
by the time we get Rio, and it was. It
was a branding style choice that was a part of
their whole identity.
Speaker 2: If you missed our episode on the history of Duran Duran,
go back last week listen to that before we dive
in track by track today. I want to say this upfront.
This album reached number six in the US on March twelfth,
nineteen eighty three, only number six, So I wanted to
go over the five better selling albums. Okay, yeah, okay,
all right, I love it, love it, okay, So to
me this is interesting. So actually I want to mention
number ten because that's Pyromane that week in March of
nineteen eighty three, and we've covered this one. We actually
go back and listen to this one track by track.
I love Pyromania.
Speaker 3: Guys who were neighbors really yeah, that's right, Birmingham and
Sheffield not too.
Speaker 2: Far apart cut from the same mold. Really. Number eight
was Total four this week oh wow, okay. Number six
was Lionel Richie, the album that Steve Lucather played on
Can Slow Down right. Number six was Rio. Five was
The Distance by Bob Seeger. Four was Business as Usual
by Men at Work. Three was H two Oh by
Hall of Oates. Two was Frontiers by Journey, which we've
done a track by track on that one. And number one,
of course was Thriller by Michael Jackson. We have done
a track by track on that one as well. That
was our very first episode.
Speaker 3: Before we jump in track by track, I think it
is important to note that there are two distinct Rio albums.
There is the UK version that originally came out, and
there is the US version, which was remixed and remastered
because when it came to the US, unless you have
at MTV, it wasn't doing well. What they did EMI
is who they recorded with, and their branch in the
US is Capitol Records. Capitol Records had a guy named
David Kershenbaum, and he remixed a couple of their songs
Hungry Like a Wolf in Rio and released it on
an EP called Carnival. And they were dance mixes, yeah,
and that became so popular that they're like, well, let's
just remix the entire album, and so he remixed the
entire album and that's how you get the US version.
And they started promoting them as a dance band and
a dance album as opposed to this new romanticism thing,
and they started climbing the charts.
Speaker 2: John Taylor's comment on Rio I thought this was great.
In his twenty twelve memoir, he said, every one of
us is performing at the absolute peak of our talents.
There is no show voting. Every part is thoughtful, considered
part of a greater whole. This is their magnum opus.
Speaker 4: One thing I think is really cool that Nick Rhoades
said about the band. I think that all of us
would say that the Rio album was what set us
on our trajectory for not only the next decade, but
really for the rest of our careers.
Speaker 2: Okay, so here we go. First song on the album,
the title track, Reo.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you start off with this arpeggio style synth keyboard,
which defines duran duran and basically defines the sound of
the eighties. I mean, it's awesome. And then you get
the quick drum beat, which obviously that's part of the remix,
but then you get that solid guitar coming in, which
then smooth when they go into the chorus, smooths into
a melodious lead. I love every part of the song.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. You were telling me about the sound even
before the arpeggio.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had no idea. Nick Rhoades said that he
was in Manchester, I believe, in that recording studio and
they had this big grand piano and he just took
metal rods and started dropping them on the strings of
the piano. And I'm thinking, whose piano is that that
You're just like taking their grand pre and kind of
recorded that like the sound, but it wasn't really quite
what he wanted, so they reversed it, and that's kind
of that little noise home.
Speaker 2: At the beginning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was released in November eighty two in
the UK UK. Yeah, it had already been released in
August in Australia because they were doing so well over there,
and then it wasn't until March of eighty three that
it really hit in the US.
Speaker 2: Before we talked about the video. When they wrote this song,
John was actually the one who came up with the
idea of Rio as this heenistic exhi cornucopia of earthly delights,
a party that would never stop, and it was really
about the city Rio, and Simon's the one who changed
it's let's change it to a girl.
Speaker 4: I was reading going back to before Simon Lebon was
even the lead singer, there was a guy named Andy Wickett,
and I think he kind of tried to jump in
there and say, hey, hey, you know I had some
influence with Rio, but it was a different title, different lyrics.
It evolved so much. Even with Duran Duran, it's like, okay,
you're kind of grasping a Strauss there.
Speaker 2: That song was called see Me, Repeat Me, and.
Speaker 4: Wasn't there even another name besides.
Speaker 2: That Amy A Go Go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's like, okay, buddy, I you know, you
knew the guys and you work together. But yeah, I
love that Simon Labon. After the first tour they used
some US type from Mountains in the North down to
the Rio Grande.
Speaker 2: Metaphor for America. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I love that about it because I so desperately
wanted to be British and who knew that They thought
they were kind of cool too, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the Okay, buddy, just to get in
your wicket.
Speaker 2: So you were telling me what a cherry ice cream
smile was, Jason.
Speaker 4: They have a running theme of some type cherry ice
cream smile. Girls on Film is lipstick cherry all over
the lens and their new album Future Past, which is
very good. I have like three or four songs I
love from it already, but talk about cherry ice and yeah,
I don't think their choice and fruit is accidental. We'll
say that it represents maybe a young, vibrant woman.
Speaker 3: Okay, I just want to throw out there there's a
saxophone on this one. The saxophone is Andy Hamilton, who
you will have heard if you've listened to Wham or
if you've listened to Elton John, which we have.
Speaker 2: We have, Yes, of course we have. The girl laughing
in the song is Nick Rhodes's girlfriend who actually laughs
at the beginning of Hungry Like the Wolf.
Speaker 4: I saw him talking about this in an interview, and
I thought, you know what, do he take her in
and just make her laugh. He didn't tell her he
was going to do it. He just kind of started
tickling her and getting her to laugh. He said, she
had a really great laugh.
Speaker 2: That's good. We've had a couple of albums now where
there's some interesting noises that they're generating in the Yes
this one.
Speaker 4: Yes, we'll just say yes, all.
Speaker 2: Right, so we reready talk about the video. I know what, Yeah,
let's talk about the video, okay. So John Taylor says
when they were done touring the Rio album in May
of eighty two, they all took a vacation together. He
say it was like the movie Help from the Beatles,
was like they all stayed in the same condos. Every
morning they'd get up, walk outside, good morning, good morning,
good morning. So they all had a great time. Andy
went back to Britain to be with his fiance. MTV
loved their other videos so much they had sent back
to the Sri Lanka videos, and Russell mckayhy said, stay
in Antigua, we're coming down to shoot another video. Don't move,
we'll be there. We're grabbing Andy and will be there shortly,
which I think is interesting. When Andy got on the airplane,
he noticed this very pretty model type. Turns out that
was the half Lebanese English model who would then be
Rio in the video, the one that they painted up.
And he noticed her on the airplane.
Speaker 3: Had she already gotten the job or did she get
the job because he noticed her.
Speaker 2: She already had the job. She already had the job.
So what do you guys think about the video?
Speaker 3: Okay, he can't make a bad video. Man, the guy's awesome,
he really is.
Speaker 2: This is the same director who did Highlander.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was the one who had done razorback in Australia.
That's right, that's right, and that's how he had gotten
the job. But I'm guessing had it not been for
Duran Durand, we would not have the movie Highlander.
Speaker 2: I think you're probably right. About that. One of the
Burrow brothers wanted to go yachting, and so he told
Russell mcahee and so Russell Kay is like, well, fine,
I'll just make a script where we're yachting.
Speaker 3: There are no rules to videos, so let's talk about
the tropical code suits that they got on the yachts.
Speaker 2: They had bought those suits anticipating shooting the video in Britain, right,
and so what they just drug them all down to
Indiga and then there they are on the.
Speaker 3: Boat, yachting and dancing in the same looking.
Speaker 2: Exactly. They weren't in their suits.
Speaker 3: They were cooling off wearing Spiedo's yeah banana hammocks and.
Speaker 4: Yeah you don't. Well, I have a friend that was
in France and like he was forbidden from wearing what
we call a swimsuit because they look like shorts at
a public cool because those are speedos or bathing suits
and they think you're wearing just regular clothes. So I
don't know, man, but yeah, they're.
Speaker 2: Big on finan, they're swim short put on something smaller.
Speaker 4: This is funny about the Rio video that I did
not know, but they had different ideas for it where
the band members get chased off the island and people
wielding guns and all this stuff, and they actually didn't
have enough film stock left to shoot it. And even
for John Taylor playing the saxophone, they borrowed a tourist
camera for that.
Speaker 2: How cool is that Nick.
Speaker 3: Rhodes was getting seasick while they were foaming all of
these things, right, which is interesting because he meets his
future wife at a yacht club. But what he said is,
I don't like boats unless they're tied up and you're
having cocktails on them. But I get that. The rest
of the guys who were not sick, including Russell, Okay,
we're all out there swimming and a boat captain comes
and yells at him.
Speaker 2: He's like, get out of the water the sharks And
actually in the music video you can see John Taylor
pushes in Roger Taylor like that was totally unscripted. He
was just standing too close to the edge and what
do twenty two year olds do? Yeah it see yah yeah,
And he got in big trouble with like the captain
was like, you don't understand. You don't screw around on boats.
People die and drown and all this stuff, and they
just thought it was funny, you know, Sorry sir, sorry,
he was standing close to the edge and I was right.
Speaker 3: There and I was twenty two.
Speaker 2: That boat is called the Eileen Come On, come on,
thank you, thank you, And it fell into terrible disrepair
after the video, and then they spent two and a
half years restoring it. And now I saw an updated
picture and she looks beautiful.
Speaker 4: The funny thing, too, is that they make it look easy.
It was something for me as a little thirteen year
old girl that's starting to realize, Okay, this isn't elementary
school anymore, and some girls are taller and prettier, and
my haircut looks like a mushroom on my So it
was this great escape, almost therapy, just to go in
my little room and my safe house with my family,
you know, and kind of escape and think about traveling
and having adventures like that someday.
Speaker 2: Which one of these guys are you going to marry?
Speaker 4: John Taylor?
Speaker 2: You didn't even think about that.
Speaker 3: Every guy in the band was good looking enough that
he could have been the favorite.
Speaker 4: Of the band.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Okay, So now we're moving on to the second song
on the album. This song is called My Own Way.
Speaker 3: Okay, what is really interesting to me. I love what
we're listening to right now. But it's not the original version.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the original version is much more disco like.
Speaker 3: This song was released as a single before the album
was done. It came out after Girls on Film. This
was not a This was not a single that came
from Rio. This is a single that came as a
We got to keep the momentum going, for sure, and
so it's an entirely dividus strings and disco sound and
this is much more new waves. It's cool. I like it.
I like our version very much. But the band didn't.
They did not like this song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. They don't put this on any of
their compilation albums. This was released in nineteen eighty one, yep,
before Rio was even recorded. Which when you're hot, you
got to strike while they Aaron's hot. I've got a song, guys, Okay,
throw it out there, make a video and we'll worry
about putting it on an album after that.
Speaker 4: Right, And they for not supposedly not liking the song
that much and not liking to perform it. It's funny
that the remastered two thousand and nine Rio Like two
CD album there's like six versions. So if you're ever
in the car and like, Okay, I'm gonna play Rio,
it's like, it's hard, it's wrong, it's my own way again.
And so I really barely remember sometimes the original version
because I've heard so many remixes of it. It's all right,
it's a little bouncy, it's it's good. It's probably not
my favorite, but I don't dislike it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Roger Taylor refers to this song as the quote
unquote problem child of the album.
Speaker 4: I don't know if i'd say that.
Speaker 2: See I like it. I like it too. It's bouncy,
it's positive, it's sure, it's all be I do prefer
the American version much better.
Speaker 4: I kind of love disco. I have to say, you know,
when John Taylor and Nick Rhodes got together and like, hey,
let's start a band and get other people in it.
Two other Drive Forces were sex Pistols in Chic and
she was very Discovery Video fifty four, So that's that's
some of their background. And I kind of love little Disco,
So I don't mind either version.
Speaker 3: You guys remember the video of this.
Speaker 4: I had to look it up actually, because back in
the day you had to wait for videos to come on,
and I really don't remember this getting much play. So yeah,
I love that you can look everything up on YouTube
now that you know who's in it. Right the Matta door.
Speaker 2: Yes, anybody know that? Blew my mind? Who is the
answer if you know Adrian Paul?
Speaker 3: Yes, which is important because the director is Russell mckaye
and who is Adrian Paul.
Speaker 2: He plays Duncan McLeod in the TV show Highlander? Right, yes?
Speaker 3: When did that series come out?
Speaker 2: Nineties? Behind nineties, So.
Speaker 3: Like this video was filmed in a studio in eighty
one ish, yeah, by Russell McKay. Russell McKay. He six
years later makes Highlander. Yeah, another probably six years after
that they come out with the series starring the guy
who was in the video. That was one of Russell
McKay's very first videos. He shot it on thirty five millimeters.
This is an on film video, not on a video video.
Speaker 2: Starting a trend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this could.
Speaker 4: Have so easily been a video of somebody that's a
flash in the pan. You never hear from them again.
Oh yeah, that's in the early eighties. Was in this
video while show My Kids? But that probably really did
help him in the future.
Speaker 2: That absolutely The.
Speaker 4: Other songs, fortunately in videos, were more successful.
Speaker 2: But yeah, parts of this video are shown in the
is There Something I Should Know?
Speaker 4: Video?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so what judgment on this one? This is
just kind of I like it.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 3: This is honestly, of the songs on the album, this
is one I like better. It's not my favorite, but
I like it better than some of the others.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool, maybe not. The third song on the album,
this is called Lonely in Your Nightmare.
Speaker 4: Just okay, Lonely in Your Nightmare. This one was not
well known at all. It's interesting that they chose to
make two videos because they're very similar and it's kind
of a lot of the same footage in a different order.
But I always like this song again, you know, as
a thirteen year old girl who's like, I'm pretty sure
I may never kiss a boy with my mushroom haircut
and all that. But the Lonely in Your Nightmare, the
whole idea of hey let me in, let me help you.
I'm pretty sure there was a subtext for most of
their songs, kind of like, you know, more than words
by extreme like hey, baby, don't just tell me you
love me, why don't you show me?
Speaker 2: It goes?
Speaker 4: You know, I think in this it might be I
don't know, if he just really wants to be let
into her nightmare to help her because he just cares
so much. There might be an ulterior motive.
Speaker 3: He just wants to feel the heap beneath her winter.
Speaker 4: He just wants to feel the heat beneath her. I
know a lot of Simon Lebon's lyrics, you're like, what
is he saying there? What does that mean? Or or
you know what it means? But it's just such an
interesting way of phraising it. But one of the lines
I love is where he says, must be lucky weather
when you find the kind of wind that you need.
It's just kind of like, what an interesting way to
fit that into the song.
Speaker 2: You know, Simon was a poet. He really was an actor,
and he was a poet, and so his words just
kind of fit into songs. I do think this video
is interesting. There were obviously dream sequences and has he's
kind of whispering and the girls sleeping. There are cobras. Yes,
the video it gave me like the voodoo, so it's
like live and let die. The James Bond very much.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is one of the ones. Who was if
I was listening to my cassette, not your favorite?
Speaker 2: No, okay, well, let's move on to maybe the tempole
of the album.
Speaker 3: Definitely the tempole of the album. I've been waiting just
for this song.
Speaker 2: Okay, song number four. This song is called Hungry Like
the Wolf.
Speaker 3: This is the most duranist of all the Duran Duran Durans.
Speaker 2: This is one of the great pop songs of the eighties.
I'm spiking my football. It's top five.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's talk by, but it's it's great.
It is definitely one of the best. The weakness of
the sound Nick Rhodes has created again is synth with
the guitar part in this It's just a perfect mixture
of synthpop, new wave and rock. Like then you've got
Simon Labon's lyrics that are so sexually suggestive and also
so very very fun. Do Do Do Do Do Do Doo?
I Do.
Speaker 4: I love that this song like in a day it
was done.
Speaker 2: Are you talking about the video.
Speaker 4: The recording, the song, putting the song together? They like
show up at the recording, you know, they drink the
night before. Nick gets there first, he's hungover and he
starts playing around with his synthesizer, like, okay, we're here
to work, let me do this. Simon comes in kind
of hears what he's doing, gets kind of interested in
the process. Then you know, you have the rest of
the guys coming in by lunch time, and they just
like knocked it out.
Speaker 3: In the day, I'm just thinking being hungover and going
to work, and then all of a sudden you're like,
do do do And all of a sudden, like the
lights shine.
Speaker 2: It's like the greatest song I've ever Okay, I'm out
of this now.
Speaker 4: Let's go, let's do this.
Speaker 2: You know what the song was inspired by. It was
inspired by little Red writing Hood.
Speaker 3: Oh, like hungry like the wolf, like the wolf? Sure,
because Little Red writing Hood was also sexually suggested absolutely
what big eyes you have? Yep.
Speaker 2: For the longest time it bugged me that it was
hungry like the wolf rather than hungry like a wolf.
And the whole time, I'm like, this is sudden really
talking about I know so many wolves exactly. But when
you said the word red Ridinghood, I'm like, now we
know which wolf we're talking about one. So before we
get to the video, this was featured in one of
my all time eighties guilty pleasure movies, Hot Dog the Movie,
which is a fantastic eighties movie, and it's before like
they realized that soundtracks were a big deal, right, so
they would just grab pop songs and film in there.
So Hungry Like the Wolf was played in Hot Dog
the Movie.
Speaker 3: It was Hot Dog the Movie. Did they have the
guy from American Wolf? Yes?
Speaker 2: And Shannon David Nonton and Shannon Tweed in her most
Shannon tweetingess.
Speaker 4: So I actually did not see that one. There were
plenty that I would apologize to my mom for watching,
but I did not see that one.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I love American were Wolf in London, though.
Speaker 2: This one probably wouldn't have the same pool to you
as it did probably me and my buddies.
Speaker 3: Shannon tweet pool yes, my lord.
Speaker 2: Yes, So I want to play something for you guys. Okay,
So the night version of Hungry Like the Wolf is
different than the album version only slightly. So towards the
end of the song you have this massive Roger Taylor
drum film and it comes right after the heavy breathing
part and the breakdown, and then it rolls right into
several rounds of the chorus and it's pop golf. Okay,
But there is a sound in the background on the
album that has just kind of blended into the background
over the time. I know you said, your mom's going
to listen to this, so I want to be really
delicate here, but that noise that has always blended into
the background for me is a woman having the big
Oh right, she's.
Speaker 3: Making it's her name, little red writing.
Speaker 2: So the massive female organism sounds and everybody know about that.
Speaker 3: The link mouth is alive with juices like what do
you think that is?
Speaker 2: Well, I know what that means, but I didn't know
that we're actually getting she's.
Speaker 3: Giving you an exam.
Speaker 2: Well she was here, you go. All right, Well, let's
talk about the video.
Speaker 4: Then.
Speaker 2: This is one of the Sri Lanka videos. I love
how the entire world is going to know that I
don't recognize the sound of female more guys.
Speaker 4: Can be over a little secret.
Speaker 2: No, no, okay, let's talk about the video.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is this is a video from the
Sri Lanka video. Absolutely, and we talked to just a
bit but this is really the pinnacle of the Sri
Lanka videos, right, I would say so.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the reason they went to Sri Lanka is because
they had called back Russell okahe who had directed Planet Earth,
and said, Hey, we want to do another video and
we want it to be like in the Jungle and
have exotic women. And he's like, I just went to
Sri Lanka, that's where we should go. And so all
of the guys except for Nick Rhodes and Andy Taylor
went down to Sri Lanka and started filming. Well, Nick
and Andy are both still finishing up Rio. They're trying
to get it all finished, so they're working day and
night so that they can get down there too. Andy
goes down before Nick does. By the time Nick gets
down there, he's been awake for like thirty seven hours straight.
He gets there, he thinks, I'm going to get off
the plane. They're gonna take me to the hotel. I'm
going to take a shower and things are gonna be okay.
Because he's still wearing the same like leather clothes and
he's had on for the last three days. He gets off,
the guy picks him up at the airport and They
drive for five and a half.
Speaker 6: Hours into the jungle with no ace, with no ac,
bumping along the dirt, nasty, bumpy roads the entire time,
and he was just like, this is why am I
doing this?
Speaker 3: Why are we doing And then he comes down and
the guys are playing in the water.
Speaker 4: Simon describes Nick as the most urbane of the kind
of the most refined. So Roger and Simon are having
a ball. They're you know, swimming. They don't mind the
hot web. They like kind of the adventure of it.
But yeah, that wasn't really nixed things.
Speaker 2: So I think it's funny that in this video Simon
has like orange hair. Did you see his hair?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he tried to bleach it. He went to
somebody wanted to add some blonde highlights before the video.
She screwed up his hair. So that's why he's wearing
Russell McKay's fedora. Through the whole thing, you get some
glimpses of it. It's very messed up underneath. But I
thought that was funny.
Speaker 4: Or it's wet like the apocalypse now coming out of
the water, it's kind of wet down where it doesn't you.
Speaker 3: Can't tell it's so this is yeah, is apocalypse now
but for that scene, But the whole thing is definitely Raiders.
It's Raiders, a lot of stark. One of them described
it as Indiana Jones trying to get laid. And when
they were down there, Andy Taylor, you know, they're fooling
around the water. He drinks some of the water and
it's she gets the stomach virus thrown up through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had to go to the hospital.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everything that I read doesn't always note this little tidbit.
But he was possibly intoxicated and dancing on an elephant
when he fell in the water. Is that right? Did
you guys see that?
Speaker 2: And possibly possibly.
Speaker 3: Maybe there might might have been drugs.
Speaker 4: Might have been I can't really say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this little nugget that I'm about to share
it kind of goes for the Chauffeur. But MTV was
so new. Russell McKay, he was a frustrated director, wanted
to make these little movies. And when he went to MTV,
he showed him in the video for the Chauffeur, and
they're like, we can't show this. Do something different, do
something exotic. Every video that we have so far, it's
been shot in the same warehouse, doing the same crap.
Go do something different, And so Russell McKay is like, great,
We're going to Sri Lanka and we're gonna shoot jungle
scenes and Raiders is a Lost arc and all kinds
of cool stuff. And these videos were awesome for MTV
in the early days, and he had a.
Speaker 4: Great budget to work with, like two hundred thousand dollars,
so that was huge for him. It's like, Okay, I
can't make the full length feature films I want to make.
I'm going to make little four minute films and they
are going to be amazing.
Speaker 3: It is on several of the Best Videos of All
Time lists, and it won the Grammy for Best Short
Form Music Video in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 4: Wow yeah, and that was the first one to ever
win that award. So how cool is that for Russell
Molkayhe to kind of have this window open up that
you didn't expect and still get to.
Speaker 3: Do what you love.
Speaker 2: This was ranked by VH one is the number three
greatest song of the eighties. And by the way, this
reached number three on the Hot one hundred March twenty
sixth nineteen eighty three. The two songs that were better
than Hungry Like the Wolf? Number two, do you really
Want to Hurt Me? Another of no, no, no, wrong.
Speaker 3: It was everywhere right then though, right, it was everywhere?
Speaker 2: Okay, new Romantic, I'm not accepting that answer. And then
number one Billy Gi I can't argue with that.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, to find the eighties and three songs
right there.
Speaker 2: That's pretty pretty stout for sure. Once again, the girl
at the beginning laughing, that's Cheryl. That's Nick Rhodes's girlfriend. Okay, guys,
we've done with Hungry Like the Wolf.
Speaker 3: I hate to be but yes, man, such a good song.
Speaker 2: Okay. Last song on side one is a song called
hold Back the Ring. I love this one. I think
this is a great song on this album.
Speaker 3: Talk about a band that defined the sound of the
new wave eighties. I mean, that's it right there. Every
song on this album is well, that's eighties, that's eighties
to its eighties and.
Speaker 2: Noss they have a knack for writing great choruses, I think,
just sing along stuff.
Speaker 3: And Nick Rhodes has a knack for doing some incredible
stuff with a synth that gives it that very durand
duran sound.
Speaker 4: One thing I loved about this album, This was kind
of like Thriller. I just put it in and listened
to the whole album. Almost all this songs have a
hook in them, and everybody has some better favorites more
than others. But this is one that just even though
it didn't have a lot of widespread popularity, it's just catchy.
It makes you happy, it's upbeat. But one thing I
thought was kind of interesting for John Taylor. He has
kind of two tracks of the bassline and one that's overdubbed,
so that was kind of a challenge for him to
figure out, Okay, how am I going to do this
live and make it sound and still.
Speaker 2: Have that sound one he was picking right, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well one he has to use a pick, and the
one's like, yeah, kind of little pops.
Speaker 2: But I think it's interesting what this song is about
and why it was written. So John was doing drugs
and drinking and living the excessive life of a twenty
two year old pop star, and Simon felt like he
was doing too much and staying out too late and
hanging out with the wrong people, and so he wrote
all these lyrics down Slid them under his door to
kind of express how he was feeling. Has never heard
one word from John about the warnings of the bad life.
So they just made it a song and never talked
about it, and then he went to rehab twelve years later, rehab.
Speaker 4: Later, he went to rehab. If you look at the
lyrics of this song, Simon was doing drugs and alcohol too,
but it's like you're that much worse, Like, Hey, I
really got to talk to John. He's got a problem here.
And if somebody is that frequently inu created do you
read this song and think, Man, Simon's right, I've really
got a I've got it.
Speaker 3: I've got some issues to address in my life.
Speaker 4: I need to take a long, hard look at myself.
John did say later, and oh, I think it was
like two thousand and three, two thousand and four that
he looks back at this song and says that this
is kind of what Duran Duran is all about. Here's
the exact quote. Now, when we play it, there's a
feeling of that's what we do. You know, that song
is what Duran Duran is all about. So I wonder
that's just musically or the friendship. There's that brotherhood. There's
the musical talent they share. But anyway, I love this one.
I think it's a great song.
Speaker 3: This is one of those something old is new for me.
I was not familiar with this song before were with
this album. This is one that I was like, oh,
this is good. I'm not familiar with this, but this
is one of those hidden gems for me.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool, Well, hit stop on your tape player, kick
it out, flip it over side two. Starting off side too,
we have the song New Religion. This song is really cool, right,
very cool song.
Speaker 3: This is different than what we've heard on the album before.
This is a way different sound. This is not a
damn song.
Speaker 4: Talk about the two voices, Well, it's very thought provoking
that yeah, you hear the choruses overlapping both Simon and
I'm not a music person. I don't know if you
call it polyphonic, but it's kind of this conversation with himself,
show why am I having these spots? Why does this
evil follow me? And then kind of the faster chorus
of the struggles what's going on in his mind? But
I love it because I think we can all identify
with you know you picture on TV somebody with an
angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other,
and you've got these two voices in your head. And
that's kind of what this song is. It's one of
their most interesting songs, I think, and I love it.
Speaker 2: This song is covered by Jimmy Eat World.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and have you heard it? It's almost unrecognizable.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I saw that and I thought I'm going to play that.
It's very slow. I don't think they cover all the lyrics,
but yeah, they.
Speaker 2: Sing the middle, right, sing the middle. I'm like, wait a.
Speaker 4: Minute, is this Sameman? Yeah, I had no idea. I
wondered how they were going to do it live. When
I saw them in nineteen eighty four, I'm like, how.
Speaker 2: Can he do that?
Speaker 4: You know, we can't see both parts get right. Sometimes
when they would perform it, John and Andy Taylor, one
or both would cover it. I'm pretty sure when I
saw them in the eighty four tour they had backup
singers that would do one of the lines for him.
Chorus lines. Forum.
Speaker 3: You don't have a lot of guys in modern pop
music in the eighties who are doing two different melodies,
singing over the top of themselves with different lyrics that
are difficult to understand. I mean the best you basically
have to go to the album in order to see
what he's saying, which may that was his purpose. I mean,
maybe he wanted you to go what I gotta go?
Look at this so definitely unique. It's musically not something
that I'm gonna keep coming in my head or coming
back to, but it is definitely unique.
Speaker 2: Alright, moving on, This song is called last Chance on
the Stairway just all right. So this is my least
favorite song on the ALM. It's this one just doesn't
grab me very much.
Speaker 3: This is another this is like good for You off
Toba for this is like the montage scene in Karate Kid,
Like this is the background music for some lover's distress
or something like that. Yeah, it's not. It is not
one of my favorite dudes.
Speaker 2: A lot of job.
Speaker 4: Lissa, we heard you feeling no no, no, I'm good,
I'm good. You know. I wouldn't say it is a favorite,
but I do like it. But as a kid, I'd
listen and be like last chance for what for a kiss?
For more than that? But you read the lyrics and
it's like, Okay, there's a trouble with this couple, things
aren't all good and my last chance on this stairway.
A lot of times when you're breaking up with someone,
there's kind of this. You break up and they're going
down your apartment stairs, a dorm something like that. You
have that last chance, this plea to kind of plea
your case or see if you can work it out
this time. I like that interpretation. I think that's probably
it one thing I like about this song. Also, I
studied French in college and there's one line where he says,
just like a scene out of Voltaire, which Voltaire French writings,
just true romance is notable. Real love people that really
love you for who you are. But what I like
about this is I like people writing lyrics that have
read books. Yeah that kind of you know, they can
do the bouncy, poppy stuff, but they can write lyrics
that make you stop and think. But it has a
little place in my heart.
Speaker 2: Good God, I got two little tidbits on this song. Okay,
So according to the book Please Please Tell Me Now,
which I read in preparation for this podcast, this song
was written in California on their first tour of the US,
and there's a famous person name checked in the lyrics
on this song, and it's disguised. Okay, Okay, it's Baby
Bule She's like world famous groupie. She's been with Mick Jagger,
she's been with Steven Tyler. In fact, she's lived Tyler's mother.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, yeah, I was gonna say I know that name.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Yes. And she doesn't like the word groupie. She prefers
the term muse. John Taylor dated her and wanted to
produce her first hit album and when he went to
the studio executives and they're like, okay, she's beautiful and
she's sing minor detail. Apparently she can't sing. Did it
didn't work out?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Throw back to our Aerosmith episode where we talked
about Baby Buell and Liv Tyler.
Speaker 2: Yes, former playmate centerfold, former guest of many Beds of the.
Speaker 3: Stars, and married to the guy who had a tablet.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's exactly right. Okay. Moving on to another
temple on the album. This song is called Save a Prayer.
This song is so good. I love this song.
Speaker 4: Beautiful blingers in your head just the music.
Speaker 3: And musically, the lyrics are great, the melody is great.
There's nothing problem of the song. Point.
Speaker 2: Nick Rhodes does that cool little bender thing with the
synthesizer had a little bender key and so the moon
all that stuff. That's really cool. This has an interesting
chart history to me. So it was released in the
UK and Australia in August of nineteen eighty two, never
released as a single in the United States until January
of nineteen eighty five, even though the video was all
over MTV and a hugely popular video. Let's talk about
the video for a second. Okay, another one of the
Sri Lanka videos. They have this really cool scene of
them on top of this like holy site in Sri Lanka.
They had to be air dropped to the top of
that and when they got there, Nick said, it was
screaming hot and so hot, like they're feet were burning.
And when they finally got down, the monks who watch
over this sacred site balled them out for being offensive.
Speaker 4: Right, and they had to be barefoot out of respect
for the religious significance. But I don't think the monks
cared that they took their shoes off.
Speaker 2: They were still mad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I had read that actually, while they're filming
sometimes instead of now being the lyrics, they're kind of
fu rustle because they're on fire. But yeah, and it
was kind of a scary time within the country when
they were filming. Also kind of a tense verge of civil.
Speaker 2: War, so to touch on that. Once they finished with
these videos and left, Sri Lanka went into civil war. Literally,
these videos are some of the last footage taken of
the old Sri Lanka. Really while they were in Sri Lanka,
Britain invaded the Falklands and so they had to be
like picked.
Speaker 3: Up and removed. Should we talk about the elephant the video?
Speaker 4: We should talk about the elean.
Speaker 3: So they were writing on elephants and the elephants started
making this weird noise. That's pretty cool. We should record that.
That'll be funny. We'll play that. But oh wait, where
did they go? And the elephant has left with Roger
on top, and oh my gosh, it turns out the
sound was a mating call, and so the elephant would
to make a booty call.
Speaker 2: Russell McKay he wanted an elephant shower scene on the
back of the elephant, and it was funny because it
was supposed to be a homo erotic element because these
guys were such good looking guys and they wanted guys
and girls to be turned on by watching this video.
And so they had to fight over who was going
to be sprayed by the.
Speaker 4: Elephant, fight because they wanted it.
Speaker 2: No fight, because they didn't want so they thought about it,
and finally they're like, well, John, you're the heart throb
of the group. And he's like, you're right, fine, I'll
do it. So that's why John gets spread with the elephant.
At the end, he says, I didn't care. I loved it.
It's one of my most treasured memories. Okay, I got
a great story for this. Okay. So after the video
has come out, they're back at home in England. Nick
Roads is at his house and his mom comes to him.
Nick is at his mom's house, he's probably still living there,
and she goes, hey, Nick, you got a phone call.
And he's like, okay, great, Mom.
Speaker 3: Who is it?
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, some guy named Michael. So he goes over.
He's like, hello, Michael Jackson on the phone, yeah, telling
him how much he enjoyed the song Save It Prayer. Nice.
Speaker 4: Unbelievable. Can you imagine?
Speaker 2: Pretty freaking cool?
Speaker 3: It's not as though he's not going to believe it's
Michael Jackson when he hears the boys come on, who
is this really?
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, although that did happen to Steve Lugather and
Eddie Van Halen when Michael Jackson called him okay. Last
song on the album is called the Chauffeur Okay.
Speaker 3: So this song is really unique. Yeah, it's not to
my taste. I feel like at the beginning of the song,
I'm about to get killed by Jason Moorhies or something.
But there's some really interesting stuff behind this song we
should talk about.
Speaker 2: See. I think this is one of the best songs
on the album. I love this song looking for a
New Person Dry. It's just it is different. This is
Nick Rhodes really showing his talent. In my opinion, very
scynth heavy. The creation of this song I find interesting.
Nick and Simon were working on different songs at the time,
but they would trade off. So when Nick got a break,
he would work on this, and then when it was
his turn to go in the studio, Simon would come in.
Simon said, I was blown away by what he was doing.
They built it together piece by piece, brick by brick.
Speaker 4: It was kind of difficult for Nick Roads to sell
this one, he said, politically difficult to sell to everyone.
Then they actually later did another cover of it that
ended up as a Rio B side, and it's the
only Duran Duran song where Nick doesn't play, So that
was kind of like, Okay, you kind of cut us
out of this the first time. So we're going to
come in with more instruments. But can you hear the
little called cokerina? Do you know who's playing? No, Simon
Lebaun is playing and google it. It's a little wind instrument.
It sounds like you're at a little medieval fair or something.
Speaker 2: Shape like a blow dryer, but it's kind of like
a kazoo or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have fancy ceramic tassoo. I like this one.
I think it's weird. I totally agree with d somebody's
about to get murdered in this or something. But it's
so eerie using odd sound effects. There's a lyric that
says that a foods swarm up in the drifting haze,
and at the end, if you listen, sounds like cicados
or something. They used to BBC recording They say grasshoppers,
but I don't think it sounds like grass.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, there's a story behind it. So they were
at the library listening to records of insect noises, and
so there's a narrator on this record. You're hearing the
insect noises, but then the narrators like, this is the
greater spotted cricket lives in the trees, and he says,
and then all of a sudden, the guy's like, who's
that speaking things? Who's that calling in the long long grass?
And they're like, oh, that's funny. We got to put
that in the album. Wow. So that's how they got
I love that.
Speaker 2: There is actually another sound effect where I think it's
supposed to be like glass breaking. Yeah, it's actually somebody
dropping a piece of ice in.
Speaker 3: The water, and.
Speaker 4: It sounds like ice in a glass. He says ice
and water, but almost sounds Yeah, the lyric is what
glass splinters lie so deep in their mind and just
kind of putting those little touches. So I've remembered this
song before I came back to kind of review, but
I'm like, oh, I don't think I would have remembered
some of those little touches.
Speaker 3: Okay, So we talked last episode about how right before
he met the guys for Duran Duran, Simon Labon had
been down in Israel at a kibbutz being a tree surgeon,
and he wrote the lyrics for this song in seventy
eight while he was down there in Israel's that's where
the lyrics for the song came from. Was that experience.
Speaker 2: He had these lyrics in his pocket when he showed
up to audition for Duran Duran. Yeah, he was wearing
pink leopard pants at the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they couldn't be could say no.
Speaker 3: He's like, it's a good story with That's not true.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I was watching Duran Duran, was on Watch What Happens
Live with Andy Cohen and he asked all four of
the guys that are still in Duran Duran, what's your
favorite Duran Durant's song? And Nick chose this one, which
I wonder why he had such influence on it that
he didn't even hesitate.
Speaker 2: That's correct. It was interesting. Okay, let's talk about the video.
Speaker 4: This is the only video that they're not in right, Yes,
the guys were on.
Speaker 2: Tour, they weren't in it. That's why I thought it
was a fan made video. Oh yeah, so I'm watching it.
It said official Duran Duran video. I'm watching it. They're
not in it at all. Yeah, but you know who
is in it? No naked ladies? Well, well, topless models
in lingerie.
Speaker 4: Do you want to take?
Speaker 3: The video was directed by Ian Eames and was a
black and white piece that was inspired by the film
The Night Quarter and a photographer of theresent me the
photography of Helmet Commute.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was reading in John Taylor's it kind of describes
he said, you know, with Rio, we've got the song Rio,
that's this pop draw you in. But he's like, you
finished with the Chauffeur at the end of the album
and it's pretty weird. It's kind of dark. So he's like,
hopefully we can lead you down this path to get
you to a point where you'll give the show for
a chance, because it's definitely unusual and not widespread appealed.
Speaker 2: Just going back to what we touched on earlier, this
was the video that gave us the Sri Lanka stuff
because they went to MTV they're like, hey, check out
this video for the Chauffeur. They're like, we cannot show
this on MTV. Give us something we came out of you.
Speaker 3: I don't like nipples.
Speaker 2: The American audience will not allow this in their house,
like Melissa's mom barely let her watch it.
Speaker 4: Anyway, cover your ears, mom for this part. Back around
the time I was first just really getting into Duran Duran,
they had a documentary called There was one called Blue Silver,
one called Sing Blue Silver, and one was slightly shorter
for MTV, like an hour, and the other one was longer.
But there's a lyric in this song. This says, sing
Blue Silver. Simon a book as a child about time travel,
and it said people who are coming back from a
trip see blue Silver, and so he uses that lyric.
He would use that title.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool song into the album hit stop. It's time
for final judgment. Okay.
Speaker 3: Before we jump into our final judgment, we have our
Shurly showcase with our old friend mister David Wright aka
Deaf Dave coming in to weigh in on his opinion
between Toto four and Duran Duran Rio.
Speaker 5: Hey, guys, how you doing this? Is David Wright return
to Deaf Dave to the Shirley Airwaves. I appreciate you
giving me the opportunity to give you a showcase take
on Toto four versus Rio. This was definitely a trip
outside of my comfort zone and outside of my personal
experience when I was coming up through the eighties. One
thing I love about your show is it really challenges
us to not just look at the stuff that we
liked back in the day, but also dig a little
deeper and put aside our personal preferences and see if
we can appreciate movies or albums on their own merits,
even if it wasn't something we enjoyed at the time.
And so that's exactly what I have to do with
both of these albums. I mean, I have to keep
in mind not every act has the good fortune of
being produced by Rick Rubin, and it just would not
be fair for me to hold that against them. Now.
Of course, I am familiar with the pair of hits
off each of these albums. All four of them are
a classic, all time huge monster hit singles, but I
wasn't familiar with the album. So I dug deep and
I listened to both Toto four and Rio. One of
the defining sounds of the decade was that of synth
pop and duran Duran epitomizes that sound, and this album
in particular epitomizes Duran Duran. So for the ultimate representation
of synth pop of the nineteen eighties, this album really
holds up as the central piece, the masterpiece. There's so
much energy to every single one of these tracks. You
can just feel it. It puts you right back in
the time. These are the kings of the spiked mullets
and the shoulder pad jackets and just multiple layers of
keyboards everywhere you look. And of course and Hungry Like
the Wolf are two of their absolute best. I wasn't
familiar with any of the other songs before listening recently,
but I found so many of them to be catchy
and to be memorable. I really liked the counter melodies
on New Religion. I thought that was fantastic, and I
really like the energy of the Chauffeur in particular. I
thought both of those songs were great. If you want
a collection of albums, all time classic albums that you're
able to listen to all the way straight through top
to bottom and have it represent a significant part of
the music scene of the nineteen eighties, Rio has to
be in that collection. I came away very surprised, pleasantly
surprised by discovering how much I could really enjoy this album.
And then there's Toto four. Of course, I am very
familiar with both Rosanna and Africa. Both of these songs
are excellent, They're catchy, they're memorable, they're all time classics.
Hearing each of these always takes me back to the
day when they were new, And for some reason, the
song Africa sparked within me this romanticized, imagined version of
Africa that just really seemed to paint this epics and epic,
majestic beauty in my mind of that continent, which is
something pop culture I don't think has ever really been
able to recapture about Africa, at least not until the
Black Panther movie. Then I tried to listen to the
rest of the album. These songs do absolutely nothing for me.
They don't move the needle for me at all. They
absolutely do not hold my attention. I cannot stay focused.
My mind's always wondering. Every single one of them just
disappear into the background. Look, I'll say this about them,
they are very competent musicians. They are on this record
doing musician y things. I would not say that they
don't know how to play or anything like that. Of
course they can. But do they have charisma, do they
have a persona, do they have an identity, they have
any kind of star power at all that can just
capture your attention? For me, that's a big noe. So
one thing I love about your show is how you
continually find all these little nuggets of trivia that blow
my mind. And one thing I did not know maybe
I should have, is that the band Toto largely made
up the session play that were involved in the recording
of Thriller. I didn't know that, And now look, Thriller
is the best selling album of all time. His now
passed over seventy million copies sold, and that's something that
one hundred minut or more could never do. But these
guys are session musicians, That's what they are. They're really
good musicians that can probably play a variety of styles,
but they also lack that star power. I guess even
fans of Poco needs something to listen to. Maybe they
should have gotten Quincy Jones to produce for them. Had
a few hiccups and Moonwalks go on a date with
Brookshields and then maybe they'd be the choice of a
new generation. So, guys, this is an easy call for me.
You got the bland, empty yacht rock of a competent
studio act and then you've got the epitome of eighty
cent pop at the top of their game with Duran Durant.
When choosing between these two bands, Duran Duran is my
easy choice. Then again, that might just be a reflex answer.
So to give you my final judgment of these albums
from nineteen eighty two, it goes like this in the
top spot, Thriller, then Rio and then Toto four. All right,
that's gonna do it for me, guys. I'm out of here.
So my name is deaf Dave on Twitter. I want
all those Toto fans out there to at me let
me know how I got it wrong, but don't send
the tweet to me. Now, save it till the morning after.
That's it for me, guys. I gotta go dance on
the sand and bless the rains down in Africa. Somebody
at me, will Conda forever?
Speaker 2: Dave coming in hot for Duran Duran right there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that wasn't even a maybe that was there was
no offling. We have communicated with him a little bit
and he has indicated that we moved the needle a
little bit for him, but it was it was still
a no brainer for him. He's picking Durandra.
Speaker 2: Slam Dune for Duran Duran. Yeah, okay, So that brings
us to our own file judgment, right, ladies.
Speaker 4: First, Okay, Well, Jason thought I'd be a shoeing for
Duran Duran and I am. I'm gonna have to pick
Duran Duran. But I have to say, after listening and
knowing more about Toto their history, I can't believe Michael
McDonald was almost a part of Toto. You moved the
needle more than a little for me and I like them,
But yeah, Duran Duran all the way. I'm in Juranne.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 3: You don't have a Toto for shirt yet.
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't. They We're never on my wall
to But that's okay.
Speaker 3: You didn't have one of them picked out as your favorite?
Who had spot the Diamond?
Speaker 4: Yes? No, The only one I knew by name was
Bobby Kimball and he was definitely not on my wall.
Speaker 3: You're not in the heavy set guys who do a
lot of coconine. I look a little bit like Mario.
All right, d You're out, Okay. I love this album.
I love Duran Duran Rio. It is iconic, It defines
the eighties. It was a huge part of my experience
growing up. Probably in this time period, I would have
easily picked durand Ran Rio as my favorite out of
these two albums, But having grown up, I have changed
my position on this. Wow, looking at Toto in detail,
in Toto if you will, Yes, I was really impressed
with them. And like you say, frequently, if I'm running
out the door and I'm picking one of these CDs
to throw in the CD player to listen to on
the car trip, it's going to be Toto four for me.
Every single time. I will say this. I was more
impressed in the musical ability of Duran Duran than I
thought I was going to be the complicated basslines that
John Taylor was doing. Yes, it was something that he
had to do two parts in the studio and then
figure out it. But even those two parts were complicated.
The sounds of Nick Rhodes intricate, delicate new wave. I mean,
it defines the eighties, but to me, I'm an old
school rock and roll guy, and Toto's influences are more
like my influences. Their music is still amazing, their faultless musicians,
and I prefer the sound of real guitars to the
sound of synthesizers. And so for me, it's going to
be Toto four all day long. You get a song
with a billion point one lads, I gotta have some
people on my side on this one. So for me,
it's gotta be Tota four.
Speaker 2: Wow, fantastic. Okay, Before I give my final judgment, I'm
gonna put you guys on the spot real quick. Favorite
drand Duran song Go Girls on Film Wow, Okay, the
Reflex Reflex, Yeah, seven and the Ragged Tiger. Yes, this
is interesting. So you took one not on Rio. You
took one not on Rio. Mark me down for ordinary World.
That's three songs not on Rio. But Rio is clearly
my favorite Dran Duran album.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would say, I would say as a whole like,
if you talk about the whole catalog, I'm gonna pick
Duran Duran over Tote Like Toto's got four and it's
got a couple of other songs, right, Duran Duran has
some great stuff spanning several decades.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, overall catalog, I would say, yeah, Duran
Duran's to learn.
Speaker 2: Okay. So here here's where I am on this one. Okay.
So the peaks of Toto four are so good. You
got Africa, you got Roseanna, you got I won't hold
you back. I love to make believe. But for me,
the war is fought in the trenches on the other songs, right,
Duran Duran's Rio. You've got Rio, You've got Hunger like
the Wolf, You've got saber Prayer, You've got the Chauffeur.
But for me, it's the other songs in Rio that
make it better than Toto. For song, the song across
the board, I'm slamming the football, Rio, Duran, Duran, mark
me down.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: So Rio wins by a landslide for US four. We
got three votes for Rio. I'm all over here by myself,
but I will say this, it's important to now. We
mentioned this last in our last episode. Duran Duran is
about to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. And they are beating like there's a fan
vote component, right, And it's a hard fought competition and
they Eminem was ahead of them, and they are now ahead.
And not only are they ahead, but they've like flown ahead.
They're over one hundred thousand votes ahead of him. And
so there is a big contingent out there of Duran
Duran fans who are rocking the vote if you will,
but I will say this on Spotify, Duran Duran and
Monthly listeners has six point five million people Toto thirteen million.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 3: So I'll take your three votes against my one vote
because I guess some others on my side.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we want to hear from you, guys.
Speaker 5: Do we get it right?
Speaker 2: Where do you come down? Total four versus Duran Duran's
Rio album, both turning forty years old this year.
Speaker 3: Thanks guys, be sure and hit that follow button on
your podcast app. Please. If you love our stuff, Melissa
now knows the time consumption that's involved when we make
one of these episodes, and we do it all for free.
But if you want to contribute to our podcast, you
can do that by going to Patreon. You go to
patreon dot com slash Shirley Podcast and you can help
us with a monthly donation of from five to something
like one hundred bucks a month and their prizes and
fun that come along with that as well. So please
support the podcast if you can, and if not, leave
us a review. If you can put a review that
mentions the words dancing in the Sand or reflex, we
will put you in a contest to win a custom
engraved cup with Shirley Podcast in your name, and we'll
give you a shout out on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Listen. Thanks for being here today.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys so much for having me. Next time,
I'll do my British accent.
Speaker 3: I was really disappointed we didn't get a little more Francai.
Speaker 2: All right, hey, before we go away next week, we
are diving in. We're starting our four parter moving to
movie album to album. We're doing Saturday Night Fever versus
Dirty Dancing movie to movie and Saturday Night Fever versus
Dirty Dancing Soundtrack, the soundtrack that.
Speaker 3: Sounds like a mammoth under day.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be fantastic, all right, see you guys.
Speaker 4: I guess