Word: lebon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...kindle the spirit even if means whistling the 1984 Band-Aid song "Do They Know It's Christmas? (Feed the World)." Put your hands to your ears like you're holding studio-quality headphones. Close your eyes. Now sway. Who are you? You're Simon LeBon! And by your side, Euro powerhouses: Paul Young ("Everytime you go away, you take a piece of me with you. . ."), Bono, George Michael, Boy George. It's not for Ethiopia--it's for your cold, rotten Harvard heart. Do it baby...
...first track, which is the title track, sounds like Art of Noise meets the laughter from Josh Wink's house record "Don't Laugh," meets, well, Duran Duran. It is a slow and "trippy" number, with LeBon's muted voice welcoming the listener to Medazzaland, whatever Medazzaland is. This is not the Duran Duran of our youth; it is, instead, a slowed down electronic journey to an indeterminate place. Although it doesn't get us gyrating in the aisles, it'll keep you listening, if only to question, what caper the boys have gotten themselves involved...
...until the thrid track, the single, "Electric Barbarella" that the one and only LeBon and Rhodes transcend the genre of electronica and revist their roots. "Electric Barbarella," on the Duran Duran scale, is a mixture of "View to a Kill" and "Girls on Film." In this song, the band pays hommage to their eponoymus roots--the '60s cult classic Barbarella which featured a seminude Jane Fonda (Barbarella) trapsing across galaxies in her fur-lined spaceship, trying to save the universe from the clutches of mad scientist Duran Duran. "Electric Barbarella" is the only song on the album in which...
...movie The Saint, "Out of My Mind." Like the majority of this album, this track is slower that Duran Duran standbys. In fact, as Medazzaland progresses, we are brought deeper and deeper into an uncomprehensible world. The last three numbers on the album are almost depressing, with LeBon sounding more like a narrator in a post-modern after-school special that a jet-fueled pop star. "So Long Suicide," "Michael You've Got a Lot ot Answer For" and the questionably titled "Undergoing Treatment" seem to delve into a musical "mathmos" so reminescent of the movie whence the Durans sprung...
While electronica is not a genre that readily welcomes the performative shennanigans of LeBon and Rhodes, the boys have managed to somehow graft their message of sound over meaning and aesthetics over understanding into the ambient noise of their technologically advanced synthesizers. Because, as has always been the case with Duran Duran, it's not all about the music, but rather all about the attitude. And, although well advanced in years, for pop stars at any rate, Duran Duran has attitude to spare...