Duran Duran - Liberty
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Free Music Notes for Liberty
Free Music Review: Duran Duran Liberty
Hit: 4 Stars
Liberty has songs for everyone, some upbeat songs like All Along the Water, Violence of Summer, and Liberty; and beautiful slow songs like Serious, Venice Drowning and My Antartica. This album is a must for any die hard and new Duran Duran fans.Free Music Review: The 1990s...a new decade for Duran Duran...
Hit: 3 Stars
...and they don't particularly blow it, as well as not nailing it either. It's not the perfect album in the world, but after Big Thing, I'm ready to try anything. So, it's a mediocre effort, but there are some really awesome songs; you might even refer to them as gems.
"Violence of Summer" is a 50's-esque song, and a good opening track. This is one of those "gems" I was talking about. It's a good song; not great, but it does its job of trying something new. Very good for an opening track.
"Liberty" features the phoenominal keyboard stylings of Nick Rhodes, and it really shows. This is a good song; even better than the previous track, but we're only warming up. Simon's vocals are deep and relaxing, and they're a good relaxation to what's coming up next...
"Hothead" is an anti-gem. Not very good at all. My problem with this one is that it is spoken, and Simon doesn't uncover his rapping styles until "Thank You". Evil-ution isn't something I'm going to say all day. Not like "Rio" or "Lizard Mixture". It's one of the 'mediocre' tracks on the 'mediocre' album.
"Serious" got me into the album all over again! With its relaxed beat and decent music video, it's the best song on the album, if I may say so myself! I love this song mainly because of the funky guitars and Simon's awesome lyrics. Serious deserves the gold medal on "Liberty"!
"All along the waters" is another great song. Better than Liberty, but not as good as Serious. This song brought me to Deja Vu for some reason. The lyrics can seem repetive, but that's not a problem. A good song.
"My Antartica" is smooth and relaxing. Good song. Not much to say about this one, except it's one of the gems I'm talking about. Slow, moving, great lyrics all describe this song.
"First Impression" slowly transitions from piano-esque to rock. Very, erm...mediocre/good...I don't know how to describe this. It's good. That's all I can say, really.
"Read My Lips" has a heavy metal feel with lip-puckering effects courtesy of Nick Rhodes. The vocals are suggestive, but I don't care for this song.
"Can You Deal With It" saved my sanity. It's a good song, but the downside is it still has the lip-puckering effects; explained above. It seems like that effect is on most of the songs. This is truly a gem. Very good.
"Venice Drowning" is funky. Very good, but very funky. That's a good thing. It's definitely a good follow-up to "Can You Deal With It" but nowhere as good.
"Downtown" is the bomb. It just drops the whole album. It's like your 3000 miles up in the air after "Venice Drowning", and then after listening to "Downtown", you drop from the airplane and realize you left your parachute at home. Not very good at all. "Shame of the album" goes to this song.
Unfortunately, even the best bands have their low point. For Duran Duran, "Liberty" was the lowest point they'd ever get to. They're stil a great band, but it seemed like the 90's would bring the end to Duran Duran.
It seemed. Apparently not, since "Thank You" was a great album, filled with awesome surprising covers. I'm not saying that Liberty is the worst album in the world, but I'm not saying it's great. Don't buy it for anything over [$]. That's just too much. Spend it on "Astronaut" or "Medezzaland". That's my $0.02 on this album.
Free Music Review: The End of the Beginning
Hit: 3 Stars
Duran Duran had to make it through the transition from pop royality and teen-dream pinups to serious musicians. Let's be honest, no one in 1984 thought that Duran Duran would still be releasing albums in 2007?!
In 1986, they re-vamped their sound on "Notorious" to reflect a more mature and sophicated mindset. Unfortuantely, this was a hard sell to their fans who were on their way to college and probably would not want to be caught dead with a copy of "Rio" in their collection.
Then they did a neat trick in 1989 by scoring a big hit with the trendy and danceable "I Don't Want Your Love." OK, so they can dance to it at the bar, that's good, now move along...
On their next album, "Liberty," Duran Duran wanted to be a full-fledged band again. They officially welcomed guitarist Warren Cuccirullo in the fold who had been playing with them since "Notorious" and added a drummer. Fine, good start.
They kick things off with a neat little pop tune called "The Violence of Summer" which lyrically held together and had the pop sense of a late 1960s chestnut. Very interesting. Second up comes the title track, a slick piece of rock and soul which neither offends or thrills. Good song. Next.... Then we start to play the musical hit and miss game. "Hothead" has a dance base with some decent lyrics about debt and materialism, "Serious" is a good pop tune, but then this style mongering gets carried away with itself.
"Read My Lips" is just silly with its chunky power chords chiming in through a lackluster dance track. "My Antartica" is a bit laughable lyrically with a slightly moody feel and "First Impression" and "Can You Deal With It" are forgettable as soon as they end. "Venice Drowning" and "Downtown" are interesting experiements that wrap things up, but really have nothing to do with the rest of the album.
"Big Thing" had simliar cohesion issues, but it did contain enough slam dunk classics to drag it our of the mire. On "Liberty" there are just too many average songs and not enough memorable ones.
Free Music Review: Un Liberated
Hit: 3 Stars
While certainly not the worst album in the Duran Duran library ("Pop Trash" and "Arena" can fight for that title), "Liberty" found the three remaining Durannies (Lebon, Rhodes and John Taylor) picking up Missing Person Warren Cuccurullo and Sterling Campbell and trying to forge ahead into the 90's with mixed results. The deceptively catchy "Violence Of Summer" laid strong expectations for "Liberty." It surfs atop a frothy keyboard hook and danceable beat, and sounds like you'd expect a Duran Duran single to sound.
Unfortunately, the remaining songs struggle. Only "Serious" and "My Antarctica" manage to give any sense of band image. The rest of the CD limps along as the band searches itself for an identity. Ridiculous rock guitar solos mangle songs like "First Impression." Even the found sound clips that pop in during "Hothead" give the impression of desperate attempts to sound relevant.
The album's title is ultimately its greatest irony. By trying to make themselves sound like they had something important to say musically in a new decade, Duran Duran unnecessarily restrained themselves. "Liberty" is the sound of a band trying as hard as they could to conform to something they weren't. Fortunately, the "Wedding Album" eventually found Simon and company perfectly happy to live in the "Ordinary World." So get "Liberty" for one reason only. Thus far, the commercial catastrophe that this album dealt the band has left the still wonderful "Violence Of Summer" off any of the best of compilations. Otherwise, there are better DD albums available.
Free Music Review: Flawed but worth rediscovering
Hit: 3 Stars
Liberty is certainly an interesting album; I have listened to it extensively of recent times after having relegated it to the bottom of my cassette bin 17+ years ago as the deathknell of an era of great music.
Upon re-listen, the highs are higher, and the lows are lower - a lot of it sounds dreadfully outdated. "Hothead" was dreadful lo those many years ago and is just unlistenable now with its faux-pocalypse predictions; "First Impression", which sounded great in 1990, is just sort of laughable now for Simon LeBon's pseudo-metal pretensions. And there is simply no reason for "Downtown" to have ever been committed to tape.
And yet - some of it has aged phenomenally well. "Liberty" never grabbed me before; it now sounds very mature and smart. "My Antarctica" is far more beautiful for its age and may become recognized at last (perhaps as a tune for global warming documentaries?) And then there's "Serious", which may well be the best track this band has ever recorded. It is a crime that it is as unrecognized as it is; to be very honest, it belongs in the very top pantheon of 1990s singles along with U2's "One", Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Oasis' "Live Forever" and the Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony". That Capitol Records did not better promote the album to allow this track to blast out of every radio on the planet is a crime because it is truly a sublime four minutes of music.
In short, worth re-examination, or examination...but phenomenally uneven, to the point of being case study material.