Duran Duran - Red Carpet Massacre (Deluxe Edition)
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Free Music Notes for Red Carpet Massacre (Deluxe Edition)
Free Music Review: Great CD ... not much on DVD
Hit: 4 Stars
The music is great. I think they have some real hits on this!! The DVD footage is great for the duranie who needs the inside scoop but there is not much in there. The enclosed "booklet" is mostly of the Red Carpet Massacre girls not the band.Free Music Review: Very good album
Hit: 4 Stars
Yes, this is a very good album, not an excellent one but it's one you can listen to several times, each time it gets better. Although not my favorite album I like it.Free Music Review: A red massacre, indeed.
Hit: 3 Stars
I've been a fan since 1982. I'm 40 now, and I wanted this CD to be.. groundbreaking, if nothing else. No, in honesty, I wanted it to be a return to form from 5 guys who knew how to CRAFT a song. It seems that Andy (the 5th guy) saw that this was going to be a sellout to their label and a compromise; a denial of their innate abilities to write outstanding material; to write trendy soulless drivel and call it evolution, so he left. At the time I was floored, and I just *knew* we'd get a sub-par record.
Yes, I wanted an amalgamation of Rio,etc,etc, right through the Wedding Album, because I knew that's what these musicians are capable of, and I had faith in them to have confidence in their abilities. Looks like the record company did not have that faith.
I WISH above anything else that I could be holding the CD of the scrapped project in my hands instead of this.
I've loved these guys for 25 years, and will buy whatever they put out. But let's be HONEST, and listen with an honest ear and heart. The only good songs on here are:
*Last Man Standing - unbelievably, the last song! Finally, a melody, a hook!.. perhaps even underproduced, sounds like it was rushed to completion. By far the best song on this.. thing.
*Dirty Monster - a song, at least. Saxophone!~for gosh sakes, and not those disgusting tinny "tip-tip-tip" drums that Timbaland pushed the buttons for the rest of the project.. good to see they let Roger get behind a kit for a tune or two.
*Falling Down - not the worst tune I've suffered through this year. That's all the compliment I'll be giving. I suppose it *is* the only single they could consider! In the history of great DD songs, I give this a two out of ten.
*Box full of Honey - decent if DD was releasing a folk cd.
---If any other band had put this out, I would not have bought it. Any other band would get one of five Amazon stars.
Gone are atmospheric DD soundscapes. Gone is Andy's edgy guitar. Gone are Roger's driving drums. Gone are Simon's cryptic, poetic lyrics. John's energetic bassline returns for 30 seconds in the first song, and then he disappears. Call this evolution, call this catching up with 'the times', but I call this far from what they are capable of. Sometimes you don't want to sound like the modern peers because those peers aren't in your league, so you'd be better off writing what you know, which surpasses and exceeds trends..
Please, Duran Duran, find yourselves again, and please fans, be honest when they don't live up to what we know they can deliver.
Free Music Review: Catchy tunes overall
Hit: 3 Stars
It's hard for me to be objective of Duran Duran, but I'll try. I'm a big DD fan and have been since the 80s. I've followed what they've done through the years. I was very happy to purchase their Astronaut CD and was thrilled with the reunion.
Now after waiting several years for this new CD and expecting the worst (I'm not a Timberlake/Timbaland fan at all), I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. Most of the tunes are very catchy with wonderful vocals, which is what I like. At the same time, however, I am disappointed because I believe their sound is muddied and they are trying too hard to be something they're not.
DD are inventive. Part of their charm in the 80s was the fact that they didn't sound like anyone else to me. Some of that is gone with this disc, at least for the first half. They pretty much sound like everything else out there. The only original sound is the vocals. If you substituted Simon's vocals with someone else's (Timberlake?), you wouldn't know it is Duran at all. It isn't until after Skin Divers that they start to pull it together.
I think Duran has a lot of talent, but they need to focus on who they are and what makes them legends. They don't have to go back in time and recreate the same old either. Simon LeBon commented in an interview that Duran Duran likes to experiment with new sounds. Yes, these sounds are new--for them, but the market is saturated with this.
All in all, the CD is worth a listen and is very danceable.
Free Music Review: All Style, Little Substance
Hit: 3 Stars
Never ashamed to admit to being a huge fan of this band, I've gotten most everything they've released since they began. I've followed their many ups and downs, and their comebacks galore. Astronaut truly excited me, leading me to believe they had indeed grown another set of legs to run on. But this collaboration with Timbaland and his crew leaves me a little cold. It's as underwhelming as Tim's work with Bjork was on her last album. As many songs as he's turned out with other artists that were not only extremely sonically experimental, but also just hook FILLED, this Red Carpet Massacre seems lacking. Excepting the first cut on the CD, "the Valley", the gorgeous, should-have-been-a-huge-smash-hit "Falling Down" and the atypical -sounding, mostly acoustic "Box Full of Honey", nothing here begs for my attention or for repeated listens. RCM isn't HORRIBLE, don't get me wrong. It sounds great ( it certainly should ) but many of the songs sound rushed and incomplete, like a chorus could have been catchier, or the lyrics sharper. I for one would be interested to hear the ( practically complete ) album they scrapped when guitarist Andy Taylor bailed on them. I'm thinking between the two of them they could have come up with a winner. I'm not giving up hope on DD - I never could, I simply like them too much. But RCM won't be on my list of favourites.