Durandatory Duran: Summertime Funtime Edition

by Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com

A long time ago, I came up with the phrase Durandatory Duran as a play on Mandatory Metallica, because if any band should have a mandatory song programmed every hour on a heavy metal radio station, it’s Duran Duran. Ok, maybe not the heavy metal part, but the idea still stands. Nathan and I discussed the need to include summer themed songs in our summer themed blog posts, and I’m happy to say that my favourite band, Duran Duran, isn’t lacking in music that I can include. It’s a “Matter of Fact” (which won’t be included on this list) that I’m going to devote three posts to these songs, starting with the three songs that have the word “summer” in the title.

Duran Duran – Violence of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)

This is the first single off of Duran Duran’s sixth album “Liberty.” The album wasn’t very well received, which is odd to me because it’s in my Top 4 Duran Duran albums. There are a number of theories as to why the album didn’t do well; the direction of music at the time, lack of promotion, Nick Rhodes believes he overproduced the album, the lack of a strong single, etc.

Whatever the reason, I don’t believe it lacked a strong single. “Violence of Summer” is a very good song. The second single, “Serious” was also a great song. “My Antarctica” was never a single, but had the first two singles done well, I promise you it would have been the third single.

Nathan was a little skeptical about "Liberty," but he ended up thinking it was very good when Chris played it for him. I wonder if he would have hated the album if he had been losing the games of Net Runner they were playing.

A personal story regarding this song is that I was hanging with Miguel one day and had the “Liberty” album on. He was mostly unimpressed. In reference to “Violence of Summer” he complained about a practice in music where the singer just kind of riffs with nonsensical words. His view was that there should either be lyrics, vocal silence, or at least just use words like “oh” or “yeah.” Don’t make up random crap that has nothing to do with anything, like “China na China na na na.” I had to explain to him that the song was about a girl named China who’s hanging out by the railings of the motor shed. Google says “ratings on a motion.” I may be hearing it wrong, but whoever entered that lyric on Google is really hearing it wrong. Once faced with this information about the song’s main character, Miguel conceded that “China na” made perfect sense then. He was probably being sarcastic.

Duran Duran – Taste the Summer

This was off Duran Duran’s eleventh album, “Astronaut,” which marked the return of the original lineup. That return would last for this album only as Andy Taylor would leave for the band for the second time during the making of the next album.

Miguel might be happy to know that part of the lyrics of this song include a vocal riff, “Doo doo doo doobeedoo.”

I don’t normally have this kind of visual thought with music, but for some reason I envision this song to be about a couple hanging out at some sort of summer music festival and laughing and dancing. I would get it if there had been a music video and that was the plot, but this is just a visual that entered my mind on its own. I know that when music video was first trending that some artists felt that the videos could interfere with the audience’s ability to interpret the music for themselves. If I had to present an argument in favor of that belief, I would talk about this song and my interpretation. Then again, now that I’ve said that, I may have tainted your ability to visualize the song your own way, so if I needed to argue the other side of the debate, I would point out that we could never discuss our own interpretations with others.

Duran Duran – Early Summer Nerves

I don’t really have a lot to say about this song. I personally believe it to be an ok song that was used as a bonus track for an amazing album. That amazing album was Duran Duran’s thirteenth album, “All You Need Is Now,” which is also in my Top 4 Duran Duran albums.

There is nothing that I specifically dislike about “Early Summer Nerves.” I do think it’s a good song. It’s just surrounded by all the amazing songs that were on that album, and it isn’t quite as good. It also feels a little like an incomplete thought.

There is a song on “Paper Gods” called “What Are the Chances,” and it feels like maybe they revisited the idea of the odds of meeting someone with who you just click, and maybe expanded the concept a bit. I believe it to be a better exploration of the concept.

Those are the three Duran Duran tracks that have the word “summer” in the title, unless I’m embarrassingly forgetting, or unaware of, something. I’m going to do a second post that will have what I’m going to call “summerable mentions” in which the lyrics reference the summer. I’ll link it below when I post it.

Chris McGinty is a Blogger who believes the Top 4 Duran Duran albums to be, in this order: Medazzaland, Liberty, Big Thing, and All You Need Is Now. We don’t get many comments on this blog, but what are your Top 4 albums by Duran Duran?