Joe (void where prohibited by law) Fernbacher, Creem, 6/87
What is that strange, bothersome noise coming from my CD?
Could it be Brian Eno’s latest, Music to Shave Beards By Vol. 9?
Could it be Xaviera Hollander’s latest sonicstomper, Music To Shave The Wild Beaver By?
Could it be that W. Burroughs-inspired band, The Caustic Enzymes of Woo, and their EP, Music of the Slinkies?
Could it be some errant soundtrack music from Bob Leech’s newest cable access only series, Lifestyles Of The Doomed And Extremely Screwed, in which Bob dons some Salvation Army garb, a Geraldo Rivera mask and undauntedly tit-ups his way through the inner cities of the land, shouting at the top of his champagne besotted lungs about the inherent glories of possessing a fur-lined heating grate and an auto-suck with batteries on Xmas Eve in downtown Washington, DC? No, but it’s about as close as it’s gonna get.
Could it be the sound of a thousand flaming hacky-sacks raining from the heavens onto a neighbor’s barbecue, y’know lotsa blood, lotsa contusions? Nope.
Could it be Notorious, the new LP from Duran Duran? Yup! That’s what it is, and (gulp!) that’s what we’ve gotta talk about now.
First off, this is the kind of music that’d jam up and erase all the Jane Fonda Fondaerisize tapes in the land as if they’d just been zapped by a megakillaton’s worth of EMP flakes. Secondly, this LP is the sonic equivalent of what it must be like inside of Richard Gere’s mind. Thirdly, this LP bites the big one.
Early on, Duran Duran showed a little bit of promise because they were somewhat adventurous, both musically and style-wise. But somewhere along the line (I think it basically was when they started turning achingly-beautiful women into lizards and small herd animals, and became the founding fathers of the group-of-the-month club), they lapsed into that ever-expanding vortex of the “who-really-cares-anyway?” syndrome.
Notorious is a seamless, textureless mildgasm of Lilliputian proportions. Side one is so unnoticeable that I forgot it was on the turntable when I first played it, although “A Matter Of Feeling” did make me pay attention for about a nanosecond. Side two’s “Vertigo (Do The Demolition)” and “Winter Marches On” lapsed briefly into the realms of the almost OK, but “Meet El Presidente” and “So Misled” led back to yawnsville dullathons. I don’t exactly know what it is about Duran Duran, but they are just so musically washy that it’s irritating. I suppose if I were a little teenqueen Everybabe, they might get my juices flowing, but I’m not--and they don’t. Ergless, useless, boring. Notorious does not live up to its name. May the Matt Moss eat them alive.
After this, if I ever like this band and their musical stance, may I get a fork-lift enema and actually French kiss Nancy Reagan.
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