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Duran Duran: Paper Gods review – synth-pop survivors still bouncing
(Warner Bros)
M any an established act dreams of managing to sound contemporary and relevant without losing their sound and identity. Thus, Duran Duran ’s 14th album pairs in-vogue producers ( Mark Ronson , Mr Hudson and revitalised old collaborator Nile Rodgers ) with special guests, from Janelle Monae to ex-Chili Peppers’ guitarist John Frusciante, to bring some electro bounce. Last Night in the City flirts with EDM, while the dippiest moment combines a Lindsay Lohan narrative with a rather clunky rhyming of Danceophobia and “coming over ya”. Still, Pressure Off upgrades Rodgers’ old Notorious groove to fine effect, while What Are the Chances and the exquisite The Universe Alone find Simon Le Bon in the mature, melancholy mood he once exhibited on Ordinary World . If Paper Gods isn’t quite as strong throughout as 2010’s back-to-basics All You Need Is Now , Kill Me With Silence and the title track have terrific choruses and Sunset Garage beautifully honours the band’s survival: “Whatever happens, we’re OK / Hey, we’re still alive.”
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Paper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and Politics
Goldie taylor.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published October 23, 2018
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By Jon Dolan
More than 30 years after they were first dismissed as vapid New Wave man-dolls, Duran Duran are still kicking, and sounding surprisingly vibrant. Their 14th LP features Mark Ronson and longtime collaborator Nile Rodgers, as well as appearances by New Age soul queen Janelle Monáe, ex–Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante and even Lindsay Lohan, who adds some disco-doctor patter to the sleazy-slick “Danceophobia.” It’s a weird mix that feels cohesive, from the mirror-ball flash of “Pressure Off” to the EDM blowout “Last Night in the City,” featuring young house singer Kiesza. Paper Gods has a grand-old-bitch quality: On the title track, Simon Le Bon plays the bored lizard king complaining about shallow fashion zombies. But what makes this music fun is its youthful sense of invention. Our Eighties-mad era would’ve been happy with a Rio redux, but these guys aren’t ready to settle for that.
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A potentially explosive plot peopled with deliciously wicked characters gets bogged down in exposition and description.
READ REVIEW
by Goldie Taylor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 23, 2018
A behind-the-headlines thriller digs into power, money, race, and politics in Atlanta.
Taylor ( The January Girl , 2006, etc.), editor at large for the Daily Beast , brings her experiences as a political commentator, consultant, and journalist to this novel. It revolves around Victoria Dobbs, glamorous and ruthless mayor of Atlanta, and Hampton Bridges, an almost as ruthless political reporter barely hanging on to his career. The book begins with a bang, twice: first a suspicious car crash that almost kills Hampton, then a sniper attack at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s pastoral home, that leaves Victoria grazed but her mentor, U.S. Rep. Ezra Hawkins, dead. Despite her trauma, she immediately turns her considerable will toward running for Hawkins' congressional seat. She also grabs Hawkins' Bible and finds a tiny origami bird inside. Soon she'll find a second one, in the possession of another murder victim close to her. This does not scare her off; despite her upbringing among Atlanta's black elite, Victoria has a street fighter's instincts. She'll need them to go up against various power brokers in the city, black and white, on either side of the law. Hampton knows the murders are just part of the story, but he might not survive telling it. Taylor has the makings of a good political thriller, but she also deploys a huge amount of Atlanta history and political dish, so much that it can grind the novel's pace to a halt. She's good at status markers, like an inventory of Victoria's Birkin bags, but she can pile up so much descriptive detail it's distracting.
Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-19444-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: All Points/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | THRILLER | POLITICAL, MILITARY & TERRORISM
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by Goldie Taylor
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION | SUSPENSE | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION | SUSPENSE
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
THEN SHE WAS GONE
by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s ( I Found You , 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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by Lisa Jewell
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Review: Duran Duran, Yet Again, With ‘Paper Gods’
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By Jon Caramanica
- Sept. 9, 2015
DURAN DURAN
“Paper Gods”
(Warner Bros.)
Nostalgia is fleeting, but it is renewable, and every few years, Duran Duran returns to remind a new set of people of a sound that, buried deep within, they love.
“Paper Gods,” the 14th Duran Duran album, and first since 2011, brims with the signature louche funk that made this group a paragon of early 1980s sleek excess. Simon Le Bon is still a fragrant, sleepy singer whose default vocal approach is the come-on.
But on “Paper Gods,” he’s newly cynical about the things that used to turn this band on. The title song , about the hollowness of beauty, almost feels like a rebuke to “Rio.” “Butterfly Girl” promisingly begins like classic Duran Duran: “By the look on your face, you’ve been awake all night.” But then Mr. Le Bon becomes a scolding elder: “I still hope you’re gonna realize/There’s only one kind of happy in that glass of wine.”
It’s a bait and switch, especially because that song features Nile Rodgers of Chic, fresh off lending his humanity to Daft Punk. It’s bulbous, throbbing disco, ecstatic and free, recalling the band’s 1980s peak, in sound if not in sentiment. That’s better than the pair of songs, “What Are The Chances? and “The Universe Alone,” which recall an earlier stab at maturity, the soporific 1992 hit “Ordinary World.”
Largely, though, Duran Duran chooses its collaborators wisely here, opting for some from that golden age, like Mr. Rodgers, or those who’ve internalized that era’s balance of sleaze and good cheer, like Mark Ronson — who helped with the group’s last album, “All You Need Is Now” — a producer of “Pressure Off,” a blend of hard-slap funk and dreamy new wave that features Mr. Rodgers and Janelle Monáe.
So long as Mr. Le Bon is oozing atop brisk arrangements like this, the specifics of the words don’t much matter. Everyone here has the posture down cold. It’s not nostalgia if you never stopped. JON CARAMANICA
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Duran Duran / Paper Gods review
By Paul Sinclair
A track-by-track guide to the new Duran Duran album.
Paper Gods (Featuring Mr Hudson)
Paper Gods starts with its title track and it’s certainly an album highlight. With it’s social/political commentary, Simon at least has something to say and the seven-minute opener is an ambitious work, nicely structured. 4/5 Last Night In The City (Featuring Kiesza)
This has a dramatic dubstep-style intro with Kiesza singing the first lines. It sounds very ‘modern’ and poppy although you wish Le Bon had developed the ‘Last Night In The City’ concept a bit more so that you felt something for the protagonists in the song. You don’t really know WHY it’s might be their last night, other than “no one cares if there’s no tomorrow” (you also don’t know why no one cares about that, either!). Am I asking too much of a pop lyric for at least some meaning? I guess Le Bon came up with the title and just worked it up as much as he thought he needed to. This is a recurring problem with Paper Gods as we shall see. 3/5
You Kill Me With Silence
You half expect Le Bon to come in rapping at the beginning of You Kill Me With Silence (remember White Lines ?) but it doesn’t happen, thankfully. Not really a very good song at all – dull lyric, boring chorus and nothing approaching a good melody. Some of the synth work echoes The Chauffeur . 1/5
Pressure Off (Featuring Janelle Monáe and Nile Rodgers)
Easy to see why this was chosen as the first ‘single’. While Pressure Off doesn’t exactly give any Duran classics a run for their money, it takes the job of being ‘catchy’ fairly seriously in a similar fashion to Reach Up (For The Sunrise) back in 2005. Unlike virtually every song on this album, this has a very good chorus despite the dubious ‘oh oh oh oh oh oh’ refrain. Extra points for the groovy Janelle Monáe refrain. 4/5
Face For Today
The only song on the album Nick Rhodes doesn’t receive a writing credit for, Face For Today has a satisfying synthy verse and decent flowing chorus. One of the better album tracks, to be honest, although lyrically impermeable. 3/5
Danceophobia
This is the ‘silly’ song on the album, the Bedroom Toys or the Hallucinating Elvis. It’s not actually too bad, although the rhyming with the ‘word’ Danceophobia is knowingly naff. If you were wondering why Lindsay Lohan features on a Duran Duran album, you’ll find the answer here – she has spoken word role of a ‘doctor’ towards the end. If this was a B-side I might be raving about it, but you do wonder what it’s doing slap bang in the middle of a new DD album. 2/5
What Are The Chances
I guess this is supposed to be a lighters-in-the-air mid-paced ballad. The trouble is, it lacks a great melody and the lyrics are inane. This is the chorus: “So, what are the chances / We’ll never know, if we take it for granted”. Come on, Simon. This dirge goes on for four minutes and 56 seconds too long. 1/5
Sunset Garage
Sunset Garage starts off quite well; crisp drumbeat, nice synth work. Simon comes in with a drawling vocal and it looks like this is going somewhere… until the chorus “What ever happens, we’re okay – hey we’re still aliveeee! To watch a sunset garage day, heading to the light”. What? Even without the dodgy lyrics, the best you can say about this is that it’s quite breezy, maybe a bit of a singalong. The chorus outro benefits for a slightly Motown-y beat. 3/5
Change The Skyline (Featuring Jonas Bjerre)
This pacey number is co-written by Mr Hudson and features Danish musician and singer Jonas Bjerre. It has a fast verse, slow chorus structure. Despite all the supposed innovation and inspiration from the other artists involved, this is another Paper Gods track that fails miserably to be memorable – the chorus is too slow with a melody that just washes over you. 2/5
Butterfly Girl
This features John Frusciante (he provides a nice angular solo), although the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ songwriter and guitarist doesn’t get a writing credit. This track at least sounds a bit more like Duran Duran and has a female vocalist doing some effective Come Undone style vocals on the insistent verses. The chorus is REALLY awful though…”You can make it through tomorro-ow / set free your butterfly girl / And when you rise above the sorro-ow / you’ll be a butterfly girl”. The chorus is the only weak element, but hey, that’s quite an important part of the song. Annoying, because this could have been very good. 3/5
Only In Dreams
This has everyone working on it – produced by “Duran Duran, Nile Rodgers, Mark Ronson; Additional production: Mr Hudson and Josh Blair”. It is actually pretty satisfying, largely because for the first time on the album melody and words combine to create something reasonably evocative. As with Last Night In the City you wish Le Bon would take the job of developing the lyric a bit more seriously, rather than making do with lines like “There’s a vampire in the limousine”. Despite this, he gets away with it, showing what a difference even one decent line (“ Only in dreams.. .”) can make, rather than meaningless choruses about skylines, sunset garages etc. This does actually sound the most like something from Notorious , and Nile Rodgers contribution is significant. Le Bon’s vocal is good too, although it has that weird auto-tuned timbre to it. Might be my favourite from Paper Gods . 4/5
The Universe Alone
Simon sounds very whiny on The Universe Alone . What’s happened to those dulcet tones that gave us Save A Prayer and Ordinary World? He seems to think if he sings an average melody with enough purpose and gusto, it will sound better. It doesn’t. The melody sounds very under-developed, almost as if he’s making it up as he goes alone. Disappointing end to a disappointing album. 2/5
Duran Duran keep putting forward the suggestion that this album somehow channels the spirit of Notorious , but Paper Gods contains nothing as sophisticated as A Matter Of Feeling , as direct as Hold Me (with its brilliant middle eight), as funky as So Misled or as moving as Winter Marches On. And they are four Notorious album tracks, never mind the ‘hits’.
It pains me to bring this up, but does Simon Le Bon have anything to say anymore? A simple B-side like We Need You (from the Skin Trade single) moves me a million times more than ANYTHING on this album. And I want to be moved. I want to feel something. Give me something that connects – Big Thing’s ‘ The Edge of America’ is far superior to ‘The Universe Alone’ if we’re talking about epic ‘I’m all alone’ album closers.
At its core, Paper Gods houses a good half-dozen completely forgettable tracks including, You Kill Me With Silence , Face For Today , Danceophonia , What Are The Chances , Sunset Garage , and Change The Skyline . To borrow a phrase from Armando Iannucci’s Veep , these amount to little more than ‘noise-shaped air’. Meaningless, inane lyrics, uninspired melodies, and music that half the time sounds like the band stayed at home. Can anyone pick out a great Nick Rhodes ‘moment’ on the album, like the piano phrase from Too Late Marlene , or the famous Save A Prayer synth line. Did anyone smile listening to some standout John Taylor bass playing – like on ‘Skin Trade’?
Duran Duran appear to be obsessed with their ‘sound’, their place in the world and ‘not looking back’ (except when they play the hits every night on tour). They do so much navel gazing in between EVERY album that they often forget to just get the basics right. Write some good songs. They also have a habit of doing something good ( Big Thing , The Wedding Album , Astronaut ) and throwing away all the hard-earned goodwill by then doing something a bit rubbish ( Liberty , Thank You and Red Carpet Massacre, respectively).
Even though I think 2011’s All You Need Is Now is rather overrated, it was a decent stab at embracing the classic Duran Duran ‘sound’ and putting the band at the centre of things. Paper Gods unfortunately maintains the pattern outlined above – the drop in quality is palpable.
Like banks who offer the best mortgage rates to new customers only, Paper Gods doesn’t deliver much to the existing fanbase who are in their forties and fifties, but the album is transparent in its attempts to attract new, younger audience – hence the collaborations have to be advertised on the track names.
Perhaps all the collaborations on Paper Gods will help Duran Duran shift units, deliver crossover appeal and make them more ‘marketable’ thanks to massive social media reach, but it doesn’t appear to make the songs any better. Back to basics next time, methinks. Paper Gods is out now.
Overall rating – 2/5
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Album Review of Paper Gods by Duran Duran.
Duran Duran
Release Date: Sep 11, 2015
Genre(s): Pop, Pop/Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Synth Pop, Dance-Rock
Record label: Warner Bros.
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Album Review: Paper Gods by Duran Duran
Very good, based on 8 critics.
It’s pretty interesting living in Birmingham. While the rest of the country gets excited by Peace, Swim Deep and the likes, you’ll only find any response at all in the city if you know where to look (notably Digbeth). In other genres, there’s a similar response to talents like Hannah Wants. There’s not a great deal of awareness in the general population.
Full Review >>
Duran Duran’s Legacy Grows Stronger with Paper Gods Every time a new Duran Duran album is released, there seems to be an almost irresistible compulsion for some writers to herald the “comeback” of the “‘80s pop heroes” or some such nonsense. Quite simply, anybody who says that hasn’t been paying attention—Duran Duran never left. They’ve been releasing albums, most of them quite excellent, on a regular basis since their self-titled debut hit shelves 34 years ago.
With the cover art for Paper Gods, Duran Duran cheekily revisit icons of their past: the smile of Rio, the cap of the "Chauffeur," girls on film, and a prowling tiger. Thirty years in, Duran Duran are comfortable enough to play with their past, comfortable enough to draw an explicit connection to their back pages by hiring Nile Rodgers -- who helmed Notorious back in the day -- to do a bit of production alongside Mark Ronson, the hitmaker who gave the group a refurbishment on 2010's All You Need Is Now. Most of the record, however, bears credits either by Mr.
The story of Duran Duran since they reunited their classic lineup in 2001 has been one of a band trying to find where they fit in modern music. Their brand of new wave and synthpop never really left, but as groups like The Killers and Franz Ferdinand rose to prominence in the mid 2000s, it became evident that Duran Duran had cemented an influential legacy. Not content to remain in the past, they tried staying contemporary with 2007’s Red Carpet Massacre, experimenting by working with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake.
More than 30 years after they were first dismissed as vapid New Wave man-dolls, Duran Duran are still kicking, and sounding surprisingly vibrant. Their 14th LP features Mark Ronson and longtime collaborator Nile Rodgers, as well as appearances by New Age soul queen Janelle Monáe, ex–Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante and even Lindsay Lohan, who adds some disco-doctor patter to the sleazy-slick "Danceophobia." It's a weird mix that feels cohesive, from the mirror-ball flash of "Pressure Off" to the EDM blowout "Last Night in the City," featuring young house singer Kiesza. Paper Gods has a grand-old-bitch quality: On the title track, Simon Le Bon plays the bored lizard king complaining about shallow fashion zombies.
Many an established act dreams of managing to sound contemporary and relevant without losing their sound and identity. Thus, Duran Duran’s 14th album pairs in-vogue producers (Mark Ronson, Mr Hudson and revitalised old collaborator Nile Rodgers) with special guests, from Janelle Monae to ex-Chili Peppers’ guitarist John Frusciante, to bring some electro bounce. Last Night in the City flirts with EDM, while the dippiest moment combines a Lindsay Lohan narrative with a rather clunky rhyming of Danceophobia and “coming over ya”.
It's easier than it should be to make fun of Duran Duran. Their 1980s heyday saw them churn out some of the greatest pop melodies of the era—"Hungry Like the Wolf" is an all-time great, no matter what anyone says. Then it all went wrong as they continued into the 1990s: releasing unmitigated crap on a remarkably consistent basis (apart from "Ordinary World;" "Ordinary World" is brilliant) and continuing to do so for a decade and a half.
Nostalgia is fleeting, but it is renewable, and every few years, Duran Duran returns to remind a new set of people of a sound that, buried deep within, they love. “Paper Gods,” the 14th Duran Duran album, and first since 2011, brims with the signature louche funk that made this group a paragon of early 1980s sleek excess. Simon Le Bon is still a fragrant, sleepy singer whose default vocal approach is the come-on.
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Paper Gods Review
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
With the cover art for Paper Gods, Duran Duran cheekily revisit icons of their past: the smile of Rio , the cap of the "Chauffeur," girls on film, and a prowling tiger. Thirty years in, Duran Duran are comfortable enough to play with their past, comfortable enough to draw an explicit connection to their back pages by hiring Nile Rodgers -- who helmed Notorious back in the day -- to do a bit of production alongside Mark Ronson , the hitmaker who gave the group a refurbishment on 2010's All You Need Is Now . Most of the record, however, bears credits either by Mr. Hudson or Josh Blair , two younger musicians who help give Paper Gods a bit of a contemporary glint. While there are nods at the '80s and even the '90s arriving in the form of samples, synthesizers, and power ballads, Paper Gods is an aggressively modern album, living in the oversaturated world where emojis and gifs battle in perpetual motion. Whenever Duran Duran seem slick and savvy -- i.e, when they bring Janelle Monáe in to play with Rodgers on "Pressure Off" -- they manage to undercut their hipster overture with either crass commerciality or something flat-out tasteless, like when Lindsay Lohan drops in to growl through "Danceophobia." The thing is, Paper Gods works better because it has space for these sides of Duran Duran, moments where they seem like the coolest band to bear a synth and the dorkiest to ever chase a club trend. Most of the album exists somewhere between these two extremes, gathering steam with the giddy neo-disco of "Change the Skyline" and benefiting from moody assists from ex- Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante (he brings the closer "The Universe Alone" to an apocalyptic crescendo), but it's that tension between the good and the bad, the yin and yang of Duran Duran, that makes Paper Gods absorbing.
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Album Review: Duran Duran – Paper Gods
- Duran Duran
The story of Duran Duran since they reunited their classic lineup in 2001 has been one of a band trying to find where they fit in modern music. Their brand of new wave and synthpop never really left, but as groups like The Killers and Franz Ferdinand rose to prominence in the mid 2000s, it became evident that Duran Duran had cemented an influential legacy. Not content to remain in the past, they tried staying contemporary with 2007’s Red Carpet Massacre , experimenting by working with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. The album did poorly both critically and commercially, so the band switched gears on 2010’s All You Need Is Now , swapping Timbaland for producer Mark Ronson , whose style and overall sound was a much better fit for the group. All You Need Is Now did better than its predecessor, a somewhat back-to-basics approach that found them solidly executing the formula they perfected in the ‘80s, albeit without adding anything new to the mix.
The 2015 iteration of Duran Duran, keeping with the core group of Simon Le Bon, John Taylor, Nick Rhodes, and Roger Taylor, meets somewhere in the middle. On Paper Gods , the band sticks with a sound that isn’t markedly different from where they were operating 35 years ago, but they also work with a group of guests (some more surprising than others) that makes them as relevant in today’s pop landscape as at any point in the past two decades. Part of this can be attributed to the likes of Ronson and Pharrell, producers who have been molding pop in the past five years with a heavy ‘80s dance-rock influence, with songs like “Uptown Funk” and “Blurred Lines” dominating the radio. Duran Duran doesn’t have to reach very far to find today’s pop hits, and their results are better for it.
Paper Gods ’ success largely comes from Duran Duran taking a more patient, deliberate approach. Recording began in 2013; in 2014, the group began sessions with Mr Hudson (known to many for his work on Jay Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne ) and ended up reworking many of the tracks. Hudson has a penchant for soaring hooks, and that trick pairs well with Le Bon’s strengths. The band also teamed up with Ronson again and brought in legendary Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers to help produce the album. Rodgers’ touch is felt throughout, especially on single and highlight “Pressure Off”, which features his guitar and vocals from Janelle Monáe . With its invigorating funk, the song is the strongest on the album, and that interplay between collaborators makes it feel like everyone is having fun and actually wants to be there, which isn’t always the case on major label team-ups like this.
The best songs here come from this throwback, groove-oriented approach. Mid-album highlight “Danceophobia” features spoken vocals from Lindsay Lohan . While it may be jarring to see her name in the credits, it adds an extra energy to the song that works. It’s less successful when they go for a sort of EDM-influenced pop on “Last Night in the City”, which features Kiesza on vocals. The singer’s sound is undoubtedly inspired by Duran Duran, but their take on it here feels robotic compared to the energy on the album’s more disco-leaning songs.
The other guest whose appearance many may find surprising is former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante , who contributes guitar to three tracks on the album. From the funk of “Only in Dreams” to the more sweeping arrangements on album closer “The Universe Alone”, his presence is welcome as the band builds to the kind of overwrought grandeur they’re known for achieving.
While the guest musicians all add their own flair to the album, the show is run by Le Bon and co., and they don’t slack. Some of the songs are too obvious, as the lyrics to Paper Gods are meant to be a scathing indictment of Hollywood but play too cheesy even for Duran Duran. For the most part, though, they nail it with more hopeful lines, such as a moment on highlight “Sunset Garage”, when Le Bon notes, “Whatever happens, we’re still here.” For a band that’s been committed to their craft for decades, it’s a fitting and reassuring message that they’re still reaching ahead. Many others would take a relaxed, safe approach to their 14th album, but Duran Duran innovate and push further. It may be flawed in parts, but Paper Gods is an ambitious and worthwhile effort that more than justifies its existence.
Essential Tracks: “Pressure Off”, “Danceophobia”, and “Sunset Garage”
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Album review: duran duran - paper gods.
James Flath
Paper Horses: Traditional Woodblock Prints of Gods from Northern China David Leffman Blacksmith Books: 2022 . A lthough entitled Paper Horses, this pictorial volume presents two distinct forms of Chinese popular prints: ‘paper horse’ (zhima) and ‘New Year pictures’ (nianhua). Both forms were ubiquitous in China before the early to mid-twentieth century, yet very few of these prints survived into the present, and those that did are poorly understood. In bringing a previously unknown collection to light, David Leffman provides a service to the field of Chinese popular print studies, while introducing the casual reader to the extraordinary qualities of Chinese popular symbolism and religious iconography.
Paper horses, to begin with, are simple pictures of gods. We still do not have a clear picture of how the paper horse industry operated in the early twentieth century. We cannot say with any real confidence where any paper horse came from or who made it, and we can only guess as to what it may have meant to the user. Part of the difficulty in accounting for these prints is that they were never meant to be kept. Usually monochrome and crudely printed on cheap paper, most were burned as a form of sacrifice to their titular god. Few written records exist because China’s literati traditionally excluded materials of this nature from the realm of ‘culture’ and had little interest in investigating or interpreting the vast world of popular print. To read the rest of this article, and to access all Mekong Review content, please subscribe . If you are an existing subscriber, please login to your account to continue reading.
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Issue #54 - August/September 2015 - CHVRCHES
Warner bros..
It’s easier than it should be to make fun of Duran Duran . Their 1980s heyday saw them churn out some of the greatest pop melodies of the era — “Hungry Like the Wolf” is an all-time great, no matter what anyone says. Then it all went wrong as they continued into the 1990s: releasing unmitigated crap on a remarkably consistent basis (apart from “Ordinary World;” “Ordinary World” is brilliant) and continuing to do so for a decade and a half.
Remarkably, they have never gone more than four years between albums. The sense is that they’re just churning them out without any idea of what else to do, like an unemployed man with a Twitter account and a shitload of memes.
At this stage, 34 years since the band’s eponymous debut album, they have become a photocopy of a photocopy and the truth is there is little on Paper Gods that sounds like Duran Duran. I’ll give them the lead single, “Pressure Off,” which features and is produced by Nile Rodgers, who was also responsible for 1986’s Notorious (their last good album?). Aided by Janelle Monáe’s vocals, it’s a lone successful endeavour in recapturing the “classic” Duran Duran sound.
The rest of the album, however, is utterly characterless: generic radio pop, such as “Face for Today,” or the kind of four-to-the-floor bangers any chancer could fart out, such as “Last Night in the City.” The plethora of guest stars — Lindsay Lohan and former Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante included — leave no imprint. Even Simon Le Bon doesn’t sound like Simon Le Bon but instead some session vocalist hired by a rubbish DJ.
Paper Gods isn’t an especially terrible album. It’s an album that already got made a hundred thousand times and is now on sale for $6 in your local supermarket. ( www.duranduran.com )
Author rating: 4 /10
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Makes me laugh when album reviewers like this clearly haven’t bothered to listen to the music they’re supposed to be reviewing. Clearly Sad Lucan (or whatever his name is) was too busy trying to get his head up his own tone deaf backside!
I wish I could disagree with this review. I’ve given it a few listens already and it’s so personality-free, so empty, that I can’t see needing to play it again. Too bad because their last album was end to end excellent. The reviewer clearly doesn’t know DD’s discography though if he thinks “Notorious” is their last good album. The Wedding Album, Astronaut and All You Need Is Now are all strong.
I think this and other reviews are written with too much assumption. I saw one review here about Simple Mind’s latest release citing them as a “one-hit-wonder”. That reviewer had not done their research to see they had more than one top 10 hit. This review of Duran Duran’s latest also appears to have no real research into the band’s releases since 1991. The band didn’t lack direction. As with ANY recording artist that has had more than a 20 year career, inspirations change and they are not going to hit the mark with the same audience year after year. There are some wonderful moments on each release. Some songs that are gems that today’s music machine refused to push. Why, because until the mid 1990’s Duran Duran were still signed to the dying EMI records. The label that broke them was broke and being mis-managed. The last thing EMI were going to do was promote them as Warner has done with 2015s Paper Gods. (This is the first Duran release under their new contract with Warner) The fact that they never went away and released albums every couple of years is a testament to the band’s creativity and commitment. If the reviewer is not a fan, then it’s hard to dive into 2 decades of releases that weren’t on the radio. But the fans bought up the music and recognized the strengths of the singles or potential singles. To dismiss the material as crap is short sighted and poor journalism in my opinion. This is a band that has sold over 100,000 records. I can think of a few low talent chart toppers that don’t write, play instruments and get good reviews they don’t deserve.
As for the new release. The reviewer assumes “like most of the public” that music is created at the push of a button on a computer. 98% of music on the charts was NOT created organically. Despite their use of synths and computer sequenced sounds, Duran has never been one to rely on technology to make music. This is a real band. The fact that they have recorded a new album that is dance able music shouldn’t be frowned upon. That’s what they do! That’s what they’ve always done. So why is the reviewer slamming them for doing so? Do people slam the Rolling Stones for releasing new music that has guitar based music with the same grooves and tempos that they did 50 years ago? I guess I’m just looking for reviews that are written by qualified music enthusiasts and not hacks! Oh and I went to pick up a copy of the exclusive CD at Target yesterday and all of the Target stores in a 40 mile radius of me were sold out!
I love this album, love every track! I’m listening to it on repeat in my car, and while I cook, it always puts a smile on my face! :) Love Duran Duran!
I would love to be a rveiewer for indie rveiew. I’be been rveiewing books since the year 2000. My background is 16 years of being a High School English teacher now retired from teaching although I still tutor and teach some weekend classes. Bachelor’s degree in English, Masters in Education, Paralegal Certificate, Trained in Hospice work. Favorite genres to rveiew: Historical Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Biography and Autobiography, anything to do with foreign affairs, nonfiction books. Only books I do not rveiew are horror, vampire and erotica. I would appreciate a reply at your earliest opportunity. An author, Joan Szechtman, connected me to your site. I am also on facebook under the name Viviane Crystal. Thanks so much for your time and consideration of this request. VC
Nov 18, 2022 Issue #70 - My Favorite Movie (Sharon Van Etten and Ezra Furman)
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- Record Label: Warner Bros.
- Release Date: Sep 11, 2015
- Critic Reviews
User Reviews
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Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critic Reviews
- Positive: 7 out of 14
- Mixed: 6 out of 14
- Negative: 1 out of 14
- Critic score
- Publication
- All this publication's reviews
- Read full review
- Mojo Aug 26, 2015 60 Paper Gods feels like a Duran Duran-shaped helium balloon, impressive, shiny, but oddly empty inside. [Oct 2015, p.96] All this publication's reviews
- Q Magazine Aug 26, 2015 60 Despite a few missteps her and there, it's good to have them back. [Oct 2015, p.109] All this publication's reviews
- Uncut Aug 26, 2015 60 While no reinvention, Paper Gods is both entertaining ad typically Duran-esque. [Oct 2015, p.75] All this publication's reviews
- Magnet Sep 22, 2015 30 Paper Gods is an exercise in shamelessly rehashing every tired, vaguely transgressive cliche that's defined Duran Duran's 30-plus-year career. [No. 124, p.55] All this publication's reviews
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Generally favorable reviews - based on 45 Ratings
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- sk75 Oct 26, 2015 9 "Paper Gods" is a great dance-pop album that sound modern and fresh, with an excellent set of songs, an excellent production and some very "Paper Gods" is a great dance-pop album that sound modern and fresh, with an excellent set of songs, an excellent production and some very special guests. Even after all these years, Duran Duran never missed their ambition to move forward and change their sound and style, to write new music and not sitting comfortably to their past glories. The result is challenging and intriguing with an album that is better than most of the big dance-pop names of the today music industry! If "Paper Gods" was an album by a young new group, critics would rave about it and it could have easily a place in the end of the years lists of 2015. So listen without prejudice and enjoy the ''guilty'' pleasures that DD can still offer us with their new release. My verdict 9/10. … Full Review »
- jeff2417 Sep 11, 2015 9 A great follow up to 80s smash hits from Seven and the Ragged Tiger, Rio, and more. 100x better than anything else they call pop nowadays. A great follow up to 80s smash hits from Seven and the Ragged Tiger, Rio, and more. 100x better than anything else they call pop nowadays. While not perfection, certain songs like "What are the Chances" make up for any shortcomings on other tracks. 80s greatness in their 60's? I'm in. 9/10. … Full Review »
- Neil_B Sep 11, 2015 9 I think largely the 'professional' critics haven't listened to many Duran albums. I have. Every one. Whereas All You Need Is Now was a homage I think largely the 'professional' critics haven't listened to many Duran albums. I have. Every one. Whereas All You Need Is Now was a homage to Rio; Paper Gods takes it's influence from the best tracks from all of their albums, some of which were not singles. There are many stand out tracks: Pressure Off leans towards the sound of Medazzaland's Big Bang Generation. What Are The Chances, which for me is one of the best tracks on the album, could easily be a track on Big Thing and The Universe Alone has the huge wall of sound that was present on The Wedding Album. 9/10 … Full Review »
Duran Duran
Paper gods review – 5 stars.
Duran Duran "Paper Gods"
Perennial new wave poster boys Duran Duran stay relevant splashing into today’s pop music backed by old reliable Chic’s Nile Rodgers plus a posse of collaborators from producer Mark Ronson to soul star Jannelle and former Chili Pepper John Frusciante. The overall effect is ‘80s nostalgia getting bumped up to present-day mash-up of post-new wave sounds and beat.
The original gang of Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, , and Roger Taylor are back for their 14th release and their first since 2011. Given the looming presence of Nile Rodgers as player and producer, funk-laced disco sets the tone for" Paper Gods."
David Bowie circa “Let’s Dance” and the band’s own “Notorious (c. 1986) are major reference points although it must be said that disco hysteria never left the scene having had its most recent resuscitation in the electro of The Strokes and The Killers. What’s new with Duran Duran this time around is plugging into EDM. Conceptually, it’s an iffy proposition until you listen to “Last Night In The City” in which EDM, streetbeat and ‘70s disco do a blistering re-connection.
The ballads “What Are The Chances?” and “The Universe Alone,” are just as enjoyable bearing the imprint of their 1992 hit, “Ordinary World.” These slow songs also reveal a mature perspective on life and love.
In the upbeat “Sunset Garage”, Simon Le Bon claims, “Whatever happens, we’re still here.” They’re really back high on ‘80s charisma and post-new wave dazzle.
Courtesy ABS/CBN News
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If Paper Gods isn't quite as strong throughout as 2010's back-to-basics All You Need Is Now, Kill Me With Silence and the title track have terrific choruses and Sunset Garage beautifully...
Paper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and Politics Goldie Taylor 3.53 271 ratings65 reviews The mayor of Atlanta and a washed-up reporter investigate a series of assassinations, and uncover a conspiracy that reaches into the heart of the city's political machine.
Paper Gods has a grand-old-bitch quality: On the title track, Simon Le Bon plays the bored lizard king complaining about shallow fashion zombies. But what makes this music fun is its youthful...
This current release "Paper Gods" not only deviates greatly from the sound that Duran Duran have defined and exclusively claimed as their own, but also lacks soul without any real catchy hit (although the band really tries without success despite direction and input by several producers).
She's good at status markers, like an inventory of Victoria's Birkin bags, but she can pile up so much descriptive detail it's distracting. A potentially explosive plot peopled with deliciously wicked characters gets bogged down in exposition and description. 0 Pub Date:Oct. 23, 2018 ISBN:978-1-250-19444-2 Page Count:304
"Paper Gods," the 14th Duran Duran album, and first since 2011, brims with the signature louche funk that made this group a paragon of early 1980s sleek excess. Simon Le Bon is still a...
Duran Duran keep putting forward the suggestion that this album somehow channels the spirit of Notorious, but Paper Gods contains nothing as sophisticated as A Matter Of Feeling, as direct as Hold Me (with its brilliant middle eight), as funky as So Misled or as moving as Winter Marches On.
Music Critic review of Paper Gods, the Sep 11, 2015 album release by Duran Duran. It's pretty interesting living in Birmingham. ... With the cover art for Paper Gods, Duran Duran cheekily revisit icons of their past: the smile of Rio, the cap of the "Chauffeur," girls on film, and a prowling tiger. Thirty years in, Duran Duran are comfortable ...
If Paper Gods isn't quite as strong throughout as 2010's back-to-basics All You Need Is Now, Kill Me With Silence and the title track have terrific choruses and Sunset Garage beautifully honours the band's survival. All this publication's reviews Read full review Mojo Aug 26, 2015 60
The thing is, Paper Gods works better because it has space for these sides of Duran Duran, moments where they seem like the coolest band to bear a synth and the dorkiest to ever chase a club trend.
On Paper Gods, the band sticks with a sound that isn't markedly different from where they were operating 35 years ago, but they also work with a group of guests (some more surprising than others) that makes them as relevant in today's pop landscape as at any point in the past two decades.
An image from Paper Horses. Paper Horses: Traditional Woodblock Prints of Gods from Northern China David Leffman Blacksmith Books: 2022. A lthough entitled Paper Horses, this pictorial volume presents two distinct forms of Chinese popular prints: 'paper horse' (zhima) and 'New Year pictures' (nianhua). Both forms were ubiquitous in China before the early to mid-twentieth century, yet ...
Paper Gods isn't an especially terrible album. It's an album that already got made a hundred thousand times and is now on sale for $6 in your local supermarket. ... This review of Duran Duran's latest also appears to have no real research into the band's releases since 1991. The band didn't lack direction.
Paper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and Politics Kindle Edition by Goldie Taylor (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 154 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle $11.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial
Paper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and Politics Paperback - June 29, 2021 by Goldie Taylor (Author) 140 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle $12.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover $31.81 54 Used from $1.46 4 New from $8.00 2 Collectible from $10.00 Paperback
If "Paper Gods" was an album by a young new group, critics would rave about it and it could have easily a place in the end of the years lists of 2015. So listen without prejudice and enjoy the ''guilty'' pleasures that DD can still offer us with their new release. My verdict 9/10. … Full Review »
However, I believe Paper Gods is a great and new avenue of exploration for the band. It has the new, contemporary pop-like feel that RCM tried to capture, and instead of failing like the previous electronic-based effort in 2007, it takes the roof off in regards to popularity among the youth crowd.
Given the looming presence of Nile Rodgers as player and producer, funk-laced disco sets the tone for" Paper Gods." David Bowie circa "Let's Dance" and the band's own "Notorious (c. 1986) are major reference points although it must be said that disco hysteria never left the scene having had its most recent resuscitation in the electro ...
We review Duran Duran's song, Paper Gods as part of our daily blog, Daily Duranie (dailyduranie.com)
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