Review Summary: Despite trying a bit too hard to fit with current trends, Duran Duran builds on its past to deliver a genuinely enjoyable pop record.
It’s easy for a band that has been together for decades to lose its way. Times change, and refusing to adapt to trends can prevent a band from being commercially viable, while a drastic shifting in sound can alienate longtime fans.
What’s unique about Duran Duran’s present situation is that the new wave dance-pop they perfected on
Rio and their early singles has never fully left the mainstream. Plenty of pop music today clearly shows the influence of "Hungry Like the Wolf" or "Ordinary World". Despite this, Duran Duran have lately had difficulty melding their signature synths with modern trends. 2007’s
Red Carpet Massacre featured guest vocals from Justin Timberlake and Timbaland’s radio-friendly electronic production, to passable results (it was certainly better than
Thank You or
Astronaut, if anybody even remembers either). 2011’s
All You Need Is Now felt like a bit of a retreat, deliberately reaching safely backwards to the band’s 80s roots.
Paper Gods finds Duran Duran pulling out all the stops to make a “relevant” pop album, and it works in spite of itself. The English quartet (working with the same “classic” lineup that reunited in 2001) surround themselves with five producers and a dozen credited guest performers to create an ambitious and surprisingly enjoyable record. The cover art, a collage of references to the band’s previous albums and iconic music videos, creates a misleading impression that the band is only looking to its past. After fourteen albums and thirty-five years of performing together, Duran Duran have plenty of nostalgia to bank on. So, it’s laudable that they spend the duration of
Paper Gods building on their old sound instead of merely revisiting it.
The seven-minute opening title track is one of Duran Duran’s most impressive soundscapes, building from murmuring vocals into a booming, politically-charged anthem. Perhaps by accident, its lyrics are prescient, as Simon Le Bon likens the artificiality of the appearance-based lifestyles of professional entertainers with the shallowness of empty political establishment. “The fools in town are ruling now” over the easily-triggered who are “bleeding from paper cuts” while “the total human race became a basket case”. Maybe recent headlines are causing me to read too much into the lyrics, but it’s a bit eerie how the song foresees “Paper gods falling down/Paper world just falling down” a full year before even Brexit seemed like a possibility.
If a political message was intended here, it doesn’t really surface elsewhere. The album that follows incorporates the myriad of guest performers (John Frusciante even shows up for three quick guitar solos) into songs about dancing, partying, and romance. The two lead singles embody Duran Duran’s approach, namely, trying desperately to combat the image of a group of dudes in their late 50s chanting about going out on the town. The chief strategy is to employ young female vocals in the songs' flashiest moments.
“Last Night in the City” illustrates the inherent danger of this approach, as Kiesza’s guest vocals feel a bit forced and fail to redeem a tired performance by the band. The lyrics, meanwhile, are so bland that they could have been assembled in Duran Duran’s collective sleep. “Pressure Off”, on the other hand, manages to capture a sense of late-night euphoria quite effectively thanks to a nifty hook and chorus that creates a coherent soundscape for contributions from Janelle Monáe and Nile Rodgers.
Dance music remains a key focus in the album tracks. “Danceophobia” is surprisingly not-cringe inducing for an attempt at club music by an aged band that features a robotic monologue by Lindsay Lohan and lyrics like “Time to boogie, yeah!” Elsewhere, “Change the Skyline” delivers a terrific electronic groove, and Jonas Bjerre’s vocals harmonize well with Simon Le Bon’s.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best songs are the ones with the fewest guest contributions. As the best tracks “You Kill Me With Silence” and “What Are the Chances?” demonstrate, Duran Duran still know how to write one hell of a chorus and Simon Le Bon can still be a powerful lead singer. “Sunset Garage” has a breezy and optimistic feel (even if the used CD I got off Ebay turns its final minute into garbled noise). “Face for Today” and “Butterfly Girl” are also fine pop songs even as the latter, again, outsources much of the singing to young female vocalists. On the back-end of the album, the airy climactic duo “Only in Dreams” and “The Universe Alone” bring
Paper Gods to a soothing conclusion. On these songs, Duran Duran feel relaxed and self-assured, like the band is content to be itself rather than trying to mimic everyone else.
You get the refreshing feeling on
Paper Gods that Duran Duran are trying to do far more than create an excuse to tour - sure, memories of their early singles are still going to draw most of their crowds and are probably responsible for
Paper Gods’ brief appearance on the Billboard charts -, but multiple listens slowly reveals how much effort went into creating a cohesive and multifaceted listening experience. Aside from a few bungled attempts at trying too hard to fit with current pop music trends (most notably “Last Night in the City”) and an overabundance of guest stars and producers,
Paper Gods is one of Duran Duran’s strongest albums and most successful attempts at embodying their own sound.
