Duran Duran – Perfect Day (Acoustic Version)
Duran Duran – White Lines (Oakland Funk Mix)
Duran Duran – Needle And the Damage Done
Before I begin, I have to apologize for a mistake made in my last posting. Q wasn’t the magazine that gave Def Leppard’s Yeah! a one star rating – it was NME.
I must’ve just thought it was Q Magazine because everytime I’ve had the misfortune of reading that ratshit mag I’ve been amazed by the shit they decide to print. For example, a few months ago they made a “50 Worst Albums Of All Time” list, and with it went any credibility they ever had.
First off, they should’ve called this list “The 50 Worst high-profile albums of All Time” because as anyone who has ever had to review CDs for a college newspaper will tell you, there are literally HUNDREDS of shitty CDs released by shit bands that never get any promotion or radio airplay, but still manage to end up in your inbox. I ended up hearing what I thought the worst album of all time was when I was working there -an EP by a lame ass rap-rock band named Marz which featured the classy tune “I need a bitch I can fuck in the mud.”
Yeah man, chicks totally dig it when you talk like that. You’re totally gonna score tonight.
So, not even taking into account all those shitty albums I had to wade through during my early years as a music critic, Q’s list still unacceptable. Great albums by Beck, Oasis and Fisherspooner populate the list, as do perfectly mediocre albums by Alanis Morisette, Lauryn Hill and The Cranberries. Also, including William Shatner’s The Transformed Man is just too damn easy.
Most insulting though was their number one pick for the worst album of all-time: Duran Duran’s 1993 cover album Thank You. Granted, it ain’t exactly art and some of the tracks (such as their unfortunate cover of Public Enemy’s ‘911 Is A Joke’) are awful, but Thank You does have two songs that are simply amazing – and that fact alone should remove it from any ‘worst of all time list’. Their cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’ is almost as beautiful and touching as the original, and their rousing take on Grandmaster Mel’s ‘White Lines’ is one of the best dance songs of the early 90s – and it was even the basis for one of the funniest scenes in Shaun Of The Dead!
Thank You may not be a great album by any means, but I can think of a lot of bands and artists that have made worse…much, much worse. How about Limp Bizkit, Korn, Naomi Campbell, David Bowie, T.A.T.U, Coldplay, Roger Waters, Alice Deejay, STP, The Beach Boys, Metallica, The Beta Band, Black Sabbath, Butthole Surfers, Cheap Trick, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Ramones, Fear, Gary Numan, Girls Against Boys, INXS, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Moby, Candlebox, Sponge, Public Enemy, Run DMC, Tori Amos, U2, Underworld, The Who and Weezer?
Don’t get me wrong, I love most of the artists on that list, but even the most die-hard Bowie fans have to admit that his late-80s stuff was pure drivel, and even the best bands (The Ramones, Run DMC, U2) have some stinkers in their repertoire. There’s also crap vanity projects like Tori Amos’ Strange Little Girls (also a cover album) that really defy all logic and good taste, as well as albums by people who have no business being in a recording studio (Naomi Campbell, David Hasslehoff, Don Johnson…the list goes on and on.) And I can’t forget Starship’s Knee Deep In The Hoopla, which features the painfully bad ‘We Built This City,’ a song I declared to be the worst song of all time years before VH1 and Blender decided the same thing. I have written proof too!
But don’t let my misguided rant convince you, let the tunes do the talking. Two of the above Duran Duran songs are remixes or alternate versions of tracks that originally appeared on Thank You. My favorite is the acoustic version of ‘Perfect Day’, but any version of ‘White Lines’ should be worth your attention as well. I’ve also included their surprisngly emotional and powerful take on Neil Young’s ‘Needle And The Damage Done’ which was the B-Side to ‘Perfect Day’. All of these tracks were taken of off Duran Duran’s ludicrously excessive 14-disc singles box set, before then they were only available on vinyl 12′ singles. Unlike me, you’re probably quite sane and don’t own either, so enjoy.