Duran Duran
Big Thing

THE REVIEW

Who among us doesn't have skeletons in the closet? Musically speaking, I think many of us do, and I can already see you hiding this or that record, saying, "It's true, I have it, but because it was cheap," or "it's not mine, it's my sister's," or even "it was a gift, I've never listened to it."
Let's admit it: it's hard to look ourselves in the mirror. Here we're talking about music, therefore about tastes, moods, desires, and even about trivial and debatable things not to be taken too seriously. Always and in any case.

Those like me, who grew up in the eighties, had to endure and deal with that craze called Duran Duran. If up to "Rio" the phenomenon was still quite limited, and in the end (okay, very deep down), they had done something good, from the subsequent "Seven and The Ragged Tiger" fashion and trends inevitably took over, resulting in the usual decline (assuming it could decline) of the albums to come. In contrast, however, with so much musical depression, there was, inversely proportional, a blatant commercial success. Strike while the iron is hot, and so just to suck out the last drop, they set up, in the glittering eighties, two side projects, Arcadia and Power Station. It's more than enough to be hated by the entire male sex, which, as we know, since its inception pursues mainly (if not exclusively) two things (and don't deny it): women and money. And for at least three, four years, they revel in it beautifully. Then, like all cultural phenomena, but not only, the decline comes, and it turns out they don't even call you for the village feast.
When the three survivors record "Big Thing" in 1988, they are practically at the end of their boy-band adventure. Who could be interested in such a band? Neither the young girls, nor the critics.
In fact, the album is a planetary flop.
Now, let's set aside all prejudices for a moment and pretend that the Duran Duran are not the ones playing and singing on this record. It's hard, I know, many of you get hives just by pronouncing the name, but let's try.
The saying that clothes don't make the man unfortunately often fits perfectly, and this time is no exception.
Songs like "Palomino," "Do You Believe In Shame?", "Land," and "The Edge Of America" are remarkably mature and remarkably pop (in the good sense of the term) that if another band played them, the response would have been quite different. The critics exact their revenge because Duran Duran are always Duran Duran, and they must pay. To the pyre! To the pyre!
No upheavals, mind you, but the record spins beautifully, surpassing all the boy-bands that came after.
After this flop, our guys practically disappeared from the scene for about fifteen years; theoretically, they would try in every way to be taken seriously, even covering the Velvet Underground and even thinking of changing their name, but there's nothing to be done: they are and always will be Duran Duran.

What should I do, put the skeleton back in the closet?