I remember when I first heard snippets from the original 9-track album – I don’t think anything I heard completely blew me away. Some things made me want more, other songs made me think “hmm…well, maybe the next one will be better!” Of course, I didn’t post much of that, because I like living, and because I hadn’t heard the whole song. It’s a good thing I didn’t post much of it – because oddly enough, the songs I thought I’d love ended up being ones that while I still like, aren’t necessarily my favorites; and vice-versa.
This time around, there is one song in particular that I am interested in listening to in it’s entirety. Not because I love it, but because I was shocked at how much I didn’t love it. Naturally I’m not saying which one yet. One other thing that I am really disappointed about are the interludes and the remixes of All You Need Is Now that are being included on the deluxe version. It’s not that I don’t think the interludes are worthy of being recorded and included – it’s that in my opinion, they should have gone on their own separate EP. (oh how I miss the days of the 12″ remix single…..) I don’t think they quite belong on the CD, but that’s just my own quirky opinion. I guess I should be thankful that Duran Duran is giving us everything on one album.
Oh wait. They aren’t. 😀 I know they felt they were doing this release as intelligently as possible. It’s been pointed out to me that they really are learning the way here – it’s a whole new world to release an album in 2011, and I get that. Learning how to market effectively takes quite a curve. My entire problem with this…process…so to speak, is that it seems utterly ridiculous to have SO many different versions of the album coming out. Not only do the versions vary by where you reside in the world, but they also vary by retailer (at least here in the states, if not elsewhere). I’ve complained about this previously, and Duran Duran so graciously has responded to the questions by trying to clarify – but the real problem is that there are just too many different versions to keep track of.
That said, I have to wonder if this hasn’t really always been the case to some extent. Back in the days of vinyl, I recall hunting high and low for the “Harvest” versions of some albums, or the Japanese release of others. I can remember looking in numerous record stores for Duran Goes Dutch, or countless other things by Duran Duran that may not have even been official releases, but I still wanted them for my collection. Half the fun in going to a vinyl store these days is when I find a copy of something that I’ve been looking for over the past 25 years. There are even some Duran Duran albums out there that I didn’t even know existed until rather recently – the bliss of ignorance, I suppose. Perhaps the only real difference between then and now is that nowadays, we have the tools available to us to know what other countries are actually getting, and what is included on their versions. Back in the 80’s and even the 90’s, it was much harder to tell. Ignorance is bliss once again.
I suppose that fans could argue that now, it’s even more difficult to keep track because some retailers want their own exclusive versions of the album – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. They have to have some way of competing with Amazon and iTunes, and this is the way to do it. If Best Buy has a different version of the album than everyone else – even if it only includes one or two different songs on it, there’s a reasonable assurance that fans are going to want to buy that version, therefore guaranteeing sales. In this day and age, where physical CD shelf space is shrinking by the day in stores – Duran Duran is going to do whatever it takes to get their product into that store. I can’t blame them. I still think though that fans owe it to themselves to really think back to the day when we didn’t know ANYTHING. We had no access to information telling us where certain versions were going to be until way after the fact and someone told someone else. The bottom line is that it’s still up to each and every one of us to make our own choice as to what to buy. The band is not holding a gun to our heads, much as we might like to characterize them as “forcing us” to love them, and once again – there is NO PRIZE for who has the most at the end. John Taylor still isn’t going to marry any of us. 😉
Oh, neither are Roger, Nick or Simon. 😀
-R
