duran duran day of release (delayed)

howdy pop pickers

indeed yes, i do know - or am aware, look you see - that this album did indeed come out a couple or so weeks prior to this being published. but, hey, delayed it was in getting a release, so delayed it has been in getting a mention on here. well, i think it was put off from release because of all that new plague stuff, or perhaps it was the recording itself that got halted. 

should this be something you should know, then by all means ask Duran Duran directly, for as the title of this post gives every indication, it's their new album, Future Past, on the go here. from what i can remember, though, and it is quite hazy, it was going to be a late 2020 release, then tour and that. which all happened in this year (2021) instead. 

for a quick, snap, get it over with in the third paragraph review, this record is astonishingly good. no, really, it's quite brilliant, and likely a strong contender for "album of the year". it is, if not already, about to be overshadowed by some "heavyweight" chart (and "streaming") releases, but save a prayer, savour this one whilst you can. 

my expectations for, or of, a new Duran Duran album weren't particularly high. at all. the last studio album from, what, six or so years ago, Paper Gods, was one of them when you are being polite you describe as "challenging" or "expectation subverting". yes, indeed, this translates to more user friendly terms such as "effectively unlistenable" and "sh!t". everything of the record said just go be good to yourselves, boys - rather just wheel out a lucrative "hits" tour every half a dozen years and licence every penny you can out of your impressive (prior) body of work. 

yet i still got excited, leaving that aside, when news came of a new Duran Duran thing. i elected to just pretend Paper Gods never existed, and just accepted that something like All You Need Is Now was the last record they gone done. so with some excitement i tuned in to the erratic Zoe Ball to hear the premiere of the new single, Invisible. and switched it off about 75% of the way in. just a bit too clunky and what not for me. 

due to this, i easily declined the offer off of Simon, Nick, John and the rest of the band to "pre-order" the new record off of their website, no mater how many tape versions or signed things they waved. yet, i did really, really cover for it. as in i was prepared to buy it, no matter how "challenging" it may turn out to be, just for the fantastic artwork. the second "proper" single (of sorts), Anniversary, came out, and then i kind of regretted not doing a "pre-order" as that tune is one of the best things what they have done, which is one hell of a formidable thing for them to have achieved 40 or so years down the road. 

provenance of my copy is the less than rock and roll, certainly not usually associated with new romantic retailer that is Morrisons. i happened to be there on the day of release, they had it at £10 in a standard form, which was 99p less than HMV, so done deal. absolutely no, going on the picture what you can see, i haven't bought that Coldplay album, for i already have a record called Music Of The Spheres, thanks. quite sure the copy of Let It Be i have will do, but some temptation in that 1983 "yearbook" off of them what do Now, but just think i will get the 1984 one, cheers. 

oh, right, i suppose by now i should "review", or comment, on the record. concerns were there at the start with the first single, Invisible, being the first track. not sure why artists do this, for a general rule which is seldom wrong is that if the first track on a record also happens to have been the first single, usually the album is going to be rubbish. many examples exist, but U2's over-hyped and rushed Pop springs to mind. also, in fairness, Bowie's Let's Dance, which outside of the three (3) singles isn't really up to scratch. 

yes, i must confess, Invisible here sounds somewhat (fractionally) better than when they played it to death on the radio. it's still far too clunky and chunky, with it seeming to be all that they can think of in regards of sounds being thrown at it. hearing it properly, on CD, means that one can get the lyrics all the more better, and as John Taylor intimated, it goes quite soul searching. 

where, mindful of the rule of the first song, it went after that was the tell. and, happily, it went somewhere very good indeed. a fear was that track two, All of You, would go downhill fast, setting a poor tone for the rest of the record. thankfully, that one is excellent, as is the next one and indeed Anniversary as the fourth one gives it a hell of a start. 

an ever so slight wobble comes in the form of the titular track, Future Past. good lyrically, but sound wise it kind of aches to be a ballad, yet does wobble, neo-classical Duran sound. no way would i say it's a bad song, but no, not the greatest on the record (that remains Anniversary). it immediately picks up from where the first four got put on pause, mind, and Beautiful Lies is boss. this is one of the tunes produced by Giorgio Moroder, and that was a very shrewd move, getting him in. 

no, i am not really going to go (vaguely) track by track, but just a quick pause to reflect on Wing. ahem. this feels and sounds like a James Bond theme what we never got and really should have.  a lovely, fair, correct, right and proper thing for someone to go and do would be to overdub this over the credits when they had a really, really bad theme on a Bond film. of course, i am thinking specifically Spectre. 

some alarm bells sounded, prior to me playing the record, when i saw how many times "feat", as in featuring other artists, came in to the mix. even if one was the vastly talented Mike Garson. it turns out they are not at all intrusive, and have a jolly good impact. bravo too, also, to that lad off of Blur, is it Graham Coxon, what appears to be now a "Duran". if this is permanent, then this could well be the best bit of band transfer business since Mani joined Primal Scream. 

do i have any (lingering) regrets about not going off to see them live, since i appear to be interesting in gigs as i adapt to my adopted living in exile, mid life crisis thing? not really. going on the bits i saw on the tele, Nick kind of lurks in the back looking creepy. Simon appears to believe that shouting the songs works a lot better than singing them (not sold), and John Taylor seems to have his hair thinning where i do, so i can update my social media / dating profiles that i look a bit like him. but north of £70 a ticket, plus travel and hotel, i am happy to have the CD on the stereo, thanks. 

this record, Future Past, is a stayer, then. in no way is this a disposable, here for the moment record. as classically stylish and substance revealing as any great Duran Duran record has ever been. like Rio, or my personal favourite Medazzaland, i can see this record getting played frequently, depending on just or exactly how many years or what have you i get to go to. 

regrettably, to go back to an earlier point, this album is about to be overshadowed. at the time this gets published on my blog, that Ed Sheridan (or whatever) will have put out his new whatever it is he does, exactly, and that will mysteriously get streamed into history. next is Adele, and then of course there is the small matter of some stuff what Abba found in a cupboard and have presented as a new album. well, whatever. i suspect none of them shall dislodge Duranx2 off of my stereo. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!