{"id":1108,"date":"2016-07-20T15:13:11","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T23:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/?p=1108"},"modified":"2023-03-05T08:20:56","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T16:20:56","slug":"duran-duran-ordinary-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/duran-duran-ordinary-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Duranalysis: Ordinary World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOrdinary World\u201d was the first single released off of Duran Duran\u2019s 1992 self-titled album, which, because Duran Duran already\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0a self-titled album, is more often known as\u00a0The Wedding Album<\/em>. One self-titled album per band is plenty, even for Duran Duran.\u00a0Here\u2019s a splendid quote from Nick<\/a>\u00a0on the subject: \u201cYou know, it is NOT really called\u00a0The Wedding Album<\/em>, even though it\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0called\u00a0The Wedding Album<\/em>\u201d. Thank you, Nick, that cleared the matter right up. Nick often speaks in Zen k\u014dans peppered with bon mots, like a Vivienne Westwood-garbed Buddhist monk after a few glasses of champagne. Nick is, as always, the greatest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video, which was nominated for an MTV VMA in 1993 for Best Cinematography, was directed by artist\u00a0Nick Egan<\/a>, who also collaborated with the band on the videos for \u201cWhite Lines\u201d, \u201cPerfect Day\u201d, \u201cAll You Need Is Now\u201d, and the recent \u201cPressure Off<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s a lovely video, filled with beautifully composed visuals; the only reason it\u2019s taken me five years to get around to this Duranalysis is because it has only the barest bones of a narrative driving it. Here\u2019s the storyline: A bride wanders around a sun-drenched garden while the band members look moody and beautiful in elegant suits. That\u2019s pretty much it. That doesn\u2019t give me all that much to Duranalyze, compared to, say,\u00a0John is set upon by Caribbean zombies, who start tearing his clothes off<\/em><\/a>, or\u00a0Post-apocalyptic mutants capture the band members and force them to submit to various homoerotic bondage scenarios<\/em><\/a>, or\u00a0Simon blows stuff up while Andy flat-out murders Nick on the Eiffel Tower<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>Nevertheless, it\u2019s an awfully nice video. Let\u2019s see what I can do with it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bride and groom pose for photos in Pasadena\u2019s Huntington Gardens, while the band members mill about the grounds. It\u2019s a wedding reception, plainly. The bride is stunning; the groom is splendidly lanky and geeky, flashing a thoroughly charming braces-laden smile. If I were at this wedding reception, I\u2019d gravitate toward him. He looks like fun.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Well, that\u2019s one hell of a dress. The bride is wearing a strapless white satin gown, gathered in front with a preposterous meter-wide bow across the bosom, paired with an extraordinarily odd chapeau with doodads dangling from the brim. Of the dress, no less reputable a source than Paris Vogue<\/em> once boldly proclaimed<\/a> that \u201cthe bride embodies elegant Nineties bridal fashion.\u201d I\u2019ll take your word for it, Paris Vogue<\/em>. Director Nick Egan claims<\/a> he was inspired by a bow-laden Armani dress, adding, \u201cThe stylist who made the wedding dress has had more requests to re-create that dress than anything else she has ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Egan goes on to say he took inspiration for the bride\u2019s strange headwear from Fellini\u2019s Juliette of the Spirits,<\/em> \u201c\u2026and not, as some surmised, from a lampshade.\u201d Per Egan, the whole look of the video was inspired by Fellini, which makes sense; most of the time, the Durans seem to be living inside their own dazzlingly surreal Fellini film. Juliette of the Spirits<\/em> features a wide variety of striking hats, all of which could easily double as lampshades.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Juliette<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The identity of the model playing the bride remains a mystery.\u00a0Vague internet chatter<\/a>\u00a0gives her name as Virginia Anne Douglas, though I\u2019ve found no reliable source to corroborate that. Someone once inquired about her identity through\u00a0the \u201cAsk Katy\u201d feature on Duran Duran\u2019s official website<\/a>\u00a0and received this verbatim reply: \u201cTHE BAND SAYS THEY ONLY REMEMBER THAT SHE WAS AN LOS ANGELES BASED MODEL AND THEY COULDN\u2019T RECALL HER NAME. BUT THEY LOVED THE BOW ON HER DRESS!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Okay, guys? Nick, John, Simon? I\u2019m glad you loved the bow on her dress. That\u2019s great. You\u2019ve made a lot of videos; you\u2019ve gone through a lot of models. I get it. I know you\u2019re all extremely busy, and you can\u2019t possibly be expected to remember the names of everyone who crosses your paths, but this is getting to be a disturbing trend.\u00a0Remember how you couldn\u2019t come up with the name of Marla Kay<\/a>, the poor beleaguered model who starred in the \u201cAll She Wants Is\u201d video, even though she\u2019d undergone the grueling, elaborate, weeks-long process of shooting your video in stop motion one painstaking frame at a time? Maybe try a little harder to remember the names of the models who star in your videos, okay? Please? It\u2019s a small thing, but it\u2019d go a long way toward making you seem less like caddish wastrels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bride languidly strolls through the gardens, encountering various suit-clad Durans at strategic intervals. Ah, there\u2019s Warren. Here\u2019s the Wedding Album<\/em>-era Duran lineup: Simon, John, Nick, Warren. In other words, it\u2019s minus Andy, minus Roger, even minus Sterling Campbell, who joined the band on drums for the ill-fated Liberty<\/em> album and drifted away shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The sun-drenched garden footage is intercut with some nice performance footage of the band, which is impeccably shot with lighting that flickers dramatically from overexposure to pitch darkness, desaturating the colors in patches. It\u2019s a cool effect.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Simon, you\u2019re looking especially lovely in this video, what with your artfully shaggy hair and your visible eyeliner and your extra-soulful expressions. \u201cOrdinary World\u201d is part of what Simon calls his \u201ctrilogy of ghost songs<\/a>\u201d (\u201cDo You Believe In Shame?\u201d and \u201cOut Of My Mind\u201d round out the list), written while mourning the death of his close friend Dave Miles.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

According to Duran Duran\u2019s official website<\/a>, Simon is fond of singing his own very special version of the lyrics:\u00a0\u201cAnd I don\u2019t mind when you\u2019re away, there\u2019s a sordid-looking girl I can take from behind\u2026\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Catchy, right? You\u2019ll have that stuck in your head for the rest of the day, and it\u2019ll pop into your brain at sporadic intervals whenever you listen to the song from now until the end of time. No need to thank me.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

While the bride wanders around the garden, the performance footage is projected onto screens interspersed throughout the grounds. No matter where she goes, she can\u2019t escape the Durans. No one<\/em> escapes the Durans.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Also projected on the screens are some of artist Dean Chamberlain\u2019s light paintings, in which long film exposures and moving light sources are combined to create brilliantly colored glowing effects. I dig Chamberlain\u2019s work (he directed the videos for the aforementioned \u201cAll She Wants Is\u201d and Arcadia\u2019s \u201cMissing\u201d), and I\u2019m not just saying that because he once left\u00a0a very entertaining and informative comment<\/a>\u00a0on this blog.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For someone at a wedding, John looks borderline funereal. Exquisitely lovely, sure, but funereal. Not that John ever really looks like he\u2019s having a blast, exactly, but this era of Duran appears to have been rough on him. In the whole stretch of videos from \u201cDo You Believe In Shame?\u201d through \u201cPerfect Day\u201d, right up to the point where he left the band in 1997, he looks exhausted and burdened more often than not.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I\u2019m not going to read too much into it. Part of it\u2019s just his inherent nature. John Taylor will never be a merry sprite.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Speaking of sprites\u2026 Hi, Nick! Nick looks customarily stylish and elegant in a shiny silver suit over a dark turtleneck. I\u2019d never refer to Nick as \u201cmerry\u201d\u2014a good ninety percent of the time, Nick looks positively murderous, like he\u2019s trying to figure out if it\u2019s possible to kill someone with a single sultry glower\u2014but he always gives the impression of being supremely satisfied with the way he\u2019s bent the world to his own exacting specifications.\u00a0There\u2019s a passage in John\u2019s memoir\u00a0where he describes Nick as \u201csomeone entirely settled at the center of his own universe\u201d, which is a perfectly lovely and apt way of putting it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the gardens, the bride comes across Nick as he\u2019s taking photographs of handsome tuxedo-clad wedding guests. He pauses long enough to adjust the bride\u2019s ridiculous bow, then grins and does a happy little shoulder shimmy as she sails along the path, as though exposure to her preposterous and impenetrable couture gown has made him briefly giddy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Durans stride around the gardens together, all in formation. They\u2019re still in their suits, though they\u2019re barefoot now. Huh. What\u2019s going on with the bare feet?\u00a0 It seems like it\u2019s probably an obvious reference to someth\u2026 aw, crap, it\u2019s a nod to\u00a0Abbey Road<\/em>, isn\u2019t it? They\u2019re doing the Beatles, except apparently they all wanted to be Paul.\u00a0Nick\u00a0did<\/em>\u00a0once describe<\/a>\u00a0the orchestration on \u201cOrdinary World\u201d as being \u201cslightly Beatle-esque\u201d, so I\u2019m betting this is their (admittedly subtle) nod to that. The Beatles comparisons were kind of cutely obnoxious back in their Fab Five golden heyday, back when they were a bunch of very young twentysomethings with tons of screaming fans and more money and fame than they could handle, but they\u2019re tougher to pull off here, in 1992, when they\u2019re all grown adults with those days of extreme, all-encompassing fame more than half a decade behind them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I could be reading the situation entirely wrong. Maybe the bare feet are symbolic of freedom (freedom from that aforementioned crazy level of fame?). Maybe their fancy shoes hurt after a long day of filming. Maybe they just wanted to stroll around barefoot for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One final note on this video: Apparently some scenes were cut featuring a wedding band made up of a quartet of \u201colder, sophisticated gentlemen\u201d, who were supposed to represent a futuristic version of the band.\u00a0As Nick Egan put it<\/a>, \u201cI don\u2019t think the idea of the band members ending up playing at weddings was considered a successful end for Duran Duran, so it was cut.\u201d No. No matter where the band\u2019s future leads them, they\u2019re never going to end up as a wedding band, cranking out endless versions of \u201cHungry Like the Wolf\u201d at an endless series of receptions. Their world\u2019s too extraordinary for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue\u2026 \u201cOrdinary World\u201d was the first single released off of Duran Duran\u2019s 1992 self-titled album, which, because Duran Duran already\u00a0had\u00a0a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duran-duran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}