Rio is a beautiful piece of synthpop perfection, with each song intricately written. There’s a reason Rio’s made plenty of ‘top albums of the 1980s’ lists and that’s simply because it’s a good album. So often that area’s just relegated to country/western but nope, here’s a ridiculous synthpop masterpiece that namechecks the Rio Grande River. The lyrics are a perfect fit for the moment, only falling apart if I’m also just so happy to see a synthpop song dealing with the American Southwest. Do the lyrics make sense? Not entirely! But again, it doesn’t matter. From those opening synths to the pounding guitars, it’s an amazing opening that just drops you right into pop perfection. There’s no weak moments, there aren’t any obvious faults, it’s just a bright, beautiful poppy with an amazing sax riff near the end. “Rio” is such a beautifully composed song. Those moments where le Bon sings the phrase “Sing Blue Silver” are downright transcendent, a musical oddity that somehow sets itself apart from the other songs but fits the tone of the album perfectly.Īt least for me, the true highlight of the album is the title track. The song is haunting, le Bon’s vocals flitting over a minimal score, the synth dropping in like raindrops before swapping to a flowing, lilty overplay, bringing so much atmospheric power to the piece. “The Chauffeur” pushes five minutes and yet sounds shorter and longer at the same time. And yet, they don’t feel like they’re over four minutes. A good number of the songs on the album are over four minutes, eschewing the traditional pop radio time constraints. #Duran duran hungry like the wolf lyrics full#Rio is an album full of amazingly well-crafted and well-produced songs that are actually quite long. Duran Duran knows it sounds silly, why else would they do this? This is a beautifully silly song that they play 100% straight and that makes it all the better. What on Earth does “I smell like I sound” even mean to begin with? The bit before the final chorus, where Simon le Bon whispers “hungry like the wolf” over the sound of heavy breathing is also hilariously silly–and that’s the point. “Hungry Like the Wolf” is an amazing song, three minutes of pop perfection with an amazing vocal line, wonderful backing vocals, a beautiful thirty seconds in the final chorus, and the dumbest lyrics known to man. The biggest candidate for Duran Duran’s well-polished fun is “Hungry Like the Wolf”, a song that’s equally iconic and equally stupid. “My Own Way” ends with Simon le Bon shouting phrases over a pulsing guitar melody, in an endearing yet slightly dumb manner. Songs on Rio are willing to push the envelope, delving into something that’s goofy yet spectacularly well-made. This is to be expected–Duran Duran took the band’s name from a Barbarella character, for crying out loud, this is a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It shows just how on-point Duran Duran was that they could release an album that helped to serve as a cornerstone of the decade when the decade had just started. Rio is a quintessentially 1980s album, an album that helps to define a decade, despite it’s release early in the decade. What’s the most seminal, classic, 1980s pop song you can think of? What’s the song that perfectly encapsulates the musical trends and styles of the decade? This is a question that will get a multitude of answers from people, but at least a fair number of people would answer “Hungry Like the Wolf”, by Duran Duran from the band’s 1982 album Rio.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |