The wedding album

The compositions on the album are presented in quite different musical styles, but at the same time they have a typical sound for pop music of the early 1990s - from the dance ( house ), with which the group has already experimented in the albums Big Thing (1988) and Liberty ( 1990), before R'n'B , alternative rock , ethereal wave pop rock and Latin American music , whose influence can be heard in the song “Breath After Breath” . At the initiative of Warren Cuccurullo, a Brazilian musician, Milton Nascimento, was invited to the group to work on it.

Record

The recording of the album began in the first half of 1991, shortly after the departure of drummer Stirling Campbell (he later began playing with Cindy Lauper and David Bowie ) and was completed by the end of 1992 before the upcoming release on Capitol Records in the USA. Frank Zappa and Lou Reed took part in the post-production of the album.

Album release

In the first half of the 1990s, the record industry (especially Capitol Records in the USA) referred to Duran Duran as a collective that had exhausted itself in the mid-1980s when the albums Notorious (1986), Big Thing (1988) and Liberty (1990) They didn’t receive the previous publicity and had very poor sales levels and positions on the charts. In this regard, the new management of the group - the company Left Bank - was greatly disappointed that representatives of large record companies were pulling with the release of the new release of the group.

Later in an interview with HitQuarters, the music manager, Tommy Manzi , said the reaction was due to the fact that record labels were not interested in reincarnating the popularity of old artists. Their interest was focused on the promotion of new pop artists, rather than on the obsolete group. In addition, they did not take seriously Left Bank, which tried to make again popular not only Duran Duran , but also a number of other artists who have now sunk into oblivion.

But, contrary to fear, the album was released on February 23, 1993 and was a huge commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching multi-platinum status in the USA and Canada, rising to 4th place in the UK and to 7th in the USA. Singles such as Ordinary World and Come Undone quickly became hits, proving to critics who had long written off Duran Duran that the band was more than just a teenage pop group from the 1980s.

1. “ Too Much Information ” - 4:56
2. Ordinary World - 5:39
3. Love Voodoo - 4:58
4. Drowning Man - 5:15
5. "Shotgun" (instrumental composition) - 0:54
6. Come Undone - 4:38
7. “Breath After Breath” (duet with Milton Nascimento ) - 4:58
8. UMF - 5:33
9. Femme Fatale (cover version of The Velvet Underground ) - 4:21
10. None of the Above - 5:19
11. The Shelter 4:25
12. “To Whom it May Concern” - 4:24
13. Sin of the City 7:14

Duran Duran

• Simon Le Bon - vocals, backing vocals and lyrics
• Nick Rhodes - Keyboard, Bass ( “ Come Undone ” )
• John Taylor - Bass
• Warren Cuccurillo - Guitar, Acoustic Guitar ( Ordinary World )

Session Musicians

• Milton Nascimento - vocals ( "Breath After Breath" )
• Lamia backing vocals ( Love Voodoo )
• Tessa Niles - backing vocals ( " Come Undone " )
• Carren Hendricks and Jack Merigg - vocals samples ( "Drowning Man" )
• John Jones - keyboards
• Dee Long - keyboards ( "Shelter" )
• Steve Ferrone - drums ( "Too Much Information" and " Ordinary World " ) and percussion ( "Femme Fatale" )
• Winnie Collute - Percussion ( "Breath After Breath" )
• Fergus Gerard - drums
• Bosco - Percussion ( "Breath After Breath" )