Thank you for clicking on this link that'll take you back to the main Duran Duran page ... No Thank You Overall Album Score: 5.1 out of 10 Hmm... The All-Music Guide gave Liberty one star and I screamed bloody murder. Seeing that they also gave Thank You one star, I basically expected to scream bloody murder again. But this time, I actually agree with them! Thank You is nothing but a bunch of graceless covers of popular old songs! AND MAN!!! Why on earth did they have to cover such popular and well-loved songs? Especially if you're going to butcher them, isn't that just fishing for enemies??? They cover EVERYTHING in here, practically, seemingly at a random consistency. They start off with an old school rap song by Grandmaster Flash. And then they go and do a STUPID cover of a Sly and the Family Stone song. And then *whoops* it's a Lou Reed Glam-rock song! Next, they take the completely logical route and cover Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives." THEN they do a Bob Dylan country-rock song. Hmm Hmm ... Next it's a Public Enemy rap song (I could have predicted that in my sleep, you know). After that, it's *tada* IGGY POP!!!! And then *Gaaaaah!* The Doors. Next, *ahem* The Temptations. The most unsurprising successor to a Temptation cover is *obviously* Led Zeppelin. After that they do something even more weird ... they write an original song (which isn't really a song, but ... we'll get to that later in the track reviews.) And FINALLY as if it wasn't enough in the first place, they do another version of that stupid Sly and the Family Stone song. It's not really that I object to diversity ... au contraire! I loooooove diversity! It's just that THESE SONGS ARE COMPLETELY BUTCHERED!!! And the one's that aren't ... heck! They're so dull/lifeless/unexciting that you're just better off burning your own mix CD with all those songs on it. Seriously. (And, instead of that Duran Duran original, I'd add "Rio" or "Girls on Film" or something...) Seriously! I think you should do that! Right now! I also object that Duran Duran decided to cover REALLY POPULAR songs in here. If they're really popular and widely known, then what's the POINT? It's not like David Bowie when he butchered a bunch of old 60s songs for his Pin-Ups album, because most of his covers weren't and aren't well-known at all! It's not like he went and did another version of "Tell Me Why" by The Beatles and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones. Them'd be fightin' covers! ... Anyway, that's basically what Duran Duran does here. And I venomously despise them for doing that. GaaaaaaaaRRRR!! That said, this isn't a dismally in-the-gutter awful album. Many of these songs are listenable (even though some of them aren't). I just hate the idea of it. From now on, they ought to change their name to Duran Duran Doodieheads. FURTHERMORE, they completely screwed up their chances to get back on top again! Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) was this huge hit ... and now the people started hating them again. Overall Album Score: 5.1 out of 10 (Like nudists, I guess some bands weren't meant for covers. ... ... ... that was stupid.) Average Song Score: 5.7 (There is not one ... NOT ONE ... song in here that's worth ANYTHING. "Crystal Ship" is okay, but that's only because it sounds very very similar to the original. Duran Duran sure dumped a load of poop on us this time.) Album Tilt: 5.0 (This is a verrrrrry difficult album to have to sit through. Some of these covers are okay, but the rest make the whole thing a labor.) Artist Rating: 4.5 (It's one thing when a band decides to do an album full of covers. It's another thing when most of the covers were already mightily popular and you butcher half of them.) Track Reviews White Lines 7/10 People shouldn't rap. SERIOUSLY! I don't want to review rap music!! What if I start to like it??? Anyway, this Grandmaster Flash cover (of an old school 80s rap song) isn't an awful affair, but it isn't a good one either. I haven't heard the original, and I'm not really enthusiastic to hear it. I don't know ... I think this is all right. Parts of it sound like David Bowie's "Let's Dance," but Bowie wasn't being original with that, either. I Wanna Take You Higher 3.5/10 This is an old Sly and the Family Stone song. And it's awful! When I pre-listened to this album, I couldn't even sit through this all the way. Now, I'm ... resisting the skip button ... I'm not sure why Duran Duran repeats the song twice on the album (it appears again at the end of the album). That was insane! Couldn't they pick another random cover? This is really messed up ... especially when it gets toward the end. Perfect Day 6.5/10 How could anyone screw up this Lou Reed classic even in the slightest bit? I'm shocked!! This is one of my favorite songs ever and Duran Duran nearly butchered it. I would never have deemed such a thing possible. But Duran Duran proved me wrong. Way to go. Watching the Detectives 5/10 And random cover #4 is ELVIS COSTELLO!!!!! Of course, the original song is classic ... but Duran Duran's version just subtracts all the energy that the original had! That's doodah! Lay Lady Lay 7.5/10 Well, the original (Bob Dylan) song was kind of unexciting anyway ... so I guess Duran Duran doing an unexciting cover of it is okay. (You know ... I'm thinking that I would enjoy this album more if I wasn't aware of the covers ... then again, I liked David Bowie's Pin-Ups.) This is actually pretty good, but it does lack depth. If yer gonna cover Dylan, then you need to try harder. (Although, The Byrds got away with it ...) 911 is a Joke 5/10 So is this song!!!!! I really don't want to review rap songs. This time, however, that's not because I'm afraid that I would like it. This rap song just sucks. Of course, it doesn't help that Duran Duran just sounds gay rapping here. This is a white band! Old has-been 80s pop bands shouldn't rap! (I've listened to the original by Public Enemy ... that one doesn't sound quite as gay.) Success 6/10 If you're going to cover Iggy Pop, you KNOW you're going to have to make it exciting. Fortunately, this time, they semi-succeed ... but it's really pale if you've heard the original. SERIOUSLY pale. They ought to have covered stuff like Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" or David Bowie's "Starman," which would be more up their alley. Iggy Pop's "Success" ... only special people get to cover that song! Bowie never even covered it back in the 80s when he was covering everything from his Iggy Pop collaborations! Crystal Ship 8/10 Hmmm... The Doors ... I'm still not sure if they should cover The Doors. Just the same, though, this is an uncanny impersonation of Jim Morrison! ... Yeah, this song would be more up their alley, I suppose, cause this isn't bad. They don't butcher it ... they don't do anything different to it, however. Ball of Confusion 5/10 I'm not too shocked that Duran Duran turned this one into a rap song. (If you listen to the original Temptations song, it's easy to see how it got converted into a rap thing.) Unfortunately, this is really crap. It's poorly done and not fun at all to listen to. Thank You 6.5/10 And now they're covering Led Zeppelin! Man! It's like they put all the famous rock bands and singers in a hat and just randomly picked what they should review next. Led Zeppelin? Fortunately, I never liked Led Zeppelin, nor have I ever particularly liked Robert Plant's vocals ... so I'm not rabidly against it or anything. But ... oh this is weak. And it's too long. (6:37 minutes). It's longer than the original was! (The end gets kind of psychedelic and stuff ... but 90s psychedelic by an old 80s pop band ... yeah ... get real.) Drive By 5/10 Now they cover the complete unexpected ... Duran Duran. In fact, they cover a song that was never released before! (Oh crap! I guess that means it's an original, then!) I don't have the original to compare it with to mess up my perception of it, so it has that going for it. Although, this isn't really a song! It's just some guy talking to boring background music ... and we have to sit through five minutes and thirty seconds of it. Very pretentious! But I suppose the poem is rather interesting ... but if the music's boring, then I don't care about the poem, darnit! This is like bad Moody Blues or something whenever they tried their poetry amidst stupid psychedelic background. I like last two minutes of it or so, sort of, although it's still stupid psychedelia (albeit less boring psychedelia). I Wanna Take You Higher Again 3/10 I still have no idea why they're doing this again. It's four and a half minutes long, too. That's not cool!!! This ... is ... really ... ... awful ... ... ... I JUST HATE IT!!!! It's boring and ... heck, I don't even think it was such a great song to begin with. Nevertheless, I would like to leave you with one thought: Doesn't Kate Hudson have great legs? ... Ooooooooooooohhhhhhhh baaaaaaaaaaaaaabyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... Thank you for sending me your innermost thoughts about this album here! beach_buckwheat@yahoo.com (Beach Buckwheat) received Feb. 3, 2005 As is true for most everything in this life... your perspective and expectations have a lot to do with your opinion and like (or dislike) or a thing, person, or situation (or in this case, a cd). This is not an attempt to tell you that you're "wrong" in your review of "Thank You'... but here's another perspective. I had not heard most of the songs on "Thank You" - at least to the point where they were very familiar, and I had the tunes "stuck in my head", etc... so the cd was "new" to me. At first, I thought... "what are they thinking?!?", but the more I listened, it really grew on me - and my appreciation for Duran Duran's "talent" - to be able to "cover" such a broad variety of musical styles - really grew also. Here's the point. I had honestly NEVER heard 9-1-1 is a Joke or watching the detectives... but really liked the DD versions... the more I listened, the more I liked them... THEN IT HAPPENED... I heard the ORIGINAL versions on the radio! I'm not into rap music, and I can honestly say that I would have changed the channel immediately, but I recognized the tune, and listened, and liked it. I agree that once you've heard the original, it's rare that someone's "tribute" version can stand up to it... but in my case - I really feel like this was some of Duran Duran's best, and most challenging work... Look at the reviews for their previous albums and see the complaints about Liberty and Big Thing (etc) being the "same old same old" stuff... The point? I was in my teens when DD came on the scene in the 80's, and really liked them for what they were - they had their own 'style'... Well, for me at least, I think my appreciation for music in general grew because of this album, as did my appreciation for Duran Duran, and their ability to 'stretch' their talents, and put their own "slant" on these songs... All of the members of Duran Duran have really "grown" over the last 10 years because of their experiences - together and apart with different styles of music and musicians. Don Ignacio responds: Thanks for your comments. This is one of the best (and coherent) comments I've received from somebody expressing a disagreement. These reviews, indeed, are my opinion and shouldn't be construed as "fact." ... Even if I don't always make that point evident.

All reviews are copyrighted by the author, Michael Lawrence. My name is actually Michael Caine.