This week we’ll take another classic band and showcase a different shade of tune from them. “Faith In This Colour” was the B side to “Is There Something I Should Know?”, which was a very intentional (and successful) attempt to have a #1 hit in the UK. Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes had just produced the #1 “Too Shy” by his initial band signing, Kajagoogoo. Well, Nick must’ve been on some high octane fuel at this time, because this B side is almost exclusively his production. While drums and guitar are present, it’s not obvious whether or not they or played or sampled. Nick went on to become a master of the computerized samplers and synths of the era. It is very likely he formulated this song all on his own with such technology. This song also presents lots of signposts for future singles off the third Duran Duran LP, “Seven and The Ragged Tiger” (“Union of the Snake” and “New Moon on Monday”, namely). Compared to other Duran Duran instrumental numbers, this is the most upbeat and groovy, so dig in!
Hello and welcome to a new weekly feature on the site: the Tune of the Week. Here we will be focusing on some influences on the Spacey King sound as well as some good, clean fun.
This week we shine a light on a bit of an oddity from the Depeche Mode catalog. By the time “Master and Servant” came out in May of 1984 Depeche had racked up seven top 20 singles in the UK. With this success came more product, including bonus 12”s for singles. In this case they decided to take a chance and recruited UK reggae pioneer and studio wizard Adrian Sherwood to not only provide a hardcore remix for “Master and Servant”, but also this demented take on their previous smash “People Are People”.
“People Are People” is an incredibly dense production, with over two dozen layers of samples and sounds. Sherwood takes a few of these a intersperses them with sound experiments he had been conjuring for contemporary African Head Charge productions. Not only does this predict his subsequent industrial productions for the likes of Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, but also predates the 90s remix culture wherein artists such as Aphex Twin and Brian Eno would almost completely ignore the original material and provide a much more abstract interpretation of a song.
BOP BOP BOP!
