Talk:Rio (Duran Duran album)

Rio vs Rio de Janeiro

This is really great, Catherine. You obviously put a lot of effort into it. Any more info you can find would be great, but this is well-detailed. The only major thing it needs to be in line with Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums is a paragraph or two on the roots and influences of the album, both who influenced the sound of Duran Duran, and Rio specifically, and who was influenced by the sound of Duran Duran, and Rio specifically.

Were there any links to here that meant to go to Rio De Janeiro? It seems potentially ambiguous. Tuf-Kat

No, not a one. I did a text search, and although there are thousands of [[Rio de Janeiro]] and [[Rio Grande]], et al, no one has tried to link to [[Rio]] unless they meant the album. I added a disambiguation block at the top, to be sure. Don't ''think'' theres a need for [[Rio (album)]], but I'll move it if anyone disagrees.

Thanks for the compliments! Catherine

The question around the album title -- why Rio? -- can be definitively answered thanks to the excellent new book from Annie Zaleski (33 1/3: Rio) published in May 2021. I have updated the main page, citing the origin of the name, which has no explicit tie to the city, but was chosen for the feeling that the band hoped to evoke. Interestingly, the title came before the album, and also, nobody in the band at that point had ever been to the real city. Guywelch2000 (talk) 03:15, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Dance music?

Very thorough and informative. Good article. My quibble would be the use of the term "dance music", which I think means something very different today than it may have then. That point aside, I would personally call it a "newro" album in the first paragraph -- I was a bit confused that the remixing of 4 songs changed the album from a New Romantic album into a dance music album. 66.153.56.194 04:32, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! You're right, the definition has definitely changed, and the dance music article is not relevant to this album. There's very little of use at new romantic either (although you should feel free to expand it). I hesitate to use newro here, though, because the band had really left the "new romantic" label behind before Rio was even recorded; the music was less electronic (the guitars on "Hungry Like the Wolf", for instance) and art-school experimental, and they'd definitely ditched the frilly pirate shirts and sashes, first for a glammy faux-military look, then for the Anthony Price silk suits..... I think I may just change it to pop music or synth pop album; what do you think?

As for "changing the album", of course the remix of the album didn't really change it from Newro to Dance (although the remixes are definitely punchier) -- all it did was change Capitol's perception from "this is an obscure electronic British fad band whom we'd be wasting our time trying to break in America" to "hey, this is really danceable synth-pop the deejays love -- let's push this into the market as hard as we can!" Of course the growing evidence that the band could be a cash machine with teens (the growing popularity of one-year-old MTV & its glossy DD videos, DD all over the magazines, etc.) helped change their minds too.

For what it's worth, the whole album was remixed, not just four songs -- the four mentioned are just the ones which are significantly different structurally, with rearranged lyrics, inserted middle eight sections, etc. The rest were just polished, given a roomier sound with a more prominent rhythm section. Perhaps I can make that clearer in the article. -- Catherine

Credit

Just a note to say that much of the info on the different versions of this album came from the hard work of Tom McClintock (with help from Ansgar Thomann and Alan De Feyter) -- he created the "Versions of Rio" page cited in the external links, and extracted an understandable summary from a very confusing tangle of versions, histories, and multiple release dates. Many thanks to them! Catherine | talk

Dates incorrect

Uh... narrative under Background says Rio was recorded in spring of 1982, but the inset box says "January-February 1982". Does spring come that early in London? -Rolypolyman 07:17, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out the inconsistent dates that had existed on an earlier version of this page. I have updated things, citing the excellent new book in the 33 1/3 series on Rio by Annie Zaleski released in May 2021. Guywelch2000 (talk) 17:42, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Minor reworking?

Capitol re-released the Rio album in the U.S., with Kershenbaum's new remixes in November 1982. All tracks benefited from some minor reworking, but the significant structural differences in the songs on this second pressing (matrix #ST-1-12211-Z13-REI #1) include:

This "minor reworking" comment seems to contradict information in the rest of the article. Other sources say that only the 5 songs on side one were changed. What if any, were the actual changes to the songs on side two of the 2nd U.S. version? This comment either needs to be clarified or removed entirely.

"Night Boat"

The band may have filmed this video at the same time as the others, but you need to make it clear that this is a song off the "Duran Duran" album (the first one), and is not contained on "Rio." 69.138.181.203 (talk) 04:04, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

More contemporaneous reviews?

There is a staggering lack of contemporaneous reviews for this album (save the one done by Robert Christgau) included in the article, which in turn severely disputes its neutrality, as the reader is left with no idea of how this album was received by critics at the time of its release, especially when the band in question is one that has been notorious (no pun intended) for being a near-steadfast target for critical disfavor. It would be much appreciated if some editors could help improve the article in this manner! Interlude 65 (Push to talk) 22:08, 22 August 2019 (UTC)