Title: “Ordinary World”
Artiste: Duran Duran
Nationality: British
Year: 1992
Genre: Rock (?)
Subgenre: Alt-rock
Source: Album
Duran Duran (The Wedding Album)
Written by: Simon Le Bon, John Taylor, Warren Cuccurullo and James Bates
Chart position(s) (Singles only): UK: 6 US: 3
Storyline: I think it's about making the world a better place?
Main instrument: Guitar
Other version(s) by:
Comments: Oh hold your gasps of shock and surprise when I tell you I was never a fan of Duran Duran! Oh yes, I sneered at singles like “Rio”, “Girls on film” and “Wild boys”, though I did hide a sneaking admiration for “Save a prayer” - I'd never admit it back then of course. But Duran Duran had their moment in the sun, lasting from approximately 1981 to about 1986, four albums which set them at the top of the charts regularly and ensured the boys never had to worry about money again. But by the time the nineties hit they were being overtaken by new crazes and fresher bands, and it was becoming a case of “Duran who?” (Duran, mate: it's exactly the same word, twice. What don't you get?) and they even tried to “rebrand” themselves by appearing under the name Arcadia in 1985 but interest was already beginning to wane, and their next album, released the following year, would be their first ever not to crack the top ten, indeed it kind of scraped into the top twenty.
But for a brief moment, this song returned Duran Duran not only to the public eye but to the charts, scoring high on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a great song, kind of different to the sort of thing they usually used to put out, which were mostly upbeat love songs or enjoy yourself type of things, whereas this has more an almost universal message in it about changing the world. There's a great sort of jangling guitar intro to it, which makes a change for the Double D, and even the vocal seems, well, honest I guess. The song has a great hook and is really well put together, and when I saw it referred to on Wiki as alt-rock, well, it threw me at first but you know, yeah: it's not just another pop song. And it has Zappa's guitarist on it, so that can't be bad.
Rating: