Music / The Wedding Album

Can't ever keep from falling apart at the seams
Can't I believe you're taking my heart to pieces

Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away

—"Ordinary World"

Duran Duran is the seventh studio album—their second Self-Titled Album—recorded by the British New Wave band of the same name. It was released through Parlophone Records on 11 February 1993.

It is best known by fans as The Wedding Album, with its cover featuring wedding photos from the parents of the four band members. However, the alternate title actually came from two UK promotional cassettes prior to the official release, one titled The Wedding and the other The Wedding Album. The wedding-related titles were dropped before release. The album was a major comeback for the band following the relative disappointments Big Thing (1988) and Liberty (1990) and spun off the international top 10 hits "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone".

For the album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, see Wedding Album (1969).

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Tracklist:

1. "Too Much Information"
2. "Ordinary World"
3. "Love Voodoo"
4. "Drowning Man"
5. "Shotgun"
6. "Come Undone"
7. "Breath After Breath"
8. "U.M.F."
9. "Femme Fatale"
10. "None Of The Above"
11. "Shelter"
12. "To Whom It May Concern"
13. "Sin Of The City"

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Principal Members:

• Nick Rhodes – keyboards
• Simon Le Bon – vocals
• John Taylor – bass guitar
• Warren Cuccurullo – guitar, acoustic guitar in "Ordinary World"

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"You caught me in your web of tropes":

• Alliterative Title: By the album being named after the band itself. Also the track "Femme Fatale" and "Breath After Breath".
• Amoral Attorney: "To Whom It May Concern" is a song written in response to the manipulation the band had encountered from one of their attorneys. The character that they address is referred to as "Mr. Bones," and the lyrics for the song appear in the liner notes in the form of an official letter that was meant to be sent to the character.
• Break-Up Song: "Ordinary World".
• Changed for the Video: The video for "Ordinary World" uses the shorter radio version of the song instead of the album version, removing the intro and mashing two instrumental bridge sections together.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Implied from a line from "Sin Of The City": "The city has more a hundred thousand wars, all for one of Forbes' Four Hundred whores."
• Cover Version: "Femme Fatale" from The Velvet Underground & Nico by Velvet Underground.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The album cover is in black-and-white.
• Domestic Abuse: "Sin Of The City" begins with such a case, given its real-life setting:
  Coat check girl up in Happy Land
  Has a violent row with a Cuba man.
  Julio leaves in a drunken rage,
  He comes back with the gasoline.
• Femme Fatale: One of the songs from the album.

• Intercourse with You: "U.M.F."
• Longest Song Goes Last: "Sin Of The City" clocks in at 7 minutes and 14 seconds. It's also the longest song in the band's catalogue.
• Lyrical Cold Open: "None Of The Above".
• Lyrics/Video Mismatch: "Come Undone". The lyrics appear to be about offering to help a person who's coming apart at the seams. The video is about a woman performing an underwater escape from chains and a male transvestite, among other images.
• Miniscule Rocking: "Shotgun", a very short song (54 seconds long) with a riff that appears later in "Sin Of The City."
• Nay-Theist: The subject of "None Of The Above."
• One-Man Song: "Drowning Man".
• One-Word Title: "Shotgun" and "Shelter".
• Real Life Writes The Song: "Sin Of The City" refers to the Happy Land fire in New York City on March 25, 1990 that killed 87 people (although the song lyrics say 89 were killed).
• Record Producer: John Jones and Duran Duran.
• Scatting: In "Drowning Man": "NA NANA NA NANA NANA NA NA."
• Self-Titled Album: The second one released by the band.
• Shout-Out: "Too Much Information" mentions MTV and The BBC as the networks that they are "destroyed by", which is ironic in the case of MTV, since it's the network that helped make Duran Duran become very popular in the 1980s.
• Special Guest: Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento co-wrote "Breath After Breath" and appears on the track singing in Portuguese.
• Spoken Word in Music: A voice that says "Telephone call for Mr. Bones" introduces the song "To Whom It May Concern".
• Too Much Information: One of the songs from the album. Subverted trope, as it is really about the effect of media bombardment.
• Work Info Title
• You Are Not Alone: "Come Undone".

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