Stream “Skin Divers” here. This is the highest quality leak from Duran Duran’s forthcoming Red Carpet Massacre. There’s been much debate about the band’s new direction, but to me “Skin Divers” is the most polarizing new song yet to surface. It’s a dark and sleazy club track and another Timbaland collaboration with the inevitable arsenal of repetitive, machinated beats, some subtle disco funk bass, and inexplicable guest rapping. The rapping is what kills it for me. Whenever older, established bands try to sound hip and current by throwing some “cred” into the mix with a hip-hop flavor, it invariably ends up sounding clueless and desperate. And the lyric “Google dirty fingers” is quite embarrassing. The band is certainly taking some risks with these experimental new songs. Whether they’ll pan out and turn into sales remains to be seen. But “Skin Divers” seems ill-advised any way you look at it.
Duran Duran “Skin Divers” stream
Posted August 22nd, 2007 by eric
Tags: stream · track review
35 responses so far ↓
1 K // Aug 22, 2007 at 10:00 pm
wtf. Make it stop!
2 Logan Young // Aug 22, 2007 at 11:07 pm
As sterile as an old woman with 20 cats. Are those “wicky-wickies” I heard? Really?!?
3 Peternj // Aug 22, 2007 at 11:15 pm
This track is a great combo of both Timba and Duran. I didn’t think I’d like it, but surprisingly, I do.
If it was Simon rapping, then I’d agree on the street cred wannabe act. But since this is solely focused on who does it best at the present time, Timbaland. I think it works.
4 paolo // Aug 23, 2007 at 2:12 am
Experimental song but with more interesting aspects. I would say dd meets depeche mode and hip hop beats. What I like is the dark atmosphere, both chorus and verse, a shy and isolated bass slap which sometimes reminds us JT is still palying.. What I don’t like is the rap part and the repetitive beats. If we take it as it is, a duet and an experiment and not the new dd style, we can judge it pretty good.
5 Georgia // Aug 23, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Oddly this song is very catchy! I am glad it is not Simon rapping…leave that to Timba! The towards the end the rapping is a little excessive but I think this song will work for them. Love these guys and I know they are trying to branch out to reach others into the duranie fold.
Can’t wait to hear the whole cd!
6 brad // Aug 23, 2007 at 3:51 pm
love it, love it, love it.
7 domran // Aug 23, 2007 at 5:19 pm
the tightest bassline JT has had in ages ! Love it
8 Tad // Aug 23, 2007 at 5:26 pm
terrible.
join the duran hip-hop boycott!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5534496639&ref=mf
9 tiffany // Aug 23, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Love it.
10 stuporfly // Aug 23, 2007 at 9:37 pm
I think it’s fantastic.
11 Steve // Aug 24, 2007 at 9:29 am
Rap? Crap!
The end of Duran Duran is near…
And I’ve been a life long fan. Oh well!
12 Andy Taylor // Aug 24, 2007 at 12:36 pm
that sucked
13 Ing // Aug 24, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Goodness…i loved it until timbaland opend his mouth…what a way to go! ruin a perfectly cool with unnecessary and out of place guest vocals!!!!!! duran duran have been around too long to cave into this obvious sell out!
14 turn.upthesound // Aug 25, 2007 at 1:41 am
We should all be happy Duran is still around popping out the tunes! I think almost all fans will be happy with the tunes once we here the sound quality on the record. If they have to alter their sound to get on the top 10. fine. at least we know they will be around to produce another.
15 tgilbrea // Aug 25, 2007 at 4:20 am
I actually like it!!! Very much agree, thank goodness Simon didn’t try rapping – that would have been a disaster. Let the boys have a bit of fun – but don’t let Night Runner to be a single. The song sucks 🙁
16 jamespack // Aug 25, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Wow, check out all the aging duran fans. rap crap, hip hop is crap, la la la, go back to the fucking 80’s you sad old fucks. you dont even have to right to listen to new music, sad, pathetic, old, backwards. and i dont liek duran duran but i hate old fools even more
17 Mizthang // Aug 26, 2007 at 9:35 am
@jamespack
Agreed! And that’s really what’s going to get the band in trouble. The hateful words that the majority of their fans spew.
18 Eddie // Aug 28, 2007 at 5:03 pm
l love loVE LOVE this track! Lifelong duranie here and the biggest music snob I know! I agree that ther are other (and Iuse this phrase lightly) “Duran Fans” that are going to detest anything the guys spit out that is current. When I listen to “skin…” I hear basement jaxx, sneaker pimps, a little depeche, chem bros, and of course Duran. open your ears and MINDS people!! and DANCE a little more!
19 ROGERBELTRAN // Aug 29, 2007 at 5:04 pm
After reading all your comments and hearing some tunes from the new album I want to let you know somenthing SKIN DIVERS is the song I choose as a first single… Night Runner, Falling down, Red Carpet Massacre or even Box full of money sounds nice and different but believe me SD sound new and fresh if they choose this one as a new single the will hit the TOP… DURANIE 4 EVER
20 Pascal // Aug 29, 2007 at 5:24 pm
I wish they had put more enery and speed in this track with the guitar and the synth to be more present, raging in the foreground… The beat reminded me a bit like the one in a View to a Kill, but I agree the sound is a bit sterile. The timbaland chorus is actually not bad, but the speed and mood is much different from the rest of the song and it does not merge well, the drop after the first chorus really shows that and it very predictable.
21 sandiegoduran // Sep 3, 2007 at 3:50 am
I will always miss Andy, but this is perhaps one of the best songs Duran has ever created.
22 Oscar // Sep 3, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Cool track!! I love it! Catchy! Different! Contemporary! Experimental! This is a hit! Been a fan since ’82 and I believe DD is at the threshold of hitting the Top 10 and winning a new legion of fans! “Falling Down” is wonderful. “Nite Runner” is great! “Box Full of Honey” is a treasure! Welcome back DD.
23 Nightboat // Sep 5, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Personally, I love this song. A Duran fan since 1989, every new release since ‘The Wedding Album’ has given my heart cause to sink a little. Last time round it was the vapid ‘Sunrise’, with its dumb lyrics and cheesy chorus making it sound like a Christian pop song.
But this, THIS, is the dog’s nuts. As a collaboration it works better than I could ever have imagined. I love ‘Nite Runner’ but this trumps it. I was sceptical about Timbaland’s involvement but I reckon they’ll all be vindicated. Now is the first time I’ve felt an excitement about a forthcoming Duran release since ‘Ordinary World’.
Shame this can’t be the first single instead of nice-but-safe ‘Falling Down’. That would shake things up…
24 Enrique // Sep 21, 2007 at 9:35 pm
It’s a great song. !!! Deep into the water… Going South Dakota.
If somebody doesn’t like the lyrics… Eat my shorts!!! This is POP!!! pure POP!!!
I miss place my future… Can I please borrow yours?
25 Suitcase // Sep 28, 2007 at 2:00 am
This blows big donkey dicks.
26 Suitcase // Sep 28, 2007 at 2:03 am
Too bad alot of the old DURANIES are stupid fat cows who think they’re hot and that Simon will give up & risk his beautiful wife for a night with one of them cows.
27 Duran Fan for Life // Nov 16, 2007 at 1:12 am
I love the whole CD! I have been a Duranie since 1984…..a long time and I think it a great CD….but then I loved Medazzeland and Astronaut! Anyway, I feel bad for all the “Duranies” who hate this CD….this isn’t 1985 anymore, they need to shake it up and reach out to a whole new crowd! My nieces who are 18 love “Falling Down”. These are the same two girls who gave me a lot of sh*t over the years for my loyalty to Duran Duran and the 80’s!
28 Mark // Nov 26, 2007 at 1:31 pm
If you can’t groove to this then your a goof. Remixed in the club. JT rules.
29 MynameisRio // Nov 29, 2007 at 4:26 am
I listen to SD every morning on my way to train, and it really makes my feet light on a heavy dark winter morning.
One of the coolist and best song of DD’s.
Please anybody let me know how I can’t love them!!!!
30 Spryboy // Mar 17, 2008 at 12:41 am
This is easily my favorite track on the album, and one of my favorite Duran tracks ever. And I’m an old Duranie from way back… I’m 43, and I can’t stop listening to this song. It rocks. I wish I could hear this in clubs across the land. This deserves to be their biggest hit ever, and it’s a shame that it doesn’t appear it will be.
31 View to a Kill // Mar 26, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Been a Durannie for almost 25 years now and at first glance I thought the new album would not rock my world. However, if you give it a few spins it grows on you. Now I absolutely love it! It may not top the first three albums, but it gets pretty close. Besides, Duran Duran have always been at the forefront of innovation, which is what they prove once again. I just hope popular radio will give them a chance to cast their new spell onto the world. Fabulous!
32 Meter Vasquez // Jun 14, 2008 at 12:09 pm
There is a remix of this floating around by Audio Klash. Very tight maybe the best remix of DD I have heard. If anyone has better quality though can it be posted?
33 frank // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:31 pm
super remix skin diver by audioklash ….ooooleee
34 Candace // Jan 10, 2009 at 4:08 pm
LOVE IT!!!! and the Red Carpet M. concert was awesome!!!!
35 Arobert Melange // Oct 28, 2011 at 11:51 am
This review was prescient, since RCM was an unadulterated disaster sales-wise. Besides the sales performance, though, many of the songs were quite good. Sadly, “Skin Divers” isn’t one of the good ones. It’s Google-dirty-BAD.