duran2.net : reviews
Out Of My Mind promo video

by Kathryn Morgan, Firedancer Associate Editor

Out Of My Mind video.
In case you haven't seen it...

This is the first Duran Duran video that the band has made since John Taylor left, and it's still hard to get used to the fact that John won't be in any more Duran videos. Like a number of the band's videos, there is plenty of weird stuff to look at but very little plot or story line to tie it all together. What minimal plot there is involves an old man (Simon in heavy makeup) lamenting a lost love. This gives the band an excuse to dress up in period costumes and wear makeup. Nick shows up in period drag, including dark eye makeup, a Marie Antoinette-style dress (similar to the woman in Femme Fatale) and a tall wig with plastic spoons sticking out of the top. He also shows up covered in wax making out with a fanged demon while people applaud. It truly makes you wonder about Nick on a variety of levels, doesn't it? Warren shows up wearing nail polish and blue eye shadow , and later in an Elizabethan collar with black liquid oozing out of his ear. Simon looks the best, with short, black, Arcadia-era hair and a minimum number of bad outfits-the orange pants and blue jacket combo being the worst of them.

Speaking of Arcadia, this video does share a similar level of self-indulgence with Arcadia videos like Goodbye is Forever. They really didn't need to spend all that time and money shooting this video at a castle in Prague, Czech Republic. Any number of English estates would have provided the same type of setting. If you are able to catch this video, tape it if you can. In order to really see everything that is going on, like Simon chained up and beaten, or Nick dressed as a neon-green leprechaun, repeated viewings are needed. An overload of odd visual images does not make for a cohesive story, nor does it make much of a video. I'm not sure what they were trying to do with this video (maybe they don't either), but I don't think it worked. If you want to see this video, request it everywhere that you can - I'm not sure how long it will be around. Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this video a 6. I'll give Simon an 8 because he looks really good, but that's mainly due to my bias as a Simon fan.

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