BURNING THE GROUND EXCLUSIVE 1989

Originally posted November 5, 2014

“Burning The Ground” is the 20th single by Duran Duran, released in December 1989. It was created as a stand-alone single to promote the compilation album Decade: Greatest Hits but didn’t appear on the album itself. However, its music video was included on the band’s audiovisual compilation Greatest, released in 1999 (VHS) and 2003 (DVD). The song is essentially a megamix of Duran Duran’s history, featuring tidbits of all of the band’s hits of the previous ten years.

Instrumental elements of “Save A Prayer”, “Hungry Like the Wolf”, “Rio”, “The Reflex” and “The Wild Boys”, including the camera flash sound from “Girls on Film”, form the core of the first part of the song, while the “chorus” is built up of alternating chants of “Girls!” (from “Girls on Film”) and “Boys!” (from “The Wild Boys”). The nonsense syllables from several songs, such as the “noh-noh” bits from “Notorious”, the “bop bop bop” from “Skin Trade” and the “tana nana” and the “fle fle fle fle flex” from “The Reflex”, were also incorporated. Elements from “A View To A Kill”, “Notorious”, “I Don’t Want Your Love” and later singles are gradually woven into the mix. Segments of the song are marked by signature phrases taken from other songs: first, “Can you hear me now?” (“Planet Earth”); later, “I tell you, somebody’s fooling around” (“The Reflex”) and “The rhythm is the power” (“I Don’t Want Your Love”). The title derives from a “Hungry Like the Wolf” lyric.

The song also used several sound samples from the film Barbarella, from which the band took their name: “Barbarella?” “Mr. President!” “Your Mission, find Durand Durand!” “Just a minute, I’ll slip something on!”

The remix was created by producer John Jones, with assistance from Dee Long and engineer Chris Potter, in an upstairs room at Olympic Studios in Barnes while Duran Duran was downstairs recording new material for the album Liberty, to be released the following year.

The b-side was another megamix, this one more instrumental in nature, called “Decadance”. The song uses the “why” bits of “The Reflex”, the “no, no” from “Notorious”, “wild” from “The Wild Boys”, the chorus from “All She Wants Is”, the solo from “Save a Prayer” mixed with “Rio”, and a little bit of “Skin Trade”, as well as some of the suggestive screams from “Hungry Like the Wolf”.

The single debuted on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart on February 10, 1990. After spending six weeks on the survey “Burning The Ground” peaked at #23. The single also charted in the U.K. #31 and Italy #17.

SIDE A:
Burning The Ground 4:00
Mixed By – Christopher Marc Potter
Other [Created By] – Duran Duran
Producer – John Jones , John Taylor , Nick Rhodes , Simon Le Bon , Sterling Campell*
Samples – Dee Long

SIDE B:
Decadance (Extended Mix) 7:56
Producer, Mixed By – Ben Chapman , Raine Shine

Decadance 3:30
Producer, Mixed By – Ben Chapman , Raine Shine

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

U.S. CHART HISTORY:

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Capitol Records – V-15546
Format: Vinyl, 12″, Single, 33 ⅓ RPM
Country: US
Released: 1989
Genre: Electronic, Pop, Rock
Style: New Wave, Synth-pop

CREDITS:
Artwork By [Sleeve Design] – Abrahams Pants

NOTES:
All tracks sampled from the album “DECADE”
B-side produced and mixed at Pacific & Ezee Studios.

Find the 12″ at DISCOGS

Vinyl Restoration By -DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

EQUIPMENT USED:
Turntable: Pro-Ject Debut Carbon (DC)
Cartridge: Ortofon 2M
Stylus: Ortofon 2M Bronze
Isolation: Auralex Acoustics ISO-Tone Turntable Isolation Platform
Platter: Pro-Ject Acryl-It platter
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
DAC/Phono Pre-amp: Alpha Design Labs GT40a USB DAC
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Epson Workforce WF-7610 Professional Printer/Scanner

SOFTWARE USED:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling/Dither: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

Username: btg
Password: burningtheground

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