A thought-to-be-lost mid-’90s album by Duran Duran keyboardist and co-founder Nick Rhodes and the band’s former guitarist, Warren Cuccurullo, that was recorded under the moniker TV Mania finally will see the light of day this March when it’s released both digitally and in a pair of uber-deluxe vinyl editions.
The 11-track album, Bored With Prozac and The Internet?, is due out March 11 as a digital download via The Orchard/Beatport and as a pair of deluxe box sets through The Vinyl Factory (see full release details below). In the coming month, remixes of three of the record’s tracks by MNDR, The New Sins, Monikker and MSTMX also will be released digitally.
According to the album’s announcement, Rhodes and Cuccurullo recorded the album — using television samples blended with “looping rhythm tracks” — with the intention of releasing it between Duran Duran projects. It was shelved at some point, and the tapes were thought to be lost until Rhodes recently discovered them at an “out-of-town storage facility.”
Says Rhodes:
“When I found the master recordings, I thought, ‘Wow, this sounds unbelievably contemporary.’ When we put them up on the system, it was not only a great surprise, given what we had thought their fate was, but it was also literally like finding a painting and blowing the dust off of it. Times have certainly changed since we made the record, but the subject matter that inspired this album happens to be at the forefront of today’s world, so the songs have weathered the test of time in a strangely beautiful way.”
The record is described as a “conceptual soundtrack for what the duo imagined as a ‘bizarre TV cyber soap opera’ about a family who gives away their freedom to scientists in exchange for a hi-tech modern lifestyle and reality show fame.”
Cuccurullo, the former Missing Persons and Frank Zappa guitarist, says:
“We were envisioning a world where a family would give up their day-to-day privacy and allow their existence to be televised to the masses, and this was two years before the film, The Truman Show and four years before Survivor. Now everyone is giving away their most intimate details online and on reality TV.”
Bored With Prozac was produced by Rhodes, Cuccurullo, Mark Tinley and Anthony J Resta, and mixed by Bob St. John. While this is the first release from TV Mania, the group was credited with producing Duran Duran’s Medazzaland (1997) and Pop Trash (2000), and some of the material on those records apparently was reworked from TV Mania material written by Rhodes and Cuccurullo.
Tracklist: TV Mania, Bored with Prozac and The Internet?
1. “What About God?”
2. “Euphoria”
3. “Beautiful Clothes”
4. “You’re Dreaming Pal”
5. “Paramount”
6. “What’s In The Future?”
7. “I Wanna Make Films”
8. “Yoghurt and Fake Tan”
9. “Grab The Sun”
10. “Using A Hidden Camera – Eyes In The Sky”
11. “People Know Your Name”
Remixes:
“Beautiful Clothes” (Eric Hart and Warren Cuccurullo Remix)
“Beautiful Clothes” (Peter Wade MNDR Remix)
“Beautiful Clothes” (The New Sins Remix)
“Euphoria” (Monikkr Remix)
“Euphoria” (MSTMX Remix)
“I Wanna Make Films” (MSTMX Remix)
The Vinyl Factory limited editions:
Boxed Edition
Cloth bound pure white lift-off lid box with black ribbon pull inside
Front of box screen printed black and gold
Nick Rhodes signed Polaroid hand dipped onto white art stock 12″ square paper
CMYK photo of Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurrullo on same 12″ stock
Black envelope holding Cuccurrullo’s signed A5 paper drawing positioned on 12″ stock
12pp newspaper print fold out booklet
12pp 4 col. 12″ glossy booklet
2 x 180 gram white vinyl
2 x white disco bags
4 x black labels hand-stamped with white ink TV Mania logo
Gatefold Edition
Gatefold sleeve screen printed with black and gold
2 x 180 gram white vinyl
2 x white disco bags
4 x black labels hand-stamped with white ink TV Mania logo
12pp newspaper print fold out booklet
Courtesy Slicing Up Eyeballs
