Paper Gods

Paper Gods is the fourteenth studio album by English rock band Duran Duran, released on 11 September 2015 by Warner Bros. Records. The album was produced by Mr Hudson and Joshua Blair, who had worked with the band on All You Need Is Now (2010) and A Diamond in the Mind: Live 2011 (2012); Nile Rodgers, who had previously first worked on the band's "The Reflex", his remixed version reaching number one, "The Wild Boys" single and Notorious album; and Mark Ronson, who produced All You Need Is Now. The first single, "Pressure Off", features vocals from American singer Janelle Monáe. The album was supported by the Paper Gods on Tour.

Release
The album cover, designed by artist Alex Israel, consists of his 2013 painting titled "Sky Backdrop" that features icons that represent the band's history. This includes lips and the eye painted by artist Patrick Nagel for their Rio album; also representing the Rio album is a chauffeur's cap alluding to that record's closing track "The Chauffeur"; a pink telephone, champagne glass and the saxophone representing the single "Rio"; a sumo wrestler representing their controversial video for "Girls on Film"; Duran Duran's teeth are shown to be from "The Wild Boys"; the Eiffel Tower is a reference to the title song from the film A View to a Kill; a rocket from the greatest hits album, Decade; a silhouette of a female representing the single "Skin Trade"; an image of a tiger and a snake nodding to their third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger; a white shoe from the single cover and the music video of "Come Undone"; a stylized ice cream cone taken from their "Perfect Day" single. The deluxe physical copy of the record comes with sixteen stickers of Duran Duran iconography to mirror the album cover.

Promotion
The band announced a tour of the United States and the United Kingdom to coincide with the album's release.

The lead single from the album, "Pressure Off", was released in the United States on 19 June, first via Microsoft's Xbox Music. The song subsequently appeared on Google Music.

Commercial performance and critical reception
The album entered the UK Albums Chart at number five, becoming the band's ninth top-five album overall and making them one of only a handful of bands who have scored top-five albums in four consecutive decades. In the United States, it entered the Billboard 200 at number 10 and became their first top-10 album since Duran Duran (1993). In its second week, the album fell to number 76, and in its third and final week fell to number 194, though it re-entered the Billboard 200 at number 45 in January 2016. In Italy, the album peaked at number two.

Paper Gods was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 64, based on 14 reviews.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of the deluxe edition of Paper Gods.

Duran Duran

 * Simon Le Bon
 * Nick Rhodes
 * John Taylor
 * Roger Taylor

Additional musicians

 * Mr Hudson – vocals (track 1)
 * David Emery – additional drum programming (track 1)
 * Kiesza – vocals (track 2)
 * Janelle Monáe – vocals (track 4)
 * Nile Rodgers – featured performer (track 4)
 * Davide Rossi – string arrangement and performance (tracks 4, 5, 7, 12, 15)
 * Josh Blair – string arrangement (tracks 5, 7, 12)
 * Lindsay Lohan – special guest vocals (track 6)
 * John Frusciante – guitars (tracks 7, 10, 12, 15)
 * Hollie Cook – additional vocals (track 8)
 * Jonas Bjerre – featured performer (track 9)
 * Dom Brown – guitars (tracks 10, 15)
 * Anna Ross – additional vocals (tracks 10, 13)
 * Voce Chamber Choir – additional voices (track 12)
 * London Youth Chamber Choir – additional voices (track 12)
 * Suzi Digby – conducting, artistic direction (track 12)
 * Toby Young – choir arrangement (track 12)
 * Steve Jones – guitars (track 13)

Technical

 * Duran Duran – production (all tracks)
 * Mr Hudson – production (tracks 1–4, 8); additional production (tracks 6, 7, 11)
 * Josh Blair – production (tracks 2, 5–10, 12–15); lead vocal production (track 4); additional production (track 11); mixing (tracks 14, 15); engineering (all tracks)
 * Mark Ronson – production (tracks 4, 11)
 * Nile Rodgers – production (tracks 4, 11); additional production (track 9)
 * Riccardo Damian – Pro Tools operator (tracks 4, 11)
 * Graham Russell – Janelle session engineering (track 4)
 * Ghian Wright – Janelle session engineering (track 4)
 * Jake Valentine – Janelle session engineering assistance (track 4)
 * Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing at Mixsuite and Battersea Park Studios (London)
 * Geoff Swan – mix engineering assistance
 * Ted Jensen – mastering at Sterling Sound (New York City)
 * Wendy Laister – executive production

Artwork

 * Alex Israel – artwork, art direction
 * China Chow – creative direction, art direction
 * Brian Roettinger – art direction, logo
 * Nick Rhodes – photography