The veneration and deification that they had long thought to be a thing of the past once again became part of their daily lives, and Duran Duran was offered, and accepted, a second bite of the forbidden fruit that opens the door to rock and roll glory and immortality. The original line-up, the one that had peered out of the posters that adorned the walls of every house in middle America, reunited and the band was catapulted headlong into the limelight again. Then in two thousand and one, the impossible happened. After nearly twenty years as a band, they had, at long last, discovered who they were and what mattered to them. But it didn’t seem to matter to the band or the fans who stuck with them, as they channeled all of their energy and enthusiasm into the one thing that they loved the most, making music.ĭuran Duran sacrificed the fleeting moments of adulation and adoration for a higher calling and continued to surprise and amaze fans and critics alike with a succession of thoughtful, powerful, and memorable records.
While the next decade saw the band embrace their most critically lauded and creative musical period, they couldn’t match their staggering, initial success. Drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Andy Taylor both left the band, leaving the remaining members, bass player John Taylor, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, and vocalist Simon Le Bon, to pick up the pieces. The word was theirs for the taking, and they gladly took it, and everything that it offered.įor five years, Duran Duran carved a musical path across the globe that saw them travel further than they ever dared to dream possible, but in the aftermath of Live Aid, the wild rollercoaster ride that the band had been on for half a decade finally came crashing to a halt. Duran Duran had arrived, and it seemed as though nothing or no one could stop them or get in their way. It was a bold and daring move that paid off, and they soon became as famous for their videos as they did for their chart-busting bass-driven, infectious pop anthems. After spending time in the trenches of the New Romantic movement, the band understood the visual power of imagery and image and how both could be used to their advantage and help them to establish themselves and they used the fledgling MTV to channel their high concept videos straight into the homes of suburbia. Timing is, as the former head of Apple John Sculley once said, everything, and Duran Duran’s timing was absolutely perfect. They were everywhere, you couldn’t escape the legions of Duranies who were obsessed with the band, their music, and their every single, waking move. Within a year of Simon Le Bon joining their ranks, Duran Duran had signed to EMI Records and released their first, self-titled album.Īnd almost as soon as the record hit the shelves, the band exploded. When they stumbled across a poet in tight pink lycra pants who thought he’d “ try the band thing” for a summer, everything finally clicked. Named after the antagonist in the schlocky, nineteen sixties science friction romp Barbarella, Duran Duran spent nearly three years trying to find the missing piece of their musical puzzle. After all, what other reason was there for being in a band?Įmerging from the post-punk club scene of Birmingham, England at the tail-end of the nineteen seventies, Duran Duran weren’t the overnight sensation that the music press who shadowed their every move claimed they were. They wanted to be THE band that everyone played in their final moments, they wanted their name to be the headliner on marquees and stadiums all over the world and they wanted to make music that people would fall in love with and remember for decades.Īnd being, as Simon Le Bon so eloquently put it “five good looking young men”, they wanted to meet, and date, the most beautiful women in the world. That was the ideology that drove all of the members of Duran Duran and is the essence of all our favourite Duran Duran songs. We want to be the band to dance to when the bomb drops Simon Le Bon
0 kommentar(er)
