Duran Duran - The Singles 81-85 Box Set

Well, this is a turn up for the books…more singles! Here's something no Durannie can live without. A 13-disc box set containing replications of each of Duran Duran's most significant singles released between 1981 and 1985, The Singles 81-85 is a package that -- much like the band itself, as many of the haters would argue -- is most practical as something to look at. The very idea of swapping discs out of the player after every two of three songs seems like a cumbersome one, especially since most of the B-sides function as little more than curiosities. Still, there's plenty for the old fanatics to reminisce over, from the often superior "Night Version" remixes, to the endearingly silly acoustic version of "The Chauffeur," to scarce tracks like "Khanada," "Faster Than Light," and "Sekret October." Even if this serves no purpose to you whatsoever, it's at the very least fascinating to flip through the sleeves and watch the stark, angular graphic design of the early '80s morph into the garishly loud design of the mid-'80s. From "Planet Earth" through "A View to a Kill," the box plots the course of one of the '80s most successful singles acts.

Duran Duran - Duran Duran (Remastered)

Forget about the pastel suits and rolled up sleeves. Forget about riding the front of a yacht, playing Indiana Jones and being strapped to windmills. Forget, if you can, about every single monumental video that, when MTV began and the M stood for Music, transformed Duran Duran from back street Birmingham beginners to “The Fab Five”, and listen to an unlikely blend of AC/DC-esque guitar, Kraftwerkian keys, disco-bass and drama school poetry which created pop masterpieces.

Before fame had pasted their faces on every schoolgirl’s bedroom wall, and their sound had been altered to accommodate a worldwide audience, Duran Duran recorded this; their debut album, and their best to date. Recorded in 1980, its sound soaked up everything that surrounded the crossover of the decades – pop, rock, electro, disco, glam rock – to create a new genre, its name referenced in a line from their debut single, and one which would be their cross to bear for the rest of their career: new romantics.

With a camera shutter samples predicting their fate, ‘Girls On Film’ is a statement of frivolity, funk and fun. “We want to be the band to dance to when the bomb drops,” Le Bon has claimed on more than one occasion. Roger Taylor’s simple, organic drumbeat (as opposed to the shiny, black, hexagonal ones which would soon grace the Top Of The Pops stage) plays alongside a loop, declaring the sound of a future thinking band who write and play the traditional way.

It’s impossible to think of DD’s sound, though, without Nick Rhodes’ synthesizers, which don’t shy away on this opening track, swirling through the final verse as if trying to compete for centre stage. The man born Nicholas Bates (who could often be found at one of Andy Warhol’s NYC parties) is half mad-scientist and half pompous-wizard behind his keys, creating cosmic visions that have influenced many musicians since (The Dandy Warhols, who he’d later produce for), and continue to be the constant that defines Duran’s sound from bands whose sound merges with their contemporaries of the time. ‘Planet Earth’ begins the albums journey from upbeat, radio singles to a darker, more seductive sound. While its “bop bop” sing-a-long chorus keeps audiences happy, it’s the drum & bass that drives this track. Rhodes has spoken of his “immeasurable thanks” to John Taylor for switching from lead guitar to bass. On moments like this, where he is locked in with Roger’s drums as if each second were chained, it’s difficult not to agree.

When Duran do what they do well, there is a certain deep, full sound which each moment of the track must keep, encapsulating the listener in a surround sound sort of fashion. From the guitar lick so heavy it could be Nile Rodgers playing (he would do five years later on ‘Notorious’), to synth tricks like glitter being thrown from nowhere; this is their introduction to ‘Planet Earth’. Lyrically it’s poetry – literally. Many of their earlier compositions came from a book Le Bon had been playing with years before his audition. “Only came outside to watch the nightfall with the rain, I heard you making patterns rhyme…” Compared with their contemporaries, and even the “nuclear war” style rhymes they’d later release, this is Keats.

As their career grew, it seems that Andy Taylor’s guitar did quite the opposite. By 84’s ‘Seven And The Ragged Tiger’ it was difficult to pick it out on top of synths that appear to have won the aforementioned battle. Here his 1/5th is still equal. On sparse number ‘To The Shore’, he glides over his colleagues’ inputs, while an actual guitar solo (they did do some of these) overlooks his own gritty stabs. Opposites attracting themselves to Rhodes’ synths, which throughout the album sound like a boy who received a Roland Jupiter-4 for Christmas and was automatically an expert at making it do anything he wanted.

Second single ‘Careless Memories’, considered a failure on release due to its #37 peak, is the band doing pure angst. Playful synths frowning, soaring guitar growling, romantic Le Bon almost swearing, “It always takes so damn long before I feel how much my eyes have darkened”. Its frantic vigour produces an energy unheard of elsewhere on the album, making it not the pop/rock Duran Duran are renowned for, but their attempt at rock/pop. When asked which track sums up their original blueprint of sounding like something between the Sex Pistols and Chic, the band chose ‘Sound Of Thunder’. It doesn’t sound quite like that (what would?), but it does encapsulate the dynamism of Johnny with the funk of Bernard, highlighted on a middle-eight that overpowers that drugged-up disco beat with a Scott Pilgrim-style war of synthesizers and guitar.

Penultimate track ‘Friends Of Mine’ is darker disco still. Le Bon’s chart-throb yelp trades places with a deep, whispering echo, complimented with textures from Rhodes that transform this track into a five minute horror B-Movie. “Why don’t they say I’m wrong, why don’t they drop the bomb?” Le Bon enquires. At least there’d be this to dance to if they did. Closer ‘Tel Aviv’ is a reminder of what Duran could have become had world domination not gotten in their way. No encore style sing-a-long, no words at all in fact. It’s a piece of art; a multi-layered, 5-minute epic, where strings meet robotic, Aztec beats in-between Monk-like wails. And all the while, JT & RT hold the rhythm steady, underneath guitar growls that have become more distorted as the album has played. It doesn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the LP – sounding more like a portfolio for a group of budding film score writers – but it is one almighty crescendo.

With Colin Thurston on production duties – who’d previously worked on albums by the artists Rhodes played while making money as a DJ; Bowie, Iggy, Magazine – a better match could not have been made. They shared a vision of honesty and grandeur; of disco and rock; the music of legends and the music of the future. When Brandon Flowers, Justin Timberlake, Goldfrapp, Franz Ferdinand et al cited Duran Duran as influences – mainly during the reunion of the original line-up, a time when it was considered foul play to not give them some sort of Outstanding Achievement award – it is based on this. A 9-track capsule by a young band who saw themselves as the next Japan. Less dancing on the sand; more floating through space. In a parallel universe, on a different Planet Earth and without MTV, that should be the case.

Dan Bull

My Own Way

The fourth single by Duran Duran, released on 16 November 1981 was designed as a stop-gap release to capitalise on the Top 5 success of the band's previous single, "Girls on Film", but prior to the recording and release of the band's second album Rio which was recorded in the early months of 1982. "My Own Way" peaked at #14 on the UK Singles Chart. A much slower version of "My Own Way" was later recorded for Rio, with slightly different lyrics. Even though it was released as a single, and a gateway to the Rio album, "My Own Way" has yet to appear on any of Duran Duran's compilation albums apart from the 12” Essential Duran Duran (Night Versions) collection.

The song begins with a recording of the rapid clicking of the motor drive on a Nikon camera. "Girls on Film" presents an impressionistic set of images through its lyrics as it chronicles a rather racy photo shoot in a breathless first-person style, complete with fanciful and suggestive turns of phrase like "Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she's falling" and "Wider baby smiling you've just made a million." This hazy yet sexy imagery makes it tough to determine whether the photo shoot in question is fashion-oriented or pornographic, which adds to the song's saucy sense of fun. The raunchy video created uproar, and it was consequently banned by the BBC and heavily edited for MTV. Simon Le Bon commented in 1999 that the scandal of the music video overshadowed the song's message of fashion model exploitation.

Careless Memories

The second Duran Duran single was something of an anomaly in that it barely scraped into the UK top 40. Shockingly, the urgent A-side is not one of the band’s famous “night versions,” so an opportunity was lost along the way. But it remains Duran Duran’s most high-velocity “rocker” that fairly crackles with an urgency I can’t recall them obtaining ever since. Following the band’s reasonably successful debut single, “Planet Earth” EMI chose this single, and in a “let’s see you do better” moment, let the band pick their third single, “Girls On Film.” The rest is history, but let the record state that I prefer this song.

Planet Earth

Beginning with "Planet Earth", Duran Duran began creating what they called "night versions" for each of their early singles; extended versions that were featured on their 12-inch singles. Back in 1981, the technology to do extended remixes was still quite rudimentary, so the band chose instead to create a new arrangement of the song, loosely based on the version they were playing live at the time. This formed the basis for the "night version".

What more can I say except that I still love this! If you want to come outside and watch the nightfall with the rain…bring a mack