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Please
please sell me now
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| They
were the perfect pop package with the sound, look and attitude to win the
title 'Biggest Band in the World'. And they did it wearing blouses. Everyone had a view on Duran Duran, there was no middle ground. The Sex Pistols meets Chic (as lead singer Simon Le Bon suggested), or a bunch of lipstick poseurs? The truth probably fell somewhere between the two. With their bouffant hair, powdered cheek bones and homeknit legwarmers, the group bestrode the wasteland of post-punk Britain like a pouting colossus, selling millions of records on the way. 'Look now, look all around, there's no sign of life . . .' A lyric and a lifestyle. Arch-critics of the band, who preferred to wave gladioli to The Smiths, will never be won over. But a reevaluation of Duran Duran suggests Birmingham's Fab Five may have left a more enduring legacy than moaning Morrissey, influencing the new generationof dance music. The band always had an innate sense of sound commercial timing. Their rise to worldwide fame coincided with the pop revolution engineered by music videos and MTV. Now the group's promotion by dance acts comes as EMI releases a Duran Duran Singles Box'81-'84, a collection of the band's best-known hits. To complete the picture, the original group has reformed and is set to release an album in the summer. It's enough to make you dig out a powder-blue jumpsuit and pixie boots. The overblown songs and videos of 1984/85 - Wild Boys, I say no more - have tended to obscure the New Wave excitement generated by the group in the early 80s. Duran Duran introduced middle class white boys to an underground dance culture, a fact overshadowed by the pop crimes of the mid and late 80s. What adolescent schoolboy (I was one of them) wouldn't be won over by the imagery and lyrics to Girls on Film? 'Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she's falling.' Phwoar. And Le Bon didn't just sing about gorgeous women, he pulled one. How he copped off with Yasmin remains a major talking point to the Smash Hits generation who now read Vogue. Simon is 45 this year, Yasmin is still with him and she looks the same. Please, please, tell me now how he does it? Listening again to the early singles, the freshness and excitement remains the same. Planet Earth was released in January 1981, 22 years ago. The Beatles had 'Yeah, yeah, yeah' (She Loves You), The Stones had 'woo hoo, woo hoo' (Sympathy for the Devil) but Duran Duran had 'Ba, ba, ba/Ba ba ba ba ba' ('This is planet earth'). It did not matter if you thought it was electro-punk-funk fusion, or art school tripe (millions voted with their pocket money for the former). What mattered was that you could dance to it, suck in your cheeks and wear your mum's hairspray. The music was about dance, fashion and expression, girls and boys, and I'm sure Hungry Like The Wolf hinted at oral sex. Duran Duran's eponymous first album contained both Planet Earth and Girls on Film but the lid really came off the compact set in 1982. One album, one word, one video, one woman in a white swimming costume: Rio. Simon and the boys never looked so good, out-tanning Wham! as they frolicked on a yacht. The video sparked controversy over the nipple content (the models', not the bands'), following in the proud tradition of Girls on Film, which had an extended video featuring lesbianism, mud-wrestling and horizontal pole dancing. And Rio started with a electronic cacophony and an opening lyric to die for: 'Moving on the floor now babe you're a bird of paradise Cherry ice cream smile I suppose it's very nice' The album of the same name spawned the hits My Own Way, Hungry Like TheWolf and Save A Prayer. The band had to wait until the following year for their first Number One single, Is There Something I Should Know. For a band that appeared to dominate the charts, it comes as a surprise that they only achieved two Number One singles, the other being The Reflex (1984). By now Duran Duran had fallen desperately into self-parody and Princess Di's favourite band were a Bond theme tune away from going their separate ways. After A View To A Kill, released 18 years ago, the shoulder pads came off and it effectively was 'Goodnight, Mr Le Bon.' Pale imitations of the band cropped up from time to time although 1993's The Wedding Album evoked memories of the glory days. But now they really are back with the legendary line up: Simon le Bon (vocals), Andy Taylor (guitar), Nick Rhodes (keyboards), John Taylor (bass), Roger Taylor (drums). What will the garage generation make of them? Will they care? Do we care if they care? Don't listen to the snipers, there'll be plenty of them. Live the dream. Ba, ba, ba/Ba, ba, ba, ba ba. |
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Richard McComb, Birmingham Post, 2 June 2003, p.16. |
