duran duran

[19] Duran Duran, ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’

Duran Duran were, of course, the most exciting thing to happen to popular music ever. I was nine, this was the sort of thing I believed. How cool was their massive hair? Their pastel suits? Their headbands? Their location shoots? Their impenetrable lyrics that were more nonsensical than the ones I actually thought Le Bon was singing? This single is magnificent, 1982’s chart a harsh mistress.

Has time been kind?  Will today’s kids “get” Duran Duran? Junior stood up in her playpen from the first note and bopped at the bars. A top five reaction.

God, those LYRICS.

[9] Britney Spears, ‘…Baby One More Time’

Britney Spears

Odd to think that this is the first time Junior’s heard this, when the rest of us could probably sing it in our sleep. That’s almost the case for her too – I have to wake her up, and we grab our jukebox moment in the five minutes before we need to scoot off to nursery. Junior greets the song with a blend of crying, laughing, dancing and squawking. She’s obviously been watching Britters’ recent videos.

With this record, teeny pop took a swerve for the better, beefing up its sound and realising that the kids wanted something more than saccharine ballads. Which was hardly rocket science. The 8-12 year olds used to buy Blondie, Duran Duran, Frankie, A-ha, all of whom had a bit of muscle behind the velvet. Surely the 90s kids could cope? OK, I suppose some of this record’s success was down to the school uniform – no accounting for dubious taste – but it’s still top-drawer power pop.

Of course, Britney’s second single was ‘Sometimes’, a sugarsweet ballad.

[11] Fine Young Cannibals, ‘She Drives Me Crazy’

Fine Young Cannibals

Just what was stuck in Roland Gift’s throat? Maybe he’d sniffed too hard at the Like A Prayer sleeve. And what happened to this lot, anyway? The Raw & The Cooked album was the year’s most unexpected must-have, which must have made them shedloads of cash and stored up a cache of goodwill for whatever they wanted to do next. Nothing.

A catchy single, this, snaring soul, rock, pop and funk fans all at once. Junior is all of these. It was slyly released into the no-man’s land of early January – when the record buyers are sick to the back teeth of Cliff and Slade, and will even propel a sub-par washed-up Duran Duran single into the Top 10 – and what do you know, the first memorable hit of the year.

As Junior bounced her chair along the floorboards, I had a gander at the tracklist for the R&TC. It reminded me of Jukebox Junior Theory 2c: no one makes tightly-edited, quality-controlled, filler-free 10-track albums anymore. We’re assailed with “added value”, bonus tracks, unfunny skits and will-this-do?-isms, and it’s all a load of crap.

Am I right?

[1] Wham!, ‘Freedom’

We’ve established that I was a low-key Duranie. Revisionist history always has it that pop from ’82 to ’84 was all about Duran Duran vs Spandau Ballet*. Rubbish. The world was fought over by Duran Duran and Culture Club. As a consequence I hated Culture Club, even though these days I can listen to one or two singles and always enjoy a crass and bitchy Boy George innuendo.

‘Freedom’ killed Culture Club. There was a blaze of publicity for CC’s return, but ‘The War Song’, released the same week as ‘Freedom’, just couldn’t cope with Wham!’s sales juggernaut and was pulverised**. A swift fall down the chart was assured, and next single ‘The Medal Song’ peaked at No.32. Disastrous.

This is No.1 for other reasons, naturally. It’s a perfect pop Motown pastiche, for one, and the guitars and horns go mad at the end, for another. It was all very easy for George. Time after time, he was releasing vinyl joy.

Junior got into the record by standing on her dad’s lap, clapping and trying to eat his hands. By the last chorus, she was trying to eat her own feet. We’d reached the edge of elevenses.

*Spandau Ballet were irredeemably awful. No exception. Ok, except maybe that winningly hackneyed saxophone solo in ‘True’, weirdly.

**It’s incidental that ‘The War Song’ was useless anyway.

[9] Duran Duran, ‘The Reflex’

While Frankie and Wham! were carving up the UK, Duran Duran were perfumed, whacked-out, be-mulleted Kings of the World. Cash and supermodels dripping off them like sweat from Le Bon’s podgy face. Total UK chart domination seemed to elude them, this being only their second and last No.1 single, but of course they provoked scenes of hysteria not seen since you-know-who.

I was one of those quieter, male Duranies. Bought this single on poster bag 7”, admired by the boys on the lift home from school. It was only when you hit 13 that Duran Duran became hopelessly naff. I stayed bewilderingly faithful, achingly cool though I was, until they slipped off my radar ten years ago.

The best bit of this song is obviously Andy Taylor’s processed burps in the middle section. It’s the only part that makes sense in the lyrical sea of nonsense. They tried to convince us that Taylor was saying “yeah”, but where’s the fun in that?

Junior is an aficionado of the belch, a burping connoisseur. None were forthcoming this morning as she’d obstinately foregone breakfast, so she contented herself with leaning forwards over the side of the inflatable, trying to give her parents the fear. The only time she paid attention was when the “ta la la la”s came in at the start. The moment Le Bon opened his mouth, she dived for cover.

That’s your lot, Duranies. God knows what happened to ‘Wild Boys’.

[16] U2, ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’

The high chair was today’s listening platform. Junior did her side to side move, as if she’s trying to dodge you on the basketball court, and was as enthused with the stadium rock power as ever.

‘New Year’s Day’ was the first U2 single I heard, and I hated them. I liked this song and ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ but hated them again in time for the next year’s arrogant, show-stopping Live Aid performance. Bono’s antics at Live Aid made me cringe. My mum was in hospital waiting to give birth to my brother, and my nonplussed dad let me sit in front of the TV all day. I remember him being rather taken with Madonna, able to identify her whenever she appeared on Top Of The Pops after that. Quite a feat when you consider that he usually thought that all pop stars were Cliff Richard.

He even let me sleep on the sofa that night so I could catch the Philadelphia concert, and particularly Duran Duran. I knew I wouldn’t make it so I set my alarm clock, but – portending my adult future – I slept right through it. I was gutted. Still haven’t seen Duran Duran’s bit. Was it any good?

Back to 1984. ‘Pride’ is one of those huge, undeniable records that will have you nodding your head, hate it or love it. Junior and I got into it, air drums on the tray, but we’ve probably heard it enough now.

[13] Duran Duran, ‘Skin Trade’

Like a typical Duranie of the period, Junior was indifferent to this. There was a brief slapping of the thighs at the start, yet attention soon turned to the socks. So, what made the fans desert in their droves? I don’t think it’s a bad record even now, but it was the first to miss the Top 10 in years. Maybe it’s because it had an almost intelligible lyric.

Arcadia and the Power Station diluted the fanbase and the preceding single ‘Notorious’ scraped to No.7 on comeback power alone. A-ha had nicked the girls and the CD age had come and populated the chart’s upper reaches with the more ‘serious’ artists. The biggest bands in the country were now Dire Straits and U2. Duran Duran’s fabled mix of the Sex Pistols and Chic – without the Sex Pistols and the disco joy – wasn’t cutting the ice.

So, Simon, we’ve explained the reason for this strange behaviour. Perhaps you shouldn’t have allowed all those Taylors to jump ship, and then replaced them with AMERICANS.