duranies

[10] Duran Duran, ‘Rio’

Junior stood at the coffee table, directly in front of the stereo, bobbing up and down. She fair resembled a Duranie from all those years ago, missing only the baggy trousers tucked into pixie boots, the hair sprayed outwards ‘til it was replacing the ozone layer let alone ripping through it, and the bulldozer-applied make-up. Give her five years.

This is the title track of the first album I owned, no half-shares with big sis, and it was the first song on the tape I took away to school, to play on one of those flat players with the speaker at the top. I had a single earpiece for private listening. Yes, I was at the vanguard of the hi-fi revolution.

What I’m saying is it’s a formative record for me. It’s why I wear a headband with my pastel suit, and blather interminable bullshit about cherry ice cream and how much birthdays and pretty views mean to me.

And it still has muscle and depth of sound, an odd contrast with the more cutting edge likes of Rockers Revenge. The cool dates faster than the naff.

[11] Simply Red, ‘The Right Thing’

The best bit of this record is the end. By the time we put this on, Junior had resorted to playing hide and seek by sitting on dad’s head (you try and find a baby that’s sitting on your head).

When I say the end, I mean the last minute. The flame-haired, jewel-toothed, priapic, McCutcheon-bothering minstrel changes the key and stretches his ad lib wings, and we can forget the dry work-out of the first three minutes. Nothing special, though. Hucknall was never as special as he thought, unlikely voice apart.

I heard ‘Something Got Me Started’ the other day. Horrible song, yet brimming with enormous, tangible confidence. It got me thinking that it wasn’t just the broad appeal MOR coffee-table soul that made him so successful; it was also his unstoppable, brash belief that he had everything and could do anything. Without that, he was just another Sade, albeit one a little less easy on the eye.

Now, don’t go deserting 1987 in your Duranie-like droves. The Top 10’s mustard.

[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.