While reading various news stories recently, I learned that Duran Duran had fallen apart once more. While this isn’t exactly earth shattering news in and of itself, it did serve to remind me that I still hadn’t got hold of the album they made after re-forming.
After arriving home that night, I headed to the iTunes music store and bought “Astronaut” - the result of the Duran Duran reformation. It went onto my iPod, and as I walked out of the house to clear skies at 7am the next morning, my ears were launched into “Reach Up For the Sunrise”.
I had forgotten just how good Duran Duran are (or “were”). Very unique sound. Perhaps I listen to them with a certain amount of bias, but I couldn’t help feeling that they are still every bit as good as they were in the late 1980s - and that means remembering that following their return from America they were undisputably the biggest band in the world at the time.
It’s easy to forget some of the great bands that have slipped away from public consciousness. Duran Duran. Go West. Nik Kershaw. Simple Minds. Howard Jones. OMD. Spandau Ballet. Each of them carrying more individuality and more talent than all of the modern produced bands put together.
Don’t get me wrong - most of the bands in the 1980s were just as manufactured as the boy bands and brainless singers turned out by the “search for a star” reality TV shows of the 2000’s. I’m guessing the difference may have been that the bands of the 80s fought to sell their music in a much bigger market. A number one single required ten times more sales than it does now - and marketing of music was still in it’s infancy. People bought music because they liked it - not because they had been brainwashed by an all-out assault across television, magazines, cinema adverts and radio.
Duran Duran may be no more, but Astronaut reminds us of fantastic albums - of great singles, and of a unique sound that sold more than anybody else once upon a time.