Awhile back I declared it my new mission to bring Duran Duran to the Pop Children of the world. Today is John Taylor's 50th birthday. To celebrate this uber-important milestone, here are 10 musical thoughts about John and Duran Duran.
1 I love John's Obama campaign video. Especially how he says Bare-ack Obama.
2 Best Duran Remix? Come Undone (La Fin de Siecle) is GORGEOUS. Slowed down into a monolithic Bond-ish ballad. It's on iTunes, as is almost ALL their work.
3 Best Duran Duran smash hit no one knows? Serious. Note I am obsessed with John Taylor smiling in the video at minute 2:06 (and shown above). He is so... twinkly.
4 Saddest Duran Duran song? Michael You've Got A Lot To Answer For. Heartbreaking song about Michael Hutchence. Ironic to this post, John had no involvement in this song.
5 My favorite Notorious song not on Notorious. It's a b-side called We Need You. The reissue of Notorious in September will have the song, which is on iTunes now.
6 Duran recently did a round table (again, minus John, booyouwhores) where they answered fan questions. They talk a lot about the forthcoming Mark Ronson-produced CD, but no details yet
7 A must-see video from a Duran perspective and music biz perspective: The Duran documentary (1987) Three To Get Ready - it's totally worth the hour-plus it takes to watch on youtube. It's more poignant to watch now, knowing that John is correct in the film to be worrying that the band is no longer topping the charts.
8 A few John facts: His name is Nigel John Taylor. He has an 18 yr old daughter named Atlanta (Amanda de Cadenet is her mom and here are more pics of her). He has a big overbite that, in America, someone would've forced him to fix and thus damaged the JT charm.
9 People forget that John actually left Duran Duran in 1997ish for two albums (technically he is on Medazzaland, but barely). He returned when Andy Taylor returned and he remains today.
10 Finally, why has no one ever covered New Religion? It's epic. Penguin Prison should take it on.
John, during his Duran hiatus, singing and SMILING V. NICELY:
Here is John talking about the first Duran Hits album, looking very glamourboy:
Last word: John just did a birthday blog .
John was always the cool, sophisticated and good looking one of the band. "I Do What I Do" is one of the better one-hit wonder tracks of the 80s as well, although does John count as a one-hit wonder, having hits with both Power Station and Duran Duran?
Brilliant!
This is an unglamorous, banal question, but if someone hypothetically only owned Rio and a couple songs from compilations, what would be the Duran album to get next? Or maybe iTunesing that top ten plus one list you did for them would be the way to go.
Maybe someone else has an opinion, but I personally think I'd do various tracks non-Rio:
Ordinary World
Whatever Happens Tomorrow
Girls On Film
Planet Earth
Serious
Union Of The Snake
Come Undone (La Fin De Siecle Mix)
Michael You've Got A Lot To Answer For
My Antarctica
Notorious
Careless Memories
Reflex
Is There Something I Should Know
None of The Above (that one esp for you Poster Girl!)
Nite Runner
Sunrise
Astronaut
I Don't Want Your Love
Palomino
This Is How A Road Gets Made
We Need You
I would actually suggest Arena. That's one of those live albums that really captures a moment.
You must get the first self-titled album if you don't have it. It is the closest to Rio-sounding, and doesn't have the saggy bits that some of their other records do. Seven & the Ragged Tiger is good too, if a bit overthought. I wouldn't start with the late 80's albums to the present--they're not bad records, but they don't represent the band definitively the way the first three do.