Duran Duran-Duran Duran (1981)
Artist: Duran Duran
Title: Duran Duran
Sell Date: 4/27/26
Condition: VG+/VG+
Discogs Last Sold:11/21/25 VG+/VG+ $5.00
Low: $2.93
Median: $5.00
Average: $6.95
High: $15.14
Current low price: $9.00
Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 3
Have/Want: 86/118
Where Sold: Whitestone, NY
Time It Took To Sell: 3 years
Where and When Bought: Facebook marketplace lot
Gwiz-gau Grade: C+
Sad To See It Go: No
This 1983 reissue of the first Duran Duran album may be the reason I hated this band for many years and didn't give this record a chance to change my mind until now. This the original one is at least a B+, maybe better, certainly for Brit Pop allegiants. Reissued after Rio and before Seven and The Ragged Tiger, the bands pop hits were all over the place and seeped into Rock radio softening up what was once a safe space against foppery. I hated it with all my heart--when I was 12/13 I wanted things HARD and LOUD. Sabbath! Priest! Maiden! Not Spandau Ballet or whatever new romantic shit came down the pike on top 40. Fashionable? Fuck it.
Of course, the dirty secret of much of early 80's New Wave was it often included a bunch of Prog guys that were nearing middle age crisis and wanted a chance to make themselves marketable commerically if they weren't scattered about what remained of the old guard landscape. Duran Duran debuting on Harvest Records broke that mold a bit. The old guy in the band was singer Simon Le Bon who in 1981 was the elder statesman at 23. Young, dumb and still full of enough cum to pay gleeful commentary regarding pornography "Girls On Film." With a jaundiced eye of course, wink, wink cherrio.
Initially this album was artful and "alternative." It didn't really do anything mainstream sales-wise until Rio blew up everywhere in 1982. Duran mania was full on and Capitol couldn't wait for a new album that came later in 1983 to upend the first album removing the song "To The Shore" and adding the completely, out of place, robotic new single "Is There Something I Should Know?" The album proceeded to go RIAA Gold that year and chart in the Billboard top 10, hitting the million mark in 1985, so the bean counters were surely rewarded for their brilliance, art be damned.
Interestingly, "...Something..." resumed it's proper place in the world after the record was remastered on compilations and the like. There was no longer a need to foist "Tel Aviv" and "Night Boat" on a compliant pre-teen market or swap "Planet Earth" out of the pole position so the biggest original track, "Girls On Film" could kick off the record and not make impatient schoolgirls wait to hear it. Those older preppy girls that liked The Cure and INXS understood it a little better as they plotted to meet college age boyfriends and go to their parties. Waiting for the "Sound of Thunder" indeed.
Sometimes nuance is a very fine line until you think about it.
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