Duran Duran 5×5
Image by Michael Putland / Retna UK
For this week’s music post, I am responding to a couple of question asked via the Duran Duran social media team in weeks past:
- What 5 tracks would you play for someone who had never heard of Duran Duran that best capture their overall sound?
- Which newer tracks best capture the classic sound of Duran Duran?
Because people like Top 10 lists, I thought I’d combine these two questions into one blog post.
For someone unfamiliar with Duran Duran, here are 5 songs that (I think) best represent their overall sound and represent some of the major highlights of the band’s career. Yes, they were all major hits, and yes, these were all singles from the first half of their career. There were many other hits, and personally, #2 and #3 aren’t even in my personal Top 20 favorites, but I think they are a great representative of the sound that made them famous, helping sell more than 100 million records. If the list were to be expanded to 10, I would have included Planet Earth, Rio, The Reflex, Union of the Snake, and Is There Something I Should Know. But here are the 5 which I think best represent DD’s original sound for the newbies out there:
It is equally difficult to create a short list of favorites from their more recent albums. In case you missed it, I’ve ranked their albums, and listen to my DD playlist most days, with their albums ‘Future Past,’ ‘Paper Gods,’ All You Need Is Now,’ and ‘Red Carpet Massacre’ in heavy rotation. I think of Duran Duran as 3 distinct periods or era’s: the classic lineup from their 1981 debut album through the Big Thing era, the Warren era from Liberty in 1990 through Pop Trash in 2000, and the modern era from Astronaut in 2004 through 2021’s Future Past. These selections are from the modern era (all album tracks), and do a great job of capturing that classic DD sound:
How did I do? Anything missing that you would have included?
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