10.OOPS – After failing to die in spectacular fashion in a yacht race,Simon Le Bon appeared on a Saturday morning children’s television programme to talk about his chilling ordeal.During a live phone-in,a child asked him what was the scariest thing he experienced whilst stuck in a capsized yacht in freezing water for hours.His reply?
“Seeing the cook’s arse at 8 o’clock in the morning.”
He was banned from kid’s telly for life.
9.Lyrics.
New Moon On Monday-Shake up the picture the lizard mixture/With your dance on the eventide
The Chauffeur-Way down the lane away,living for another day/The aphids swarm up in the drifting haze
Notorious-And who really gives a damn for a flaky bandit?/Don’t ask me to bleed about it
Genius.
8.They promoted and lived a lifestyle that most people couldn’t even dream of.They married supermodels when all we could manage was Sharon from the Co-op.And they were from Birmingham.
7.Warren Cuccurullo-Former “member” of the band,in 2001 he marketed the “Rock Rod”,a self-modelled dildo that sold through his website.Well if you’ve got it,flaunt it.
6.Nick Rhodes – I am not ashamed to say he was something of a role-model during my teenage years,due to him being so sodding arty.He hung out with Andy Warhol and his chums,and his parents owned a toy store.He did strange things to keyboards and quite frankly is THE sound of Duran Duran.
5.Pop Quiz – Duran’s superiority over Spandau Ballet was proven beyond all doubt on the field of battle,the celebrity music gameshow Pop Quiz.The scores were tied.It was a tense moment.It all hinged on whether the answer Martin Kemp had just given was correct.
It was not.
Of course it wasn’t Union of the Snake,it was New Moon On Monday,you fool.
The ‘Ran won.Spandau Ballet never released another record,and Martin Kemp had to hide in Eastenders due to death threats from distraught Spandau Ballet fans…both of them.
4.Princess Diana ‘s favourite band.This made a difference…big time.The only band with Royal Approval.Like HP sauce.They played at her tribute concert by special request of her family.
3.Arena – Quite simply the greatest live album ever.I bought this the day it came out.It never left the tape deck.It’s probably still in there.But they shouldn’t have put Wild Boys on it.
2.Career Suicide – Solo projects,Bond themes,doing a cover version of White Lines and 911 Is A Joke,marrying Amanda De Cadenet…time and again they’ve shot themselves in the foot but managed to hobble to the hospital and get patched up.The Arcadia album was the best album Duran Duran never made,A View To A Kill is the only Bond film theme to go to No.1 in America,and they don’t even care that everyone laughed at their covers album.And John Taylor even had the good sense to divorce Amanda De Cadenet…she was on The Word,you know….remember that?
1.Videos – They invented the music video.
Wild Boys was voted the Best Video in the Smash Hits awards 3 years running,even when it wasn’t in the charts.
Girls On Film had naked ladies in it.I didn’t even know what a naked lady was until I saw that.
The Chauffeur,likewise.Nobody knows what it’s about,but well,see above.
Hungry Like The Wolf had an elephant in it.
A View To A Kill features the band.At the end,a girl asks Simon Le Bon
“Aren’t you…?
“Yes…Le Bon…Simon Le Bon.”
This is a cringe-makingly awful moment,but he knows it.That’s what makes it great.
The Reflex- That bit with the water is frigging awesome
Save A Prayer – filmed on a beach.Probably in Barbados…I’d never got further than Blackpool….they were better than us in so many ways.
And finally,if you had to boil down Duran Duran’s greatness to one word,that word would be …
Rio
Next time-Does this look infected…?
TROPICAL MOMENTS 