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Duran Duran / The Biggest And The Best / new compilation

By Paul Sinclair

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Duran Duran / The Biggest And The Best
While we wait to see if EMI will continue to release Duran Duran deluxe reissues by tackling 1990’s Liberty and 1993’s Duran Duran (The Wedding Album), Demon Music Group are to about to put out a comprehensive looking 2CD set (under their Music Club Deluxe imprint) which covers the band’s output right up until the point when the Decade hits compilation was originally released (late 1989).

Although by focusing on the period in question we are denied mega-hits Ordinary World and Come Undone, this compilation looks far richer than EMI’s own 1998 collection Greatest, and remarkably can boast EVERY single released by the band in the 1980s alongside some well chosen album tracks and the odd B-side.

Rarities include the original single version of Rio track My Own Way – a string laden production that is very different to the album track, and Burning The Ground, the creative mash-up that was released as a single to promote the 1989 Decade release, but did not feature on that compilation. Hold Me and Matter Of Feeling are two excellent Notorious album tracks, although it’s unfortunate that no space could be found for Skin Trade flipside We Need You or I Believe/All I Need To Know from the All She Wants Is single. They are two of Duran Duran’s most charming B-side recordings.

Whether the world needs another Duran Duran compilation is debatable, but at least The Biggest And The Best (clumsy title) is not just rehashing The Greatest, which itself was almost identical to Decade. Moody album tracks such as The Chauffeur (“..Sing Blue Silver”), and The Seventh Stranger will always be an important part of the Duran Duran offering and it is pleasing to see them included here.

Full track listing:

CD 1

  • 1 Planet Earth
  • 2 Girls On Film
  • 3 My Own Way (Single Mix)
  • 4 Hungry Like The Wolf
  • 5 Careless Memories
  • 6 Hold Back The Rain
  • 7 Sound Of Thunder
  • 8 Faith In This Colour
  • 9 New Religion
  • 10 New Moon On Monday
  • 11 Union Of The Snake
  • 12 The Wild Boys
  • 13 ‘Meet El Presidente’
  • 14 Burning The Ground
  • 15 Night Boat
  • 16 Tel Aviv
  • 17 The Chauffeur

CD 2

  • 1 Is There Something I Should Know?
  • 2 The Reflex
  • 3 A View To A Kill
  • 4 Rio
  • 5 Shadows On Your Side
  • 6 Of Crime And Passion
  • 7 Hold Me
  • 8 Notorious
  • 9 I Don’t Want Your Love
  • 10 All She Wants Is
  • 11 Big Thing
  • 12 Skin Trade
  • 13 Do You Believe In Shame
  • 14 A Matter Of Feeling
  • 15 Lake Shore Driving
  • 16 The Seventh Stranger
  • 17 Save A Prayer

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7 Comments

7 thoughts on “Duran Duran / The Biggest And The Best / new compilation”

  1. Pingback: Duran Duran / The Biggest and the Best / details and competition | superdeluxeedition
  2. Pingback: Duran Duran’s ’80s output compiled on new 2CD collection ‘The Biggest and the Best’ | slicing up eyeballs // 80s alternative music, college rock, indie

  3. This was a long time in the making, as far as seeing all the early singles collected in one place. Too bad there is still not a singles collection that has all the early singles, chronologically, without any added tracks between the running order.

  4. Hmm, mixed feelings about the Duran two-discer. Now that the Singles 81-85 triple set is barely more than a fiver (even brand new!) in its redux jewelcase format, this new collection would have been a golden opportunity to include some of the 86-89 material that’s on the far rarer and more expensive (deleted) second Singles boxset. Those B-sides from Notorious, the ones from Big Thing…those are what would have made this set so much more enticing. At least Burning The Ground is included, I suppose!

  5. This just means that this site is even more valuable by giving us consumers the lowdown.

    To be fair, as Gabriel fan, I’d have to say I’d rather see a special edition of any of the first four albums before So. But So had the chart success.

    We all know CD’s are on the way out, so these sets are likely the last hoorah. Shame some are going out with a whimper.

    My only message to the music business is – I’m willing to buy these sets. I’m willing to pay over the odds for them. But I’m going to be selective. I won’t buy just anything. I’ll pay, but you’ve got to be selling what I want.

    I won’t be buying So.

    1. What gets me is that this SDE was a year in the planning?! All that build up and the product is weak. PG is an intelligent and nice man, who persuaded him that this was a good idea?!

  6. The four Paul McCartney deluxe sets did contain hi-res audio – each one either had a card in the set to download 24bit 96kHz versions of the audio (limited and unlimited) and RAM also included flac download as well

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