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Duran Duran album due in Sep 2015

By Paul Sinclair

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41

duranduran
Duran Duran at the Warner Bros Records (photo courtesy of DD facebook)

Duran Duran are expected to release their fourteenth studio album in September 2015.

The album does not have a title at present, but we do know that Mark Ronson has returned, following a largely successful collaboration on All You Need Is Now, and another former Duran producer, Nile Rodgers, has also been involved.

The first single is thought to be a song called Pressure Off which features vocals from Janelle Monáe. It was this track that the band previewed yesterday at Warner Brothers Records, with whom they have reached a deal to release the new album.

Interestingly, this will be the first time since the mid-nineties that a major record label has owned the rights to a new Duran Duran album as well as the classic back catalogue. This is because Warner’s acquired the Parlophone label when Universal bought EMI. In theory, if the label release any physical singles or online ‘bundles’ they can leverage the back catalogue any way they see fit to promote new work.

Assuming schedules are kept to, we will now see new music from Duran Duran and A-ha in the same month.

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41 Comments

41 thoughts on “Duran Duran album due in Sep 2015”

  2. It’s only Wednesday, but there’s been a flurry of activity since this past weekend regarding the new album of theirs titled “Paper Gods” and the new single “Pressure Off” set to be released this week (6/19). That being said, if you head on over to the Warner Bro store, they now have the album for pre-order in three guises: a deluxe fan edition CD, fan edition with t-shirt and LP with t-shirt:

    http://store.warnermusic.com/duran-duran

    No track list yet, but it had been posted in this one Duran Duran forum and then got deleted by the mod (apparently WB doesn’t like album info being posted regardless of whether or not the band has already talked about what’s on there, etc). The artwork for the album is…hideous. Hopefully what’s shown on the WB site is not final.

  3. I’d guess Warners releasing the album has more to do with re-energizing the back catalog and getting the band on the road than how excited they are about the record. Not to say it is or isn’t a fine record, or that Warner’s sin’t behind it 100%, but there’s a pattern here with Warners that involves sending money in the direction of artists whose catalogs they own in return for new albums / deluxe reissues / etc, etc. Prince, Rod Stewart, blah, blah, blah

  4. Now that they have signed with Warner Bros. (their 1981-1995 Parlophone output is now owned by Warner Music Group) a new, double-CD singles collection could be easier to make. With all the correct single versions, chronologically arranged, with brand new remasters. The band owns “Medazzaland”, “Pop Trash” and “Astronaut” – © Duran Duran New Partnership – and also “Red Carpet Massacre” and “All You Need Is Now” – © Skin Divers.

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  7. “How do they know if they’ve made a good record?”

    That is a good question, Paul. I have to think Duran Duran truly believes that each of their records harbors something new and worthwhile, else they’d simply hang up their spurs. As for how we judge it…well, that is indeed complicated by fandom.

    I’m kind of an odd bird in that I’m still a big fan of many bands — not just those from the ’80s, mind you — but I generally don’t follow them on social media or otherwise latch onto anyone’s hype machine. I keep a link farm of most of my favorite bands, and every few months I’ll kick back on a weekend evening, have a drink, listen to some good tunes, and check out what they’re all up to. Yeah, I said websites. Increasingly old fashioned in the age of social media, I know, but it’s a good way for me to track the basics I care most about, especially any new music and tours, without having to sift through minor or more personal details. They’re interesting people and all, but all I really care about is the music.

    Though I recognize that many of my favorite bands from the ’80s don’t sell many copies of their new albums no matter how good they are, I’m often impressed, and sometimes blown away by their new material. Duran Duran falls into the increasingly rare category of bands whose music I’ll buy without listening to any samples or singles (if, to your point, any singles really exist). FWIW, Depeche Mode, a-ha, Tears For Fears, Thomas Dolby, and OMD have also earned that status — I’ll basically buy anything they put out without knowing anything about it. Ocassionally I receive a minor burn, but more often than not, I’m pleasantly surprised.

    So how do I know if Duran Duran has made a good album? I simply buy it and listen (!), and I’m usually a happy camper. When I played All You Need Is Now for the first time, I recall sensations of excitement, nostalgia, and ultimately relief that a band I’ve like for so long could still have a deep impact on me. So where do I place my pre-order? ;-)

    Oh, and Don Cooper: great call — Dark Circles is a killer album, one of my favorite finds.

  9. More subjective opinions here… I will await the release of the new album with interest, but honestly, if I had to choose at this point between buying a new DD album or buying a well-done deluxe edition of the Wedding Album, I’d definitely choose the latter.

  10. As a previous commenter mentioned, opinions are all over the place when it comes to Duran Duran’s various albums over the last 25 years. I’ll hypothesize that DD’s willingness to take stylistic chances and change with the fashion du jour means they shed and pickup fans with some fluidity.

    By way of example: when Red Carpet Massacre was released, I saw how many producers and co-writers they worked with and I feared that was a sign that the boys had lost the plot. And when I first listened to the album, my suspicions were at least partially confirmed because it seemed all over the place. Really, it’s kind of a shotgun album, shooting in all directions trying to hit something. But after a few listens, I realized that it’s actually quite good, if quite unfamiliar to “traditional” DD fans.

    I’m a HUGE DD fan, but I’m also not blindly loyal to the extent that I think all their albums are solid affairs end to end. To be frank, I’d say most of their albums haven’t been consistent since Notorious. But no matter the production value, EVERY DD album has a few truly excellent tracks; I’ll stand by this claim firmly, even in consideration of Liberty and Pop Trash. Which brings me to All You Need is Now…

    True, some of the best songs are somewhat derivative of the band’s classic material, and true, it feels like Duran Duran is trying earnestly to sound like Duran Duran, but you know what? I love it. It works for me on a deep level. Some of the tracks actually gave me shivers the first time I heard them, particularly The Man Who Stole A Leopard. Upon first listen, I felt like I’d unearthed an experimental DD album from the mid ’80s and it really motivated me to appreciate the band’s longevity and stamina. Sure, not all the tracks are strong — maybe it would have made a better 10-track release — but the effort really shines through. Nothing feels phony or phones in. FWIW, I also saw DD live on that tour and they sounded even better than I would have hoped given their age and miles (sorry, but it pays to be realistic when going to see some nostalgia acts these days).

    Much like OMD’s recent albums — both truly excellent works — All You Need Is Now reminded me that Duran Duran could still be relevant to old fans, and possibly even some new fans. I respect Paul’s opinions as much as anyone’s, but I do feel like his All You Need Is Now review was a bit rough, especially a few years later when I find that the album still has sticking power with me. It’s in my DD top 5 albums and, tellingly, it’s their only album from the last 25 years that makes that list for me.

    Anyhow, based on how much I enjoy All You Need Is Now, I’m looking forward to their new album as much as any DD release since Seven & The Ragged Tiger. All You Need Is Now has raised my expectations for the band 30+ years on, and my belief that they can still deliver the goods, and that’s why it’s a winner in my book.

    1. Good comments. I agree that every Duran album has at least one or two decent tracks. It will be interesting to hear the new record because having read the comments from the band, unlike All You Need Is Now, it doesn’t sound like it will be referencing the classic sound as much/at all.

      The biggest problem the band have, which I made reference to in the review, is that they are no longer operating in a world where the success of their new album can be validated by hit singles. They won’t have any hits. They probably also won’t sell that many copies, regardless of how good it is. Those two measures made it easy, in the ‘old’ days, to tell the difference between ‘Pop Trash’ and ‘Big Thing’ or ‘The Wedding Album’ and ‘Liberty’. Most of the band’s interaction on social media is with fans who seem to love everything they do unquestioningly. So I ask the serious question, how do they know if they’ve made a good record? Every album they’ve ever released they’ve told us is amazing before it came out. I suppose the fact that they’ve worked with Mark Ronson and Nile Rodgers and that Warners are willing to release the album bodes well, but I just hope it’s as good as we hope it’s going to be. P.

  11. I hope it’s better then AYNIN…I also wish (while I’m wishing) they would do a deluxe ARENA…with the video for wild boys, maybe some concert footage…and more live tracks, and the remixes for wild boys…it was my first album and I got a soft spot for it

    1. I’m in for a deluxe Arena. Always loved the design and packaging of that record, so can imagine that is a large deluxe book with 4/5 discs!

      1. If they did a deluxe Arena, it would awesome if they packaged the board game in as well. I wasted a whole holiday to Hawaii in 1985 looking for that damn board game. Every department store or Toys R Us we passed, i made my folks stop in so I could see if they had it.

        Came away empty handed. :(

  12. Think you hit the nail in the head there…did that Grammy ever happen?
    Seriously tho, I think DD have had more than enough of my money for product. What they need to do is tour more often, they can make good money, more money than any new material. Also they should be releasing EPs, not 15 or 17 track albums , neither their songwriting skills or the listener has the stamina for that these days.

    2. Duran Duran certainly have the capability to create an excellent 14, 15, 17 track album. Your statement, “neither their songwriting skills or the listener has the stamina for that these days”, leaves me incredulous. The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Amon Duul II, The Who, Led Zepellin, The Cure, David Sylvian and others have presented us with albums featuring more than 15 tracks, and countless listeners have taken the time to appreciate the qualities of their efforts.
      Only a person spending far too much time texting messages on a cell phone, or someone who can’t fathom reading a book, or walking through the galleries of an art museum , wouldn’t have the ability to enjoy the beauty and diversity of an album featuring more than 12 tracks.
      If you think it takes stamina to listen to more than 12, 14 album tracks, I’d hate to see you using a vacuum or doing laundry.

      1. I agree with Gary. The long ‘Best Buy’ version of All You Need Is Now was a mess. The ‘best’ version of the album was the digital version which was around 10-tracks. That should have been the CD version. Bowie’s Station to Station was 6 tracks, Songs From The Big Chair was 8 tracks. Rio was 9-tracks. Since when was a great album measured in terms of quantity of tracks or running time? Duran Duran’s first two albums in my opinion are the only two where they got it spot on.

    2. This is why music can be so maddeningly objective, I love Astronaut, thought Red Carpet was meh but thought they triumphantly returned to form with All You Need Is Now. My friend thinks Red Carpet is the only decent one of the three. This is why I always respect intelligent opinions regardless of whether I agree or not.

  14. I enjoyed the last album, they played a lot of it at the gig in Oxford, and it comes across better live than on CD.
    There was definitely an audible comparison to the deeper cuts from their early career and stuff like The Man Who Stole A Leopard, Mediterranea and Too Close To The Sun

  15. Nothing left of Arcadia that hasn’t been released surely,
    and there was only 10 or so songs/tracks, how many versions do you need before it becomes more about completion rather than quality?

    1. I can’t see much demand for an Arcadia SDE anyway. The fact that EMI issued it in a cheap-as-chips ‘fatbox’ with a crap ‘booklet’ shows that they weren’t over confident and were keeping costs as low as possible. Still a great set though, in terms of what was included. The big question is why DD haven’t reissued Medazzaland. They OWN that themselves so don’t have to argue with labels about the ‘approach’ to the reissue etc.

  18. I’d also like to see a Blu-Ray/DVD/CD release of their appearance on MTV Unplugged. I think there’s a bootleg CD of that one out there. And I still want Reportage released.

  19. @Claudio – For The Wedding Album, the two 2xCD sets out there are “Obsession & Corruption” and “The Wedding Album Demos”. As for Liberty, the main one out there is called “Didn’t Anybody Tell You?”, although some people may have taken tracks from there and made other compilation CDs.

    1. Thank you Martin for the great belly laugh!!

      It is always great to be expecting a new Duran Duran album. Fingers crossed for those 90’s era album ‘deluxe’ reissues! I wonder what happened to John Taylor’s idea of a ‘Liberty’ “directors cut”.

  25. I think what we’re all hoping for is a super deluxe treatment of Duran’s “Wedding Album”. The challenge will be to find unreleased mixes / demos / remixes to satiate the fans as there are a couple of 2 CD bootlegs out there (amazing quality) containing unreleased mixes / versions of songs from the Wedding Album. Then there’s also “Liberty” – it’s been 25 years since that album came out. There are songs that were recorded but never released (again, these can be found on a 2CD set). AND to add to this, it’s been 20 years since “Thank You”. Now, while “Thank You” never received much acclaim, it does appeal to the fan base and there are songs that were never released commercially (they did record Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold”) and probably some alternate versions as well. Don’t know when we’ll ever see deluxe editions of these albums, but at least we’ll have new stuff in 6 months.

    1. Thank You was voted the worst ever album in a Poll by Q magazine, reviews of it at the time of release were scathing. I cannot imagine there would be much of a demand for a deluxe release of that album. More likely the band would prefer to airbrush it from their history.

      1. I don’t really think “Thank You” is as bad as people make out. It’s fairly much like most cover albums. I really like their versions of Watching The Detectives, Thank You and Drive By Etc.

        1. But not ‘Perfect day’? Even Lou Reed said it was the best version ever made including his own. As for Bob’s comment, what utter nonsense. I’ll take a decent 2 / 3 CD deluxe at £12 / £15. Should think the band are still proud of the album. Decent! And an easy target…

          1. Yes, Perfect Day is pretty good, although I will admit that the merits of this so-called ‘classic’ escape me completely. I don’t think it’s that great a song, period. It’s WAY down the list of my favourites on Transformer.

            I don’t think DD are either ‘proud’ of Thank You or embarrassed by it, to be honest. I think the band have more or less admitted that it was a mistake to do it, mainly to do with timing more than anything else. They really needed to follow-up The Wedding Album with another strong studio album. The commercial folly of Thank You followed by the still unreleased in the UK Medazzaland undid all the goodwill generated by Ordinary World and The Wedding Album.

            Having seemingly ‘saved’ their career post-Liberty, they effectively created the best part of a decade in the commercial wilderness thanks to the pissing around they did 1995-1997. It was entirely their own doing and it was very frustrating for fans at that period.

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