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So Red The Rose (which I found was an anagram of ‘Rhodes Stereo’ but was not intentional I have it on GREAT authority from Nick Rhodes himself thanks to a very Generous Mark Tinley who asked him for me) by Arcadia. One of my favourite albums ever. Why?

Well to me it’s the best Duran Duran album Duran Duran never made! Apart from it missing John Taylor’s strong bass lines and Andy Taylor’s mix of raw rock and squealing atmospheric guitar it managed to retain the atmospheric ‘heart’ of the Band’s best early work (mostly the album tracks rather than the famous singles). It could possibly be considered a little bit of it’s time in places, but to me it’s like an artistic sonic relic from the dead centre of a decade that is distilled into it’s tracks with audacity and sense of occasion (detractors would use other terms here I’m sure but I’m biased).

I played this album alot around 1987/1988 along with the first 3 DD albums, Notorious and Big thing, in a kind of relay. I recall having to stick a 2 pence piece on top of my record player’s ‘arm’ to stop the needle from jumping on “El Diablo”. Yes vinyl really was that cool! I have it now on CD (twice inc the recent re-issue) of course and it gets quite frequent playing. Moreso than many ‘real’ Duran Duran albums in fact. As for The Power Station? I’ve got the album, I’ve got the documentary video too (for both Arcadia and The Power Station) but I prefer Arcadia’s offering much much more and it’s up there with DD’s best to me.

Favourite tracks are “Election Day”,”The Flame”, “El Diablo”, “lady Ice” and “Goodbye is Forever” but I really enjoy the album as a whole which is why it’s another in my list of favourite all time albums, who knew.

Thanks for reading.

As unfathomable to many as it may seem, Rio isn’t actually my favourite Duran Duran album. If I could only take one onto the hypothetical desert island with me it would be this original eponymous artefact (or artifact) from 1981!

Duran Duran 1981 - one of the best Debut albums ever! According to me

Let me make it clear, Rio (and Seven and the Ragged Tiger) are very close and are also other favourite albums of mine. Rio in particular being a near flawless piece of work. However I really love the dark side that Duran started with here, the abundance of funky basslines and wooshy synths (courtesy of our friends at Sequential Circuits, Crumar and Roland amongst others) and the punchy production with less ‘gloss’ than later albums. The lyrics are also noteworthy in their often riddle like charm and ambiguity, but Simon sings them with conviction and attitude so I’m sold.

Underpinned with some of Roger Taylor’s best drum work and soaring esoteric and, sometimes, downright sleazy sounding guitar by the one and only Andy Taylor (best Duran guitarist ever – Fact!) and you have an album that goes beyond it’s Bowie, Chic and Roxy Music inspirations into something that, to me at the age of around 8 when I first heard it (a couple of years after it’s original release), is completely it’s own entity and brings enough of the past sounds that inspired it to new younger audiences with more delicate ears.

What is great about this album is that even though it was Duran’s first and is now almost 30 years old it still sounds fresh today, unlike many of Duran’s contemporaries and other riders of the New Romantic bandwagon that died on it’s arse not long afterwards. Duran were wise to change and progress to their own sound for Rio, but I appreciate the passion and charm of this first album these days more. I find it more interesting sonically with repeated listens. Well, really, I can say equally nice things about the 2 follow up albums and will at a future date but had to start adding Duran to my favourite album blog posts sometime. So I started at the beginning.

Another great thing about this album is that some of the lesser known tracks are songs that most people wouldn’t even associate with Duran (after Rio) and yet they are brilliant, dark atmospheric mind blowers. And on ‘Careless Memories’ we have one of Duran’s most overtly ‘rock’ songs they ever made. It’s songs like these (and ‘Sound of Thunder’,'Friends of Mine’ and even one of the B-sides of that era ‘Late Bar’) that made and still continues to make me proud to be a fan of their music; a shame that most people will only associate them with the Rio video or think they are just pure pop which is not the case!

The only thing to be aware of is that there are versions of this album out there shamefully ruined by the inclusion of 1983′s ‘lost single’ “Is There Something I Should Know?”. I love that song but it belongs where it began, wedged firmly between the soundscapes of the Rio and Seven and the Ragged Tiger album releases, great as a bridging single as it includes elements of sounds from both those albums. It doesn’t belong on the first album, and ruins the flow and sounds out of place. Remove it from your DD81 playlist and make sure you have the original running order with all tracks on the original UK release, KThanks.

I would also say that this album more than any other Duran album had the most direct influence on my own music making (www.spacehotelmusic.com).

Duran Duran’s new album ‘All You Need is Now’ is now released.