The debut album of the boys from Birmingham in the UK, made heads turn the moment this record was out. Everything about this album is great. It is a killer first album from a then, unknown band, who went on achieve massive success. But it was this album that kicked it all off.

Now 16 albums later, with the last album titled ‘Danse Macabre’ (2023), the band is still loved very much all over the world and when we say loved, did you know that the band was loved dearly by the late Princes Diana who passed away in September 1997? 

The band never really went away although they stopped recording briefly a few years ago. If you haven't listened to Duran Duran in years, or maybe never, this is the album you should listen to.

I was a big fan of theirs back in the 80's when other songs really hit it off like Hungry Like a Wolf and A View to a Kill, but this album too, has some great moments to chill out with.

Many will remember this album for the one song that was most famous - Girls on Film. It was the sexually-provocative video for Girls on Film which was controversial, and generated publicity for the then new MTV channel in the United States. 

Barely in their 20s, the boys Simon Le Bon, Andy Taylor, John Taylor, Roger Taylor and Nick Rhodes, had the music going for them, from heavy keyboard work, drum strikes to very warm and tasteful basslines which are still well remembered, not forgetting the vocals. Besides they were a bunch of pretty boys, with teenage girls paying attention to them all the time, that soon made them poster boys.

The textures and arrangements here are great. Planet Earth is neat, while To the Shore a power ballad is a good indication of what they were trying to accomplish as a band as they mention in their lyrics…. "Wash away the rusty disease of your brown town days in our silver seas" might well be Duran Duran's enduring mission statement.

The other songs Sound of Thunder tells the story of a man who begins World War III, while there’s social commentary of Friends of Mine and it includes a line celebrating the release of George Davis, an armed robber. Lost love and angst are explored in Anyone Out There and Night Boat, respectively.

Good music is timeless and that’s what this vinyl is all about. It’s creative, innovative, experimental, mystical, and different. I feel the boys chased stardom, fame, chart hits, a flashy image and were models among other things quickly. They achieved that and more. The albums that rolled out later made them household names.

Years after this LP was first released, it still sounds as good as it did when I first gave it a listen back in 1983. It's considered a significant album in the new-wave and synth-pop movements of the early 80s.

The first two albums of Duran Duran are very dance-influenced as the bass and drums are some of the best ever heard. So I highly recommend this album and the next album that followed namely ‘Rio’ that hit it off for them in a big way.

Duration: 39. 38

Label: Parlophone

Release date: September 1981

Rating: *****

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira