Extra: New Duran Duran Book

(This is the second of three weeks where I was supposed to pass along info about new books. There were supposed to be 5 copies of the book given out...but the PR guy over at Rhino dropped the ball. Sorry about that, but please keep in mind when you read this that it's not Lyndsay Parker's fault that her PR guy threw it into the stands. Anyway, here it is:)

In her book Careless Memories of Strange Behavior: My Notorious Life as a Duran Duran Fan, Lyndsay Parker touches on a point I made here last year...the girls my age were really wild about Duran Duran, while the boys my age really only liked them if they wanted to attract those girls. That was true for me, except for "Save a Prayer" (which I admitted I liked then) it really took until the next decade before I finally looked at the group's music in a light that wasn't tainted by the fact that they were on every Tiger Beat cover I remember seeing on the newsstand for three years.

Actually, when talking about music with women who are around my age, I usually get a surprised reaction whnen I answer "Duran Duran" to the question: "Do you know who I really liked?" And I don't really understand why...I remember that I was passed over during my adolescence because I didn't look like Nick Rhodes or Simon LeBon. Guys don't forget stuff like that easily. Nor did I forget that one of the first times a previously "unobtainable" girl actually talked with me was when I rattled off the names of all five of the group's members. When you're 12, that's power.

Today, of course, the band is mentioned as an influence by a lot of musicians who weren't likely to admit to it 25-30 years ago. That's also something that Parker covers in her book.

Since this is an extra post, I get to dig into the archives for a song by the group that wasn't a Hot 100 hit. Here's an early classic of theirs that wasn't ready for the American charts yet:




Here's the links to get them at either iTunes or Amazon...and if you don't have an e-reader, that's okay. They can be read on the computer, too:

Each is available at $2.46, with no shipping charges and just a few minutes needed before you're reading it.

Duran Duran - "Save a Prayer"

(Debuted February 2, 1985, Peaked #16, 14 Weeks on the Chart)

The girls in my school loved Duran Duran. As for the boys? Well, most of us said we kinda liked the music because the girls liked it. However, three decades later, I've grown to appreciate the group's sound better now that I'm not immediately thinking of them as the cover subjects of the issues of Tiger Beat I saw on the magazine rack.

Originally, "Save a Prayer" was a cut from the band's 1982 Rio LP. It was released as a single in England and Europe, but not in the U.S. even though the song's video was placed rather quickly into heavy rotation on MTV. When the group released their live album Arena in late 1984, it was something of a disappointment. The critics were quick to point out that the sound was much too slick to have been truly "live," while the band members didn't seem too interested in promoting it. After the added studio track "The Wild Boys" was a hit, the record company had a dilemma...which "live" track would be the next single?

In the United States, there was an obvious answer. Since "Save a Prayer" was already familiar to Americans due to its play on MTV, the next single would be an edited version of the six-minute album version, with the new live recording on the B-side. As a result, the band notched another Top 20 hit before moving on to their next project, a James Bond theme.

Personally, I think the song is one of the group's best from their 1980s material. The guitars and synthesizers work well, and Simon LeBon's vocal lets him show off his talent a lot more than the simple posturing he seemed to do on the band's other hits.