Today is National Duran Duran Appreciation Day, so here are 10 facts about the band Duran Duran.
The name of the band is from "Dr. Durand Durand", Milo O'Shea's character from the science fiction film Barbarella. Barabarella’s is also a nightclub in Birmingham.
The band was formed in Birmingham in 1978 and at that time the line up was John Taylor, Nick Rhodes and Stephen Duffy.
Various band members came and went, but the most famous line up was Roger Taylor (Drums), Nick Rhodes (keyboards), Simon Le Bon (vocals), Andy Taylor (Guitar) and John Taylor (bass). Incidentally, none of the Taylors are related. Nor are any of them related to Queen’s Roger Taylor.
They played their first gig on 5 April 1979 at the Birmingham Polytechnic.
Duran Duran were innovators of the music video. A couple of their videos (Electric Baberella and Girls on Film) were banned for being too risqué.
Their only number one album in the UK was Seven and the Ragged Tiger.
There’s a board game based on them. It’s called Arena after their 1984 album. Designed for two to four players, the objective is to collect video cards and band member cards.
Duran Duran recorded the song A View to a Kill for the 1985 movie starring Roger Moore. The story goes that John Taylor, a Bond fan, got a bit tipsy at a party where producer Cubby Broccoli was also a guest. Taylor went up to him and asked "When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs?"
According to Billboard, Duran Duran have sold over 100 million records. That's 14 singles in the top 10 in the UK, and 21 hits in the US Top 100.
The band released an album in 2023 called Danse Macabre.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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