Duran Duran to reissue their first five albums on vinyl and remastered CD

Good news for Duran Duran fans: this week the guys in the band announced the official reissues of their first five albums this July both on vinyl and fully remastered CD.

The group will re-release their self-titled debut album (1981) as well as Rio (1982), Seven And The Ragged Tiger (1983), Notorious (1986), and Big Thing (1988) – all of which have been out-of-pressing for several years now.

Spanning Duran Duran’s complete studio output from the 1980s, the run includes the group’s albums that feature original guitarist Andy Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor, as well as the two latter LPs featuring their replacements, Warren Cuccurullo, Sterling Campbell and Steve Ferrone.

The reissued LPs will each feature remastered audio while the artwork will be closely restored to the original designs from the 1980s.

Familiar songs across the LP set include debut single Planet Earth, Rio, Hungry Like The Wolf, Girls On Film, The Reflex, Is There Something I Should Know?, New Moon On Monday, Union Of The Snake, Notorious and Skin Trade.

Proving that they’re not just a band that’s good at recycling old material, Duran Duran are headling the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, England in July, on the back of sellout UK and US arena tours that coincided with the release of their 2023 album Danse Macabre (which went top 5 in the UK).

Antonino Tati

DURAN DURAN: THE FIRST FIVE ALBUMS

Duran Duran, 1981

Released in an era when a new ‘romantic’ aesthetic was overtaking punk, and electronica began converting analogue instrumentation into snazzy digital sounds, Duran Duran’s eponymous debut stands as the perfect metonym of early 1980s pop/rock. It features the original Duran lineup of Nick Rhodes on synthesisers, John Taylor on bass, Andy Taylor on guitar, Roger Taylor on drums, and of course pout-perfect Simon Le Bon on vocals. Highlights include the hit single Planet Earth, the pre-grunge grind of Friends Of Mine, and the throw-your-vases-to-the-wall drama of Careless Memories. Not to mention the fabulous Girls On Film, and spooky Tel Aviv, displaying the splendid spectrum of genres one band could deliver seemingly effortlessly.

Rio, 1982

Extrapolating on the foundation laid by their brilliant debut album and subsequent touring, the band upped the ante on that stadium sound with second album Rio, adding more grind to the guitars, more oomph to the drumming, and even tweaking the synths to sound rocker, edgier. Standouts include Hungry Like The Wolf, the title track of course, and two somewhat softer sides to the band in the odd love song Save A Prayer, and blissfully divergent instrumental track The Chauffeur.

Seven And The Ragged Tiger, 1983

By 1983, Duran Duran were bonafide pop superstars, featured on the covers of Smash Hits and No. 1 magazines almost every other week. In these magazines, fans could read along to the dissonant lyrics that made up much of their pop fare, songs that raced to the top of the charts like Union Of The Snake, New Moon On Monday, The Reflex and Is There Something I Should Know? Fun fact: a lot of this album was recorded at EMI Studios in Australia, lending the LP a certain antipodean feel, especially on the nature-inspired Tiger Tiger (perhaps they’d been to Tasmania?).

Notorious, 1986

Cracks started showing in the Duran Duran lineup before this LP came to be, but the parting of Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor, replaced in the studio with Warren Cuccurullo and Steve Ferrone didn’t deter Duran from delivering expert sound and catchy-as singles. Songs like Skin Trade and Notorious drew from funk elements, helped out with crisp production courtesy of one-time Chic frontman Nile Rodgers. As is usually the case with Duran Duran, ballads nicely balance out the pop and rock, with highlights on this album being A Matter Of Feeling and American Science.

Big Thing, 1988

Not as big a deal as any of the LPs that came before it, Big Thing was still a pretty good collection of songs. Less ‘showy’ than previous offerings, there were a few diamonds in the rough including All She Wants Is and I Don’t Want Your Love. Given that dance music was just about to explode, the funk and drive of these tracks acted more like a precursor to the club movement than representative of it. And it took a few good years before Duran Duran would find their own sound again during a rapidly fracturing music scene. Lest we forget that the turn of the decades, 80s to 90s, saw the introduction of sampling, a rise in the popularity of hip-hop, a decrease in CD sales and this new thing just on the horizon called the Internet…