Duran Duran

Along with Spandau Ballet, Visage, and others, Duran Duran led the early-'80s charge of the New Romantics, a movement heavily inspired by the fashion-conscious, synth-coloured art-school antics of Bowie and Roxy Music. Duran Duran and their peers updated that sound for a new decade, adopting punk's DIY attitude and helping to give birth to dance-rock along the way by adding a disco-ish beat.

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Along with Spandau Ballet, Visage, and others, Duran Duran led the early-'80s charge of the New Romantics, a movement heavily inspired by the fashion-conscious, synth-coloured art-school antics of Bowie and Roxy Music. Duran Duran and their peers updated that sound for a new decade, adopting punk's DIY attitude and helping to give birth to dance-rock along the way by adding a disco-ish beat.
Subsequent releases would find the band moving more toward straight pop, becoming simultaneously less dance-oriented and less arty. The 1981 debut, however, is full of thumping, club-friendly beats and long, atmospheric tunes full of extended synthesizer-centred interludes. The fact that the boys were pop-savvy enough to add irresistible choruses to "Girls on Film", "Careless Memories", and "Planet Earth" doesn't hurt matters.

Rolling Stone (9/4/03, p. 146)
- 3 stars out of 5 - "...Simultaneously atmospheric and dance-floor-directed...a synth-rock blueprint..."

Q Magazine (10/03, p.127)
- 3 stars out of 5 - "...Naturally, it's all terribly glamorous..."