2.1: "Greatest" - Duran Duran (1998)

Here it is, my white whale.  I changed the numbering scheme because it felt like putting "Day 1048: Duran Duran" seemed disingenous and made me look like the obvious flake that I am.  Also, I'm definitely not commiting myself to doing one of these a day like I did before, since I think the pressure is part of what burned me out - instead, when the mood strikes me, I'll fire up and album from the Pile and see if it makes me want to write something about it.

This one, however, remains inscrutable.  As I listen to "The Reflex", I'm not transported back to a specific time, place or person.  I try and think back and ask myself "Why do I own this album?  How has it remained in my collection when so many better albums have been lost in a dozen house moves, loans to friends, or left in car glove boxes absent-mindedly?".  I have no memory of my motivations for its purchase.  Like a traumatic event, it is as if the recollection has been repressed of the moment I chose to spend £15 of my hard earned money on a Duran Duran Greatest Hits album.  

Like an alien artefact, it defies understanding.  It simply is, and the reasons for, and meaning of its existence will likely never be fully explained.  

Listen to me here.

When I think about Duran Duran, I think of them as the posterboys for the idea I've encountered several times that the Eighties were the worst decade for music.  Objectively, that's obviously not correct.  Anyone who tells you some variation of "there was no good music at all in <insert decade here>" is only demonstrating their limited musical scope in that decade;  Without trying I can think of great music I enjoy which dates from the 2020s (thank you, Folklore) back to the 1950's without a break.  There's also certainly some music of value produced in the 40's (though a globe spanning World War probably meant a drop in volume), and jazz, swing and blues standards in the 20s and 30s which continue to get played today.  Further back, you've got the music of Irving Berlin, Mahler, Bartok and Stravinsky.  

You get my point.

So if someone says to you "there was no good music made in the 1980s", lump them in with the category of people who say "I like all music except country and rap" - specifically, people who just haven't taken the time to go out and find the excellence out there in all decades and genres, or who are too close-minded to recognise it if it rails against their prejudices.  If you don't believe there are great Country songs, click here.  If you don't think there is great Rap out there, I don't know what planet you've been living on for the last 20 years, but here's a starter for ten.

But even if Duran Duran were the only artist to release any music of note in the 80's, it still wouldn't be a decade without good music in it.  Because no matter how much every time I picture Simon Le Bon's feathered blonde coif it gives me an unpleasant whole-body chill, I listened to the 19 songs on this album and I'll be damned if I didn't know every single one of them, know the words to most of them, and unironically a lot of them are way above the musical par for what amounts to the 80's version of Boyzone.  

So.  Cold.   SO COLD.   OH GOD.

There's a Bond theme on here.  Not just a Bond theme, but one of the BEST Bond themes, which is up against some stiff competition.  Carly Simon, Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra.  Duran Duran.  And there's way more fire and energy here than I expected - sure, its all drum machines, polished synth and white suit jackets with the sleeves rolled up most of the time, and the lyrical content of some of the songs matches the conspicuous consumption of the times, but "The Reflex" and "Planet Earth" kind of rock-adjacent anarchic streak to them.   "Hungry Like The Wolf" feels like a companion peice to Metallica's "Of Wolf And Man" just 15 years too early.

And then there's "The Wild Boys".

I've mentioned before how much I love music videos.  When I moved with my family to Poland in 1987 for 3 years, diplomatic service brought with it access to satellite television, and with it MTV.  Listening to the song, I immediately flashed back to memories of seeing the Wild Boys music video in our front room in Warsaw and it blowing my 12 year old mind.

Never mind that the song is so close to a legit rock song that some indie wrestler could use it unironically and people wouldn't bat an eyelid - just look at this video.  It's exactly as insane as I remember except even more so now that we have 23 years of distance from its production.  It's like someone took the male cast of Saved By The Bell and dropped them into Mad Max Fury Road.  It's got a weird animatronic head and the worst CGI flames you will ever see in anything.   Simon Le Bon is straped to a rotating windmill sail and waterboarded while singing.  Andy Taylor is tied to an upright car, beating his head against it while a screen above him says the word "CAR".  Around them, the cast of the Cirque du Soleil jagger-strut and flounce around, inventing Dabbing twenty years ahead of its rise to cultural prominence.  

Somehow, this is one of the least weird parts of this video.

Then, an underwater muppet monster tries to eat Simon LeBon.

Honestly.

Told you.

The entire thing is so incredibly, unbelievably outlandish its hard to fathom that this is the same band who stood on a yacht in their white blazers and sang about Rio dancing on the sand.  Revisting "Greatest" didn't set my world on fire, but it bringing me back to watch that barely-remembered video again just now and it being exactly as preposterous as I remember it makes the entire experience a worthwhile endeavour.

Go on, treat yourself to a little madness.