Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
New Moon on Monday (1983)
It's truly amazing how different the music industry was in the early '80s. Unlike today, artists were able to succeed because of radio and video, thanks to MTV's meteoric rise. One of the bands who took full advantage of the newfound popularity of music videos was Duran Duran, an English pop-rock act that happened to be extremely photogenic in addition to talented.
The group was formed in Birmingham, England in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor. There were some lineup shuffles before the group settled in 1980 on Rhodes, Taylor, singer Simon Le Bon, guitarist Andy Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor (none of the Taylors are related). The group's 1981 self-titled debut featured the single "Planet Earth," which went to #12 on the U.K. singles chart. The third single, "Girls on Film," had a video with topless women mud wrestling that stirred up plenty of controversy, as the band had hoped. A heavily edited version aired on MTV but it got the band noticed in the U.S.
Duran Duran's second album, Rio, came out in the spring of 1982 and was an immediate hit in the U.K. It took a while longer in the U.S., where the group's label was promoting them as a New Romantic band. After a shift in promotion to work the album as dance music, the videos for "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio" hit MTV and blew up, as did the ballad "Save a Prayer." The album hit #6 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 129 weeks.
As 1983 began, Duran Duran re-released their first album in the U.S. along with the single "Is There Something I Should Know?" and soon the band was being mobbed at in-store appearances by hysterical fans. The group's third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, came out in November 1983 and really leaned into synth pop and expensive videos: "Union of the Snake," "New Moon on Monday" and a remix of "The Reflex."
Duran mania was everywhere. I, for one, was firmly in my metalhead phase but still hearing Duran songs constantly on the radio and TV (we didn't have MTV yet but I watched shows like Friday Night Videos regularly). The songs were damn catchy but I couldn't be caught dead admitting I liked them to anyone. No, it was Iron Maiden and Judas Priest for me, but I could appreciate synth-pop acts like Duran, ABC and the Thompson Twins.
I only know the singles because I've never purchased a Duran album, but I know them well. "New Moon on Monday" was always a favorite, even the band hated the video for the song. It was filmed in a French village with the band as members of an underground resistance movement called La Luna organizing a revolt against a military regime. There's a 17-minute version that has a long introduction before the song begins, a shorter one that has a spoken French intro, and then an even shorter one.
But the song itself is pretty fun, sort of echoing latter-day Roxy Music.
"Shake up the picture/The lizard mixture/With your dance on the eventide/You got me coming up with answers/All of which I deny/I said it again/Could I please rephrase it?/Maybe I can catch a ride/I couldn't really put it much plainer/But I'll wait til you decide/Send me your warning siren/As if I could ever hide/Last time la luna/I light my torch/And wave it for the new moon on Monday/And a fire dance through the night/I stayed the cold day/With a lonely satellite."
The song got up to #10 in the U.S. and #9 in the U.K. Pretty decent, but then the remix of "The Reflex" went to #1 in both countries. The band began playing stadiums, appeared on magazine covers and won Grammys for short- and long-form videos. After 1984, the group took a break and worked on solo projects. John and Andy Taylor teamed up with Robert Palmer and Chic drummer Tony Thompson to form the Power Station, a rock-funk act that had a couple of top 10 hits in '85. Le Bon, Roger Taylor and Rhodes formed Arcadia, a synth pop act. The group got back together to record the title theme to the James Bond film A View to a Kill, which went to #1 in the U.S. Duran also played at the Philadelphia Live Aid concert in July 1985; it would be that lineup's last performance for 18 years.
In 1986, Roger Taylor left the band, citing exhaustion, and Andy Taylor signed a solo deal; he played on a few songs on the band's next album before leaving. Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor moved ahead, hiring former Missing Persons and Frank Zappa guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Steve Ferrone (later replaced by Sterling Campbell). They had a few hits, but as the decade ended, Duran Duran were definitely on the downswing.
In January 1989, I saw them play the Worcester Centrum, but I actually wasn't there to see them. My friend Arthur, who was Arts editor at the UNH school newspaper where I was a reporter, scored a couple of passes to the show so he could interview Moe Berg of The Pursuit of Happiness, the Canadian alt-rock act that was opening the concert. I was a big fan of TPOH's debut album Love Junk and was excited to see them and they didn't disappoint in their opening set. It was kind of an odd pairing because TPOH combined snarky lyrics, big riffs and girl group backing vocals, a sound that was very different from Duran Duran's. DD played a decent set but the arena was half full and it was striking how just four years earlier, they were packing stadiums.
The band kept going through the '90s with mixed results and in '97, John Taylor left. But in 2001, Le Bon and Rhodes reunited with the three Taylors and played to sold-out arenas. They've continued recording new music and touring in the 20+ years since. Andy Taylor left in 2006, but the other four are still members of the band and going strong. Duran Duran have definitely had their ups and downs over the last four decades, but they always seem to bounce back.
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