Forty years since the release of their chart-topping debut single 'Planet Earth', pop-rock royalty Duran Duran have just released their latest studio album, 'Future Past'.
The 15th studio album for the internationally acclaimed, multi-platinum, award-winning new romantic band from Birmingham, England, 'Future Past' represents the latest chapter for the now elder statesmen of pop."There's always a little bit of fear when we meet and say, 'okay guys, it's time. Let's start an album'," co-founder and bassist, John Taylor says.
"We're all ego maniacs."
"One of the hardest things to do, I think, is to refresh a brand like ours where you are writing and arranging in a way that sounds classic, and so there's a combination of excitement and the question of, do we have anything left to give?
"Do we have anything left to say? Can we bring anything to this culture? Are we relevant? Is there any validity in our being together anymore?"
Responsible for many music industry firsts including the release of the first-ever extended video for a song ('Girls On Film'), utilising live video cameras and video screens in their live shows, and being the first band in the history of the Internet to digitally download a song for sale on the World Wide Web, Duran Duran have never rested on their laurels or pop idol status.
"We're all ego maniacs and we've all got very particular ideas, so aligning our objectives on a project like a new album is the trickiest thing really," John says.
"We all want to make a great Duran Duran album, but what does that mean? It can mean one thing to Nick [Rhodes, co-founder and keyboardist], one thing to me, and one thing to Simon [Le Bon, lead singer]."
The 12-track 'Future Past' album features production from Giorgio Moroder and Erol Alkan, plus special guests including Mark Ronson, Graham Coxon (of Blur on guitar), David Bowie's former pianist Mike Garson, and guest vocalists Lykke Li and CHAI.
"We [John, Simon and Nick] have all got only so many ideas in our heads, but when you've got new, fresh ears and fingers in the room, it opens you up in new ways and you're playing in different ways. And that's the most exciting thing for us is to have fresh ideas in the room with us.
"And so I think the people that like Duran Duran and who have at some point or another been really into the band are really going to like 'Future Past' because it's very Duranesque.
"It's got a lot of sign posts along the way that take you back, but it also keeps you in the future."
Responding to Simon's comment that the first single from the album 'Invisible' "...feels exactly right for right now," John adds: "I do feel that way about 'Invisible' because a lot of people are feeling that they're not being heard and being seen like they were before the pandemic.
"When we go out of the house now we are all wearing masks, and I get the hygiene of it, but it is causing a change in the way that we communicate as animals.
"We don't have our mouths to reassure each other that we're friendly. So 'Invisible' felt appropriate, and it felt like it was a song that was listening."
With their 'Planet Earth' music video debuting onto the world stage the same year the MTV juggernaut launched the dawn of the music video era, Duran Duran are one of the '80s bands credited with having a key role in the music video evolution.
Now in another world first, the official music video for 'Invisible' was created by an Artificial Intelligence called Huxley. Using an established technique called 'active inference', Huxley explores the complex dreamscapes that it has imagined from the lyrics and emotional tone of the song.
The result is an atmospheric and evocative music video. "The imagery of 'Invisible' is so ambiguous that I feel that everyone that watches it could have a different experience," John says.
"It's a little bit like abstract expressionism where you can put a thousand people in front of the same painting and they're all going to have a different experience of it, because it really gives so little that the viewer has to put in so much to complete the picture and they're bringing in their own ideas. It becomes a very personal experience."
The release of 'Future Past' continues Duran Duran's ground-breaking legacy across both technology and music with a first-of-a-kind collaboration with 360 Reality Audio, a new immersive music experience using Sony's spatial sound technologies.
A separate version of the album with 360 mixes will be released, together with new 360 versions of the band's extensive back catalogue.
'Future Past' is now available.
