While Duran Duran certainly brought big hair, big fashion and image to the 1980s, I think the reason people still love their music 35+ years on is simply because they were a damn good pop band. More and more heterosexual men have come out of the DD closet to where their fanbase is pretty much split between men and women these days. Simon was never the greatest vocalist as you said, and some of their lyrics were non-sensible but those guys could craft some killer songs that still hold up even with the videos as faded memories. Two of their biggest hits were in the 90s at a time their image had dramatically changed and with less flashy videos and even their last two albums have gotten a lot of critical praise from many of the same people who wrote them off in 1983. They're one of those acts who've had a successful reassment from critics and hipsters who pretty much see them as a "Classic Pop" band these days
Duran Squared were a crazy talented band, as Power Station and to a lesser degree Arcadia demonstrated. Yeah Simon was screeching out those notes on a seek and destroy mission, but they were easily the biggest of Bowie's Berlin disciples and arguably the best. I'd put "Planet Earth", "Hungry Like The Wolf", "Rio", "A View To A Kill" and later "I Don't Want Your Love" up against pretty much any other pop hit of this era. It all got a bit too screechy with "The Union Of The Snake" and clangy clattery with "Please Please Tell Me Now", but they're still certainly memorable.
Good point re: Wham. What is funny is that George was notorious later on for his one-sided feuds with George Michael and Madonna, two icons who really exploded in late 1984 which was ironically around the same time Culture Club's popularity took a sharp downhill turn I think Culture Club was a supernova that burnt itself out really quickly but they still left us with two killer pop albums. Duran Duran saw a decline in their popularity post-Live Aid, but they wisely took time off to prevent overexposure and were able to keep going pretty much on a consistent basis ever since while CC have had a few breakups and reunions.
I think the real problem is that the guys were "pretty" (hell, Nick Rhodes made a hotter girl than many of their fans) and were huge with the 10-14 year old girl demographic so they were unfairly branded a "boyband". While while they did get a little silly with Seven And The Ragged Tiger, the first two albums are killer new romantic pop efforts, and they recorded a lot of excellent but overlooked albums coinciding with their downfall in popularity when 14 year old girls replaced Simon LeBon posters with Jon Bon Jovi like Notorious and Big Thing.
This is true. Michael being an egomaniac is a no-brainer, but by the time he christened himself that title, he'd been a hitmaker for over 20 years and had gotten just about as big and famous as any artist could imagine
Never really got into DD until "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone". It was then when I visited the back catalog and discovered how great they really were. When they first broke out dudes normally didn't like them but by the they broke out again in the early 90's I didn't care what anyone thought.
I never got into Duran Duran, although I have a few of their albums. Their three best songs IMHO are Seventh Stranger (off Seven and the Ragged Tiger), plus Skin Trade and American Science off Notorious. The albums before that I can take or leave.
Also in the top 10 at this time was this song.... and it was performed extraordinarily well on Solid Gold by Marilyn McCoo.
By the vocals, sounded almost like a Celtic version of ELO. In the UK, this was the Number One song of 1982, as discussed at length in the Every UK #1 Single of the 1980s Discussion Thread. Evidently took awhile to catch on here.
Great song! Innovative. Full of life and energy. But, i'm still sick of hearing it. Was it included in a recent movie or something? I hear it a lot more these days.
Loved this one too, and what a quirky video. It's unreal that something so impossibly English rocketed up the US charts all the way to the pole position, but this was definitely a sign of things to come. This was the least-American the American charts had felt since the heyday of The Beatles and the British Invasion circa '63-'65. Of course, a lot of what the Brits were doing this time around - as in the early '60s with Lennon/McCartney and Dusty Springfield - was reflecting America back at us. Only while in the '60s it was a purely contemporary reflection, in the '80s there were heaps of retro nostalgia involved, as in this fantastic cover of Burt Bacharach's "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me" by Naked Eyes, one of the first big hit singles to prominently feature a sampler, presumably the Fairlight CMI. It all seemed so exciting. After years of atrocious, dull, rote pop charts, they were suddenly this explosion of innovation and vitality. Freshman year of high school was kind of a drag at school and at home. I didn't care for any of my classes, didn't see a lot of my friends. For around a year we'd been looking after my 6 month old cousin while an uncle was separating from his crazy girlfriend / wife / whatever, which culminated in social services coming to take the baby away, breaking my grandmother's heart. They placed him in a foster home that was a dirty disgusting pit, right across from my high school, just after the start of the school year in the fall. At least the foster family was friendly and sympathetic, but weird and filthy. He finally got adopted into a nice home sometime late in '83 if memory serves, but I don't think my grandmother ever really got over it. Even my great aunt - who'd warned her not to get attached - was terribly upset. We were all down in the dumps for awhile. With the baby out of the house and school kind of a drag I began skipping class, a lot. In fairness I didn't sit around doing drugs or shagging other teens in the neighborhood - I mostly satisfied my budding Anglophilia by watching Masterpiece Theater presentations like Disraeli: Portrait of a Romantic starring Ian McShane (brilliant - if you ever get a chance to see it, watch). Fortunately I had a science teacher who gave a damn and called me one day at home while I was playing hooky to ask if everything was alright. I was so shocked anybody gave a crap I felt bad he had to call, and rolled back into class more often. In my wanderings around town I'd also discovered a great comic book and novelties shop a 50 minute bus ride away close to downtown called Darcy's Discoveries. I started going there with friends and just hanging out, which Darcy the owner tolerated. I guess she figured it kept us off the streets. The local free newspaper, the Phoenix New Times, also let people take out these free short classified ads at the back of the paper. A friend of mine at school turned me on to it. As part of the total Britification of America, a bunch of local Doctor Who fans were placing these little cryptic messages at the back of the paper each week, some of which were hilarious and quite irreverent (I think the crossover between Whovians and fans of Monty Python was pretty much 100% based on the content of those little missives). A bunch of us slowly became friends thru the grapevine, which was bizarre because we were all teenagers but scattered across the whole 50 mile wide or whatever span of the Valley of the Sun, and up and down the socioeconomic ladder. We started to chat on the phone in the evenings and converge on Darcy's on weekends that spring, and by summer it was practically a clubhouse. In hindsight this might have been one of the most important developments in my entire life, because it got me away from an increasingly impoverished and thick, declining neighborhood in West Phoenix and out into the orbit of smarter, wealthier people from better off parts of town. They were obviously college bound, and now so was I. And this tidal wave of UK acts washing over the radio was absolutely the perfect soundtrack for it all, like something a savvy director would have picked for this part of the story.
Come On Eileen is like actual drivel. I don't want to be that person but the song is so bad and so annoying. And the singers look homeless.
It's also clear as day that the 80's were officially underway by 1983. The 70's and any trace of them are so gone by now.
Come On Eileen This is one of the few songs on this thread that I wrongly believed was released a lot before it actually was. I really thought this one was from 1981 and actually looked it up back a few months ago, wondering if I had somehow missed it. There are a few other oddities about this song. It certainly was popular back then, but I absolutely don't remember anything else by this group ever being played on the radio or MTV. It's also one of the few songs that I really like where I just can't stand (or understand) the lead singer's voice. Even though I like this song, I can't imagine wanting to hear an entire album of this guy singing. And incomprehensible! Other than the chorus, the only line I can understand is 'poor old Johnny Ray' (the subtitles help with that line!). It also strikes me as odd that the video is so focused on Ray for the first minute, then completely drops that thread the rest of the video. Very strange. Still, I like the song. The instrumentation is unusual (love the violins!), and I particularly like the first minute up to the first chorus, and the part where it briefly stops then restarts slowly. I still have no idea what the song is about (Yeah, I know: it's about Eileen. And Johnny Ray. I guess I should look up the lyrics sometime so I can figure out why he's telling her to come on!). Fun facts: The name of the band is derived from 'dexedrine', a reference to the popular uppers that helped music fans stay up all night dancing. They had a fair number of hits in the UK, but only this one in the States. And: Apparently there is no apostrophe in the name. It's Dexys, not Dexy's.
I think this is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of a “one hit wonder.” Their 15 minutes of fame also got them a mention in a Simpson’s episode. All that being said, I like the tune quite a bit; it’s catchy & quirky - and those two qualities that always connect with me.
"Come On Eileen" is a great iconic classic single that hits all the sweet spots. It's a tuneful, trashy emotional mess, with a unique lead vocal that oddly delivers the jaunty, off-kilter melody perfectly. And their Searching For the Young Soul Rebels album is actually excellent, too, a great mishmash of Motown-like soul and Irish folk textures. Really, surprisingly good: a one-hit wonder in the States, but not really in the Isles, Kevin Rowland was a major talent who I guess just burned out fairly quickly.
Fun fact for you all. Dexy's singer Kevin Rowland used to pop into a pub I'd started frequenting....this would be late '80, early '81. My sister in-law worked at the Job Center and said he was still claiming unemployment benefits when Geno got to No1 in the spring of 1980. He is a rare 'un.
"Come On Eileen" was a favorite at the weekend parties at my college (early '90s). I somehow never heard it that I can recall before then. I like it a lot, but hearing it still makes me smell cheap beer everywhere.
In sixth grade a running joke related to this song went "What's grosser than sweat on Pat Benatar?" 12 year old humor.
they made four brilliant albums... the first three and the comeback "one day i'm going to soar"... no sign of a burnout
You weren't that far off. "Come One Eileen" was released in June, 1982 and had charted in other markets such as Europe and Canada several months earlier. (It hit Canadian radio around October or November, 1982). That might explain why the production might have sounded a little out of step by the time "Come One Eileen" broke in the U.S.
"Come On Eileen" I don't remember this one at all when it was popular. Of all the songs leaking out of the UK and onto MTV/radio as part of this "Second British Wave," I can't believe this is one of the few to hit #1 in America. I guess it was quirky enough to stand out big time. Also unusual is that for a pop song, it seems like two separate songs in one: the fast part and then the slower part in the second half. Most 3 minute pop songs tend to be one or the other.
I have exactly zero memory of "Come On Eileen." If I ever heard it, it didn't stick in my memory at all.
