Duran Duran Storm Worldwide Download Charts‎.

 

With the much anticipated release of their 13th studio album All You Need Is Now, Duran Duran went straight to #1 in the download charts in the UK, US, Canada, and Italy within hours of going on sale. 

From duranduran.com: The 9 track digital LP, and a music video download, was released worldwide Tuesday exclusively on iTunes and has already become a phenomenal success for the band who have worked with Grammy Award-winning producer Mark Ronson and mixer Spike Stent. 

All You Need Is Now is a return-to-roots homage to Duran Duran's most celebrated musical panache. With a phenomenal career that has spanned three decades, selling over 80 million records, Duran Duran have been feted the world over with countless awards, accolades and critical appraise for their groundbreaking videos and pop art infused music, that are still as groundbreaking and fresh today as it was when the band’s first journey began back in 1978. They continue to push the envelope and shape the boundaries of music further with innovations in sound and collaborations. 

An extended physical LP and various format special packages of All You Need Is Now will be released in February 2011. 

Photo: duranduran.com

Paul Simper Reviews 10 Tracks From Spandau Ballet's Recently Remastered Albums.

 

From the Spandau Ballet Newsletter: To celebrate the digital release of Spandau Ballet's first 4 studio albums, Journeys To Glory, Diamond, True and Parade, special editions featuring previously unreleased tracks, b-sides, live sessions & 12" mixes, the band have asked celebrated journalist, author and commentator on the 80's, Paul Simper, to review 10 classic hits from these fabulous Spandau albums exclusively for spandauballet.com:

"To Cut A Long Story Short" Gary Kemp's homage to The Blitz kids, that influential band of posers, designers, embryonic popstars and party animals of ‘79/’80 that made London swing again, only this time the city danced to a bass line, four to the floor and this memorable electronic keyboard riff. 

"The Freeze" Determined to stay true to the club scene they were representing this follow-up to 'Cut A Long Story' added a dirtier groove and was admired even by John Taylor from arch rivals Duran for its more hardcore vibe. 

"Musclebound" The five North London schoolmates were always at their best when they sounded like a gang. Intended as a Constructivist chant, this Eastern European folk melody came from left field after two club hits but showed the band were prepared to take chances.

"Chant No.1" As the early 80s London club scene skipped from electronica to soul boy with a Latin NYC influence Spandau delivered a sweaty funk and brass summation of Soho's hottest nightspot, Le Beat Route. 

"True" At six and a half minutes few in the band saw this blue eyed soul ballad as anything more than a very classy album closer when they first recorded it in Nassau. But the reaction when they played it to the rest of the world changed all that. 

"Gold" The Bond theme that never was. The band had experimented with epic John Barry flavoured ballads before with "She Loved Like Diamond" but "Gold" nailed it. The actual Bond theme for that year, 1983, was Rita Coolidge's "All Time High" for Octopussy. 

"Only When You Leave" Praised by Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant in his Smash Hits singles reviewing days, this sleek rock ballad moved Spandau from the balmy shores of Nassau to the urban landscape of Munich again with Swain and Jolley producing. 

"I'll Fly For You" The mix of acoustic and electric guitars on this elegant ballad showed the influence of Don Henley and Mark Knopfler on the Spandau sound as the band enjoyed success on America’s West Coast in ‘83/’84. 

"With The Pride" A hymn to the working man, inspired by Gary and Martin's dearly departed dad Frank. While this Parade version rocks out it was revisited acoustically with a nod to the Walker Brothers. 

"Round and Round" Allied with Martin Kemp's evocative hi-8 home movies of 80s Spandau at work and play, this ballad finally had a chance to spread its wings on the 2009/10 Reformation tour and emerge from the shadow of True. 

Journeys To Glory, Diamond, True & Parade Special Editions are available digitally in the spandauballet.com official store and on iTunes.

Photo: spandauballetstore.com

Erasure Releases Video For "A Little Respect (HMI Redux)."

 

Erasure have recorded a brand new version of their 1988 song "A Little Respect" and the amazing video, directed by filmmaker Jason Stein, is now up at the Mute Channel. 

Erasure wanted to do something special to spread a message of tolerance and to help raise funds for an organization that is on the front line for gay and human rights and all proceeds from "A Little Respect (HMI Redux)" will be donated to The Hetrick-Martin Institute, the nation's oldest and largest LGBTQ Youth Service Organization. 

The video was filmed in New York City in the West Village and features Erasure lead singer Andy Bell, HMI youth and many other passers-by. 

Photo: Laundry Service Media via Mute Channel 

Material: The Hetrick-Martin Institute

The New "A Little Respect (HMI Redux)" Single For Charity Is Now Available.

 

Erasure have recorded a brand new version of their 1988 song "A Little Respect" (HMI Redux) and it is available today on iTunes in the USA. 

From Erasure News: Proceeds from the track will be donated to The Hetrick-Martin Institute, the home of the Harvey Milk High School, in New York, and the True Colors Fund. The Hetrick-Martin Institute, the nation’s oldest and largest LGBTQ youth service organization, provides a safe and supportive environment to all young people - regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity so that they can achieve their full potential. 

In the wake of all the gay bullying and related suicides that have been reported in the US over the past several months, Erasure wanted to do something special to spread a message of tolerance and to raise money for an organisation that engages in the fight on a daily basis and, because it has become something of a gay rights anthem over the years, it seemed only fitting to release a brand new version of "A Little Respect." 

The HMI Redux features a youth chorus from the Hetrick-Martin Institute who also appear in the music video, directed by filmmaker Jason Stein. 

Photo: Erasure News

Forgive Us Our Synths.

 

1981 "saw the release of OMD's Architecture & Morality, Depeche Mode's Speak & Spell, Soft Cell's Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, Japan's Tin Drum, the Human League's Dare and Heaven 17's Penthouse and Pavement. Hailing from different parts of the country, the bands constituted less a scene than a shared sensibility: synthesisers before guitars, outlandish ideas before rock'n'roll cliches. The future of pop glittered with possibility." 

With next year marking "the 30th anniversary of synthpop's annus mirabilis," Dorian Lynskey of the Guardian talks with the original ideas men. 

Photo: Sheila Rock/Rex Features via guardian.co.uk 

Quotes: guardian.co.uk

Mick Hucknall Apologizes To The Thousands Of Women He Slept With.

 

"A red-headed man," Mick Hucknall modestly acknowledges, "is not generally considered to be a sexual icon," although that did not stop the singer from using his own curly red locks to remarkable seductive effect at the height of his fame in the mid- 80s, when he estimates he slept with more than 3,000 women in three years.

In an interview with Rob Fitzpatrick of the Guardian Hucknall said he regrets the philandering, "In fact, can I issue a public apology through the Guardian? They know who they are, and I'm truly sorry."

From guardian.co.uk: Hucknall, 50, is originally from Manchester and achieved huge success with Simply Red. His brand of romantic soul ballads won him ridicule from critics but many female admirers.

"When I had the fame, it went crazy," he says. "Between 1985-1987, I would sleep with about three women a day, every day. I never said no. This was what I wanted from being a pop star. I was living the dream and my only regret is that I hurt some really good girls."

Hucknall, who in the past was linked among others to Catherine Zeta Jones, Martine McCutcheon and Helena Christensen, is married with a young daughter. He attributes his sexual incontinence to a search for love, after being abandoned by his mother at three.

"I wanted love from every single woman on the planet because I didn't have my mother's love. It was an addiction that took me to my darker period from 1996 to 2001, when I really came close to the gutter - I was more into drinking than seducing." Ultimately, he said, he got bored with his sexual adventuring "as I never really got the emotional contact that I craved."

Having been slammed for his soft soul music, Hucknall describes himself as "the boy everyone loves to hate," but says that after 25 years and more than 50m album sales he plans to retire the Simply Red name - he is the only remaining original member - and "write songs in my little corner. I don't want to be a slave to commercial success any more. I've been set free. I can do whatever I want now."

Photo: Jakubaszek/Getty Images Europe via guardian.co.uk

John Lydon Defends Price Tag Of New Book.

 

John Lydon says he will not make any money from the $675 price tag of his new 250-page coffee table book Mr. Rotten's Scrapbook, an "intimate journey through John Lydon’s life, from inception to now, in high quality pictures and hand written text commentary."

The price for the book was $568 to pre-order and went up December 1, "but Lydon is adamant the cover price is justified - because the book was 'extremely expensive' to put together. He tells MOJO magazine, 'It's been extremely expensive to make. There won't be no (sic) profit margin to speak of.'"

Lydon says the book is "chunky - it has to be to fit in the 12-inch vinyl...So yeah, this is a family book, for fans. Those who want to join in, that's the cost. I'm not asking you to buy it, you don't have to."

The publishers of Mr. Rotten's Scrapbook "have also included a fun competition for fans - 100 copies contain Willy Wonka-style golden tickets which entitle the winner to a 10-minute webchat with Lydon."

John Lydon introduces his book here, and for those that don't like him they can, "fuck off..."

Photo: johnlydon.com 

Quotes: johnlydon.com & aceshowbiz.com