The first taste of Duran Duran’s long-in-the-works 13th studio album hit the Internet this evening after Mark Ronson — who’s producing the disc — played 30 seconds of “Blame the Machine” on his East Village Radio show. You can hear the sample in the clip embedded above; as hinted at by the band’s members and Ronson, it’s got a decidedly old-school DD vibe.
Duran Duran began work on its follow-up to 2007’s Red Carpet Massacre in February 2009, with guitarist Dom Brown filling in for the (once again) departed Andy Taylor. In a video message to fans last month, Nick Rhodes said the sessions nearly are over, and “we will have a record done this year and out in the first quarter of next year.”
The members of Duran Duran did take a break from those sessions last weekend to join Ronson onstage during his set at London’s Lovebox festival to perform the band’s 1981 debut single “Planet Earth” together; watch some fan-shot video below.
DOWNLOAD: Duran Duran, “Blame the Machine” (clip)
See Duran Duran and Mark Ronson perform “Planet Earth” after the jump…
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Duran Duran’s ‘Notorious,’ ‘Big Thing’ reissues pushed back to late September
- EMI defends Duran Duran remastering, won’t replace CDs over ‘Girls on Film’ glitch
- Video: Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes promises ‘we will have a record done this year’
- Duran Duran’s ‘Notorious,’ ‘Big Thing’ to be reissued in 2CD/1DVD editions in June
- Duran Duran reissuing self-titled debut, ‘Seven and the Ragged Tiger’
- Duran Duran spinoff Arcadia reissuing ‘So Red the Rose’ as 2CD/1DVD set
Not too shabby, very reminiscent of the 1981 period, could be a b-side to ‘Planet Earth’. Turn up the bass, guitars, and drums and embellish the keys a bit more, and you’ve got a classic DD tune.
i’m pretty intrigued about this. first off i’m a massive old-school Duran fan, and Mark Ronson seems pretty cool. I hope he steers them towards Rio and their 1st self-titled album…and also towards Arcadia.
I like Duran to be on their darker, more mysterious exotic side and less on their shiny-pop side. I hope they’re listening! when these guys are on fire, it’s hard to deny their greatness.
yeah, I think they’ve got to turn up the drums and make them thicker and edgier with some of those great dance-rock, tom-tom fills that Roger used to do.
bands like The Killers and Franz Ferdinand owe a lot to DD. I don’t want to set such high expectations…but I hope DD finally recapture the sound that made them unique. Part of that was that the songs were not so conventional for pop music…I hope they remember that. Songs like The Chauffeur, Save a Prayer, and well..all their early stuff encapsulated the energy of that time in art, style, and culture. Very tied into Andy Warhol etc….
Good luck DD!!!
Dear Mark,Simon,Roger,John and Nick,
Indeed, you can (finally) hear some classic dd sounds in this snippet, especially the guitar part.
BUT…if you guys want this album to be a commmercial succes, than guitars and ofcourse bass parts should sound fuller, more edgy. Just listen to your own 3 albums. Also, be aware of too many happy songs, everybody is waiting for the darker, mysterious sounding DD (again, I refer to the early work.
ps. Mark, you are doing a great job!