DURAN DURAN (with Annie Zaleski)
Pop Pantheon
DJ Louie XIV
4.7 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2022
⏱️ 99 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Journalist and author of the 33 ⅓ book Duran Duran’s Rio, Annie Zaleski, joins DJ Louie for a deep-dive into ‘80s British pop-rock band and seminal music video-pioneers, Duran Duran. First, Louie and Annie parse the various music scenes-- glam rock, new wave, “The New Romantics”-- from which Duran Duran emerged before discussing the band’s formation in Birmingham in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, their deal with storied label EMI, and what factors lead their 1981 self-titled debut, a prescient blend of rock and dance music, to become a smash overseas but fail to impact here in America. They then move on to the band’s second record, 1982’s blockbuster Rio, their groundbreaking and trendsetting videos for singles like “Rio” and “Hungry Like the Wolf”, the latter of which won the inaugural Best Music Video prize at the 1984 VMAs, how the group cleverly broke onto American radio thanks to their then-novel use of dance remixes, and how their massive success with teenage girls led them to be dismissed as fluff by the rockist critical establishment. Louie and Annie then lay out Duran Duran’s continued success with albums like 1983’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger and 1986’s Nile Rodgers-produced Notorious, why the band quickly fell out of favor with mainstream audiences during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, how they made one of the most unlikely comebacks in pop history with 1993’s Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) featuring two of their definitive hits, “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone”, and what their recent induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame means for their legacy. Finally, Louie and Annie rank Duran Duran in the official Pop Pantheon.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Pop Pantheon, the podcast where we completely overanalyze all of your favorite pop stars and then rank them in the official Pop Pantheon. |
| 0:18.1 | This is your host, DJ Louis X. |
| 0:20.5 | And before we get into this week's extremely |
| 0:23.1 | exciting installment of the show, some quick housekeeping notes. First off, I want to announce |
| 0:29.5 | that the third installment of my new queer pop party, I guess it's not so new anymore if it's |
| 0:35.2 | the third one,, gorgeous is going down |
| 0:38.4 | on Saturday, July 16th at resident in downtown Los Angeles in the Arts District. I know I've waxed |
| 0:45.9 | poetic about this before, but guys, this party is so freaking fun. It's just me playing pop bangers |
| 0:51.5 | all night in the room of the most incredible assortment of |
| 0:55.4 | queer people and allies from across the spectrum. |
| 0:58.4 | It is just so much fun. |
| 1:00.2 | The energy in the room last time was like nothing short of electric. |
| 1:02.6 | And I mean that genuinely. |
| 1:03.5 | So that's happening on Saturday, July 16th at Resident. |
| 1:07.8 | I will post the link to buy tickets in the show notes of this episode and |
| 1:12.6 | on all our social media channels. And I really hope to see you guys there. I got to meet a |
| 1:15.7 | bunch of you last time, which was an extra added treat to the whole affair. So if you're in |
| 1:19.8 | LA, please come out to Gorgeous Gorgeous. Very importantly, I want to announce the winner of our |
| 1:24.6 | most recent contest, just to refresh everybody's memory. I had a |
| 1:28.3 | contest going on where if you posted about Pop Pantheon, shared your favorite episode, shared the |
| 1:33.0 | podcast to social media, Instagram, Twitter, talked about why you liked it, gave it a good, a good |
| 1:38.5 | endorsement, a good little recommendation to your peeps. You were entered in a contest to pick |
... |
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