A NO-FRILLS RE-RELEASE OF THE FIRST FIVE DURAN DURAN ALBUMS HAS THEM SOUNDING (MOSTLY) SHINY AGAIN
John Earls
WARNER
More of an admin exercise rather than a full-on reissue campaign, getting the first five Duran Duran albums back out properly on vinyl and CD follows the successful and similarly low-key strategy that made the band’s post-EMI LPs from Medazzaland to All You Need Is Now readily available.
Once that was completed with Pop Trash a year ago, Duran realised that fans couldn’t buy their landmark first five LPs – that felt remiss, especially as the remastered versions from 2010 had never been available outside of their deluxe reissues at the time.
So, with a minimum of fuss, you can now get each album again, with the CDs housed in eco-friendly card sleeves rather than jewel cases. That’s welcome, especially considering Big Thing is hard to find on vinyl, whereas the other four albums are possibly too easy to buy cheaply second-hand.
With the artwork transfers overseen by original designer Malcolm Garrett, treat yourself to Rio looking as shiny as it should.
While the band still tease the arrival of the Duranthology boxset they’ve promised since roughly the Astronaut reunion, it’s no surprise that the remasters haven’t been updated. It means the version of Drug (It’s Just A State Of Mind) on Big Thing is the one the band finally fixed in 2010, rather than the botched mix of its 1988 release that caused John Taylor to nearly quit on the spot. However, it also means the overly trebly mixing in vogue at the time – before vinyl came back into fashion – is still in place. The debut LP in particular suff
