Those of you who know me knew this was coming eventually. Hopefully you’ve prepared yourselves for it. I don’t jump into this sort of thing halfway, either. This is a full blown tribute to my first, and most enduring, favorite band: Duran Duran.

They’re supposed to be a “guilty pleasure” or whatever, but they’re the reason I’m writing about music today.

As a kid, I was always running around the playground, breaking my glasses and losing my gloves; I wasn’t the usual “sit still and ponder” type of individual that I am today. But I had caught the wave of the power of music before this, in glimpses. I’ll lay my low cards on the table here: I remember feeling a pang when the airwaves announced we were “reunited and it feels so good.” Another pang with the declaration: “Hector believe we are magic” (a misheard lyric from Olivia Newton-John). And I was knocked out by that bright, funhouse organ in “Funky Town;” Yes! please take me there! My ears were unsophisticated, but each new sound created a parallel world that I knew I would one day explore.

Fast-forward to 1983, at Magic River Skateland, and the large video screen. I had ogled Sheena Easton (where can I board this “morning train?”) and softened half-heartedly to Boy George, but nothing prepared me for Simon LeBon’s wail in “New Moon On Monday.” So much about it drew me through a wormhole, far from the small town I lived in. All I remember are shadowy scenes and lots of torches waving, but the visual was never the point for me. It was the unseen visual that came through the music. This wasn’t the usual romp through fast times America, burgers and fries. This was something other. It felt vaguely evil to me, like the Occult, and it didn’t happen on the literal plane. On another channel was Billy Joel, working at some freaking car wash or other, taking the baton from the prosaic brightness of “Crocodile Rock,” chasing after an uptown girl. On my channel was something I had never seen before.

Looking back, I can’t quite pin down the reason why this particular tune did it for me, as there were plenty of New Wave oddities and faux-Gothic bug-eyed absurdities to choose from during the time. But here is where it sunk in, and perhaps the irresistible melody placed on top of the bizarre scene was what pulled me in. Duran Duran knew how to write a chorus. Their verses (and this song is a perfect example) often ramble, keeping you in a mood, slightly off balance, setting up the chorus. Then it’s Simon at the top of his range, whining and chirping about satellites and lizards and stuff that has absolutely no earthly reference point. The lyrics are naff, but to a young, surprised mind, they served their purpose.

I was taken in by that melody and the sound of that whine. I was taken in by the guitar (or is it a keyboard, I never can tell during the 80s…) arpeggio during that chorus, and the elevation of the suspended fourth made me soar, long before I knew the term. And the lads, for all their insistence on surface matters, could approach their music with depth and even subtlety. During the instrumental bridge (featuring “thunder” sounds courtesy of Nick Rhodes crumpling newspaper) and in the final chorus fade, Roger Taylor hits his snare just a sixteenth note earlier than the usual downbeat. It took me years to actually hear that was what was happening. It makes you lurch slightly, disorienting the ear.

“New Moon On Monday” was then, and is now, considered one of the group’s minor singles, and there are much better examples to illustrate why Duran Duran are an underappreciated talent (don’t worry, I’ll get to those later). But it came to me at the right time in my life, caught my ear, and a few months later led me to purchase my first album and started me on a path that eventually led here to Subanimal Sounds…

Duran Duran: New Moon On Monday
Duran Duran: Tiger Tiger (Original B-side)
Duran Duran: New Moon On Monday (Catbirdman Remix)