The next step on the journey toward Duran Duran leads us into the early ’70s and the formation of glam rock. Right away, music becomes more than just music; it’s an image-consciousness that seeped into the young minds of John Taylor, Nick Rhodes, and countless other British kids who dreamed of becoming pop stars. This goes some way toward understanding Duran Duran as the band they evolved into. When your roots are in glam rock, you naturally develop an allegiance toward the artificial as legitimacy. Thank God these guys weren’t raised on grunge rock or emo or anything else purporting to be “real” or “earnest.” That would have been disaster for the synth-art they eventually pioneered. Pop stars can’t readily get around the fact that they are at least four steps removed from real life: first you have the murkiness of one’s interpretations of what goes on in this world, then you have the step of getting that into a song, then you have to get it on wax, and then into the minds of the listening, scattered public. Creating and sharing art by its nature has a tenuous relationship with immediacy and credibility. Too much gets lost in translation.
In the case of T. Rex, who started in a genre more conventionally-accepted as “real,” folk-rock, they didn’t really find their feet until they shortened their name. “Tyrannosaurus Rex” became too much to write out time after time (even I had to check the spelling just now), and an approximation proved helpful for writers and readers alike. They reinvented their sound, moved toward electric guitars and flamboyance in the presentation. It was this change that brought on the music that the world now remembers from them. The “Ride a White Swan” single in 1970 was the pivotal moment.
John Taylor (Duran Duran’s bassist) remembers: “It all began to get under my skin, certain songs — ‘Starman,’ ‘Virginia Plain,’ ‘Walk on the Wild Side,’ and ‘Ride a White Swan’ — had been like beacons to me, beckoning me out of isolation, with promises of something more interesting and sexual.” This promise — does it ever come to fruition? Does music speak directly to our lives or are there assumed layers of disconnectedness? The same questions can be asked about our relationships with other people. Many people hold out for a “soulmate,” one who can trace the deepest matters of the heart in one glance. Others accept a layer or three of interpretation, and look not to the other, but to themselves, as the source of fulfillment and actualization. I’m not sure where I fall, but at least my head knows it: it’s up to each one of us to live our lives, and the packaged, glossy output of others can lend pleasure and inspiration in that process.