Duran Duran and the Heterosexual Male Fan

Nothing epitomizes the 1980's quite like big hair, leotards, punk mohawks, and synthesized music. No band had captured the decade's sound better than transatlantic British rockers Duran Duran. With lead vocalist Simon LeBon as frontman, the band fit the mood of the times and reflected the radical look of the 80's youth scene. For those who remember the early years, Duran Duran actually started out as a typical boy band, with their catchy tunes and lyrics meant to inspire teenage girls or avid readers of Tiger Beat magazine. It wasn't until the band caught on that male fans began to follow their music.

Duran Duran did not settle with merely attracting thousands of giddy schoolgirl fans. No, by far, they were focused on constantly improving their music and evolving their sound. They pushed the envelope with MTV when it came to showing topless models in their music video "Girls On Film," a bit controversial for its time. And they were successful in performing one of the more iconic theme songs for a James Bond movie in "A View To A Kill." No doubt, they were growing leaps and bounds from their boy band image to a maturing adult 80's band for all audiences.

Perhaps their best creative effort--and the one that clearly showed Duran Duran's maturity--came in the form of the album Medazzaland, a bizarre yet mezmerizing collection of anesthetized sounds manacled together with moody lyrics reminiscent of a mental patient being prepped for a full frontal lobe lobotomy. The #1 single to come out of this album was the dance hit: "Electric Barbarella," which is basically a love song to an inflatable doll. If you consider this departure from their original image as a boy band to grittier lyrics and mature beats, then you can see how and why they developed a loyal heterosexual male fan base.

Guys like me can appreciate the adult lyrics and surprisingly modern sound. Though Duran Duran is most often associated with musical hits of the 1980's, the truth is that the band has come out with more modern albums, like Pop Trash, Astronaut, and their recently recorded All You Need Is Now album, which offers listeners tracks that capture the catchier tunes of the band's heyday. Since their music has evolved over the past three decades, a nostalgic individual can listen to Duran Duran's earlier songs as well as their newer songs and feel at peace. There is no dissonance in sound. The music has a clear direction. You can follow them over the years or focus on one album, but the musical experience feels complete every single time you crank the volume up to 11.

In the final analysis, as a full-blooded heterosexual male, I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I enjoy listening to Duran Duran. Even if schoolgirls have long since abandoned the band to the musical relics of the 80's, the freshly modern sounds and adult-themed lyrics have kept me in a trance since the first time I heard Simon LeBon's dulcet vocal chords sing "Come Undone." Yeah, that's right, no man crush here. Move along now.

~Andrew K.