Duran Duran Visiting Familiar Territory

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Duran Duran visiting familiar territory

Duran Duran plays a sold-out show at the Borgata Saturday.

Posted: Friday, October 28, 2011 12:15 am | Updated: 7:47 am, Fri Oct 28, 2011.

By ED CONDRAN Correspondent | 0 comments

Duran Duran’s “All You Need Is Now” could have just as easily been dubbed “All You Need Is Then.”

The veteran pop-rock band’s latest album harks back to the act’s early-1980s salad days.

The latest batch of songs is slick, stylish and dramatic and fits perfectly in the group’s “Rio”/“Seven and the Ragged Tiger” period.

Looking back works. After all, the band has recorded its best album in 20 years, and it should thank producer Mark Ronson for coming up with the inspired concept.

“He had a vision,” bassist John Taylor says while calling from New York. “He was all about us returning to where we once were. He wanted a sequel to the ‘Rio’ album. It was fortunate that he talked to us about this since we were open to it. We would have turned the idea down five, 10 years ago because we were always into sounding as contemporary as possible.

“Trying to sound modern all of the time can be exhausting at the end of the day. The great thing about the Rolling Stones is that they could always fall back on being a blues band. We never thought we could fall back on a sound, but we did — and I’m glad we did it.”

Duran Duran, which will perform Saturday at the Borgata, is clearly in its comfort zone. New songs such as “Girl Panic,” “Blame the Machines” and “Being Followed” fit right in next to old hits such as “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Girls on Film” and “Union of the Snake.”

The fresh material is like a well-worn blanket.

The British band, which formed in 1978, has come full circle. Taylor is proud of its sound and that it has been around for more than 30 years.

“I think that’s quite an achievement,” he says. “That’s especially so since we were critically battered, particularly during our first decade.”

Taylor, 51, felt the pain from the slings and arrows since he regularly read music criticism in English rock rags during the mid-1970s.

“Getting that (criticized) is never fun, but my wife (Juicy Couture co-founder Gela Nash) says, ‘You’re like Juicy — you’re embraced by the people.’ We have to be happy with that. The people have supported us for so many years.”

Since Duran Duran, which also includes vocalist Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and drummer Roger Taylor (no relation to John), has been around for so long, it’s never easy to put a set list together.

“Deciding what we play each night is a daily battle,” Taylor says. “We’re always discussing that, but it’s a good thing to discuss. That means we’ve been around for a while and had some success.”

Courtesy phillyburbs.com