Duran Duran personified new wave for much of the mainstream audience. And for good reason. Duran Duran's reputation was built through music videos, which accentuated their fashion-model looks and glamorous sense of style. Without music videos, it's likely that their pop-funk – described by the group as the Sex Pistols-meet-Chic – would never have made them international pop stars…
Album Notes:
Greatest was an update of the 1989 tenth anniversary compilation album, Decade: Greatest Hits. The new release included songs from their eponymous debut album through 1997's Medazzaland. The album includes all 14 songs featured in Decade: Greatest Hits, plus "New Moon on Monday" and four singles from the 90's, however both "Save a Prayer" and "Rio" are presented in their shorter US versions in order to fit on a single CD whereas they appeared in their full versions on the former compilation. The album was released by EMI after parting ways with the band after the disastrous Medazzaland album release in 1997, and marked the first of many releases designed to capitalize on the band's extensive EMI-controlled back catalog. To coincide with the release of the Greatest album in the United Kingdom, the song "Electric Barbarella" was released as a single. This track was originally released as a single in North America in 1997 to promote the Medazzaland album (which was never released in the UK). As of 2009, the collection has sold over a million copies in the United States. To date, a full collection of Duran Duran's singles on one album still hasn't been released. The album release was followed in 1999 by the release of a videotape compilation of the band's groundbreaking music videos, also entitled Greatest. It was not released on DVD at the time, probably due to the band's disintegrating relationship with Capitol Records.
The early 80's is now a quarter of a century ago! Whilst there have been many 80's compilations we feel now is a good time to release an `edgier', cooler tracklisting highlighting some of the artists and tracks that may not be as familiar, but still defined the times.