Listen to this track by former Fab Five New Romantic chart toppers from Birmingham Duran Duran. It’s “Ordinary World”, a single as taken from their self-titled 1993 album, often known as The Wedding Album due to its cover. The song was looked upon as a comeback single, helping the band reclaim their place in the top ten all over the world after a period in the desert, commercially and artistically speaking.

By the time this song was written and recorded, Duran Duran were pulling themselves out of a loss of pop chart mojo. Disappointing sales returns from the late-eighties and early into the nineties was one sign of their descent. Another was the loss of their classic line-up that brought them their best artistic and commercial returns. Guitarist Andy Taylor went solo. Drummer Roger Taylor left the music business entirely. Their bedroom wall pin-up status was getting pretty old, too. Their “duranie” fans had grown up, ready for a new decade and with newer bands to appeal to their new levels of maturity. Duran Duran had scored a number of memorable hit singles in the eighties, but by the nineties even these were looked upon as guilty pleasures by many instead of as building blocks to a lasting career. Even the video age that helped birth them into the world-beating hit machine they were was on the wane by the early nineties. Times had changed.

Yet, Duran Duran still had gas in the tank. This song met those new levels of maturity their older fan base demanded, and even enabled the band to re-invent themselves for newer fans. Because all the while, Duran Duran had grown up, too. Read more