'Duran Duran On Track': Band recaptures the magic with 'The Wedding Album'

Duran Duran On Track is now newly available for purchase from US booksellers. To celebrate, here’s an excerpt from the introduction of the chapter about my favourite album, which just marked its 33rd anniversary and will soon be back in print on vinyl for the first time since its release.

Duran Duran On Track  At top: The band 

in a 1993 promo photo by Karen Mason-Blair

Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) (1993)

Almost as quickly as Liberty vanished from the public consciousness, Sterling Campbell disappeared from the band lineup. ... Warren Cuccurullo remained and became a key player, helping steer the band into one of their most successful periods. The prolonged break between Liberty and its follow-up – and without a tour to draw away their attention – gave them plenty of time in the studio, Privacy, which was in Cuccurullo’s home in Battersea, London. 

Amid the changes in the band’s personnel and in the members’ personal lives, Duran Duran were seeking a comeback amid a vastly different musical landscape. In a scene then dominated by grunge, alternative rock and hip-hop, there didn’t seem to be much of an opening for the new wave sounds that they were known for. But they forged ahead, focusing on the writing process, amassing more than a dozen solid songs and getting the mixing just right.

Indeed, the band hadn’t hunkered down in a studio setting for so long a period before. Producer John Jones described the grass-roots spirit of the initial sessions at Cuccurullo’s home in an interview with Forbes in 2023:

‘He suggested that they come over and start writing at his place. That’s basically where The Wedding Album started. ... I would say [the band members] trusting each other, being able to work together in that room with one mic in the middle, all of us wearing headphones, clapping, singing, whatever – it was just so brilliant.’

Ideas for the most indelible song on their second self-titled album stemmed from those sessions – the instant classic ‘Ordinary World’ – while others came later, like ‘Come Undone’, which was recorded without John Taylor. Jones called The Beatles’ White Album – another effort that featured a mix of musical styles – ‘our guiding light’ in the making of The Wedding Album. Duran Duran’s LP, like The Beatles’ eponymous double album, featured significant contributions from every member. But as was customary for Duran Duran, writing credit was shared among them all.

The album’s nickname came from its cover art, an elegant collage of sepia-toned wedding photos of the band members’ parents embossed with ‘Duran Duran’ in gold lettering. For the artwork, designers Nick Egan and Eric Roinestad took a DIY approach, using materials like Dymo-style labels and gold leaf. Inside, pictures of the band members taken at the University of London Students’ Union photo booth were accompanied by ones from artist Dean Chamberlain, Nick Rhodes and Taylor as well as an ‘illustration’ by the keyboardist’s young daughter, Tatjana. Egan – who had met Taylor at the suggestion of American actor Billy Zane and became a decades-long collaborator – has called the artwork the ‘ultimate punk rock cover’. The members embraced an equally stylish image, favouring Vivienne Westwood suits – another punk rock throwback, which had become a designer fashion label – and hair colours ranging from bleach blonde to shocking purple.

They were also under new management, Left Bank, which was as keen as the members themselves for a comeback. Though the album was completed in early 1992, their record label delayed its release until ’93, perhaps a sign that the group was no longer the priority act they once were. But that changed when the first single, ‘Ordinary World’, began receiving radio airplay in the USA – apparently after the record company itself had leaked the track.

The Wedding Album is one of three studio albums to remain out of print, so vinyl copies regularly sell for handsome sums. (Editor’s note: The LP is finally due back in print this April.) But the quality and impact of the album and its wealth of B-sides and unreleased video footage from that era make it more than worthy of a deluxe reissue.

The Wedding Album era was a magical time for the band – from the spirited recording sessions to the successful attempt to relaunch their brand as unquestionably modern but undeniably Duran Duran.

Their fortunes had shifted – and it was all thanks to the music itself.

Copyright Karen Windle 2025. From Duran Duran On Track (Sonicbond Publishing)

The Power Station, The Damned look back

‘The Power Station DLX’

The Power Station, the commercially successful side project of Duran Duran’s Andy and John Taylor, gets a shiny new reissue with The Power Station DLX.

DLX is the latest deluxe edition of the supergroup’s 1985 debut, released to celebrate its 40th anniversary (now 41st in ‘Durantime’). The album is a true deluxe reissue, at least the CD box, which includes a liner notes interview with the Taylors, the band’s only surviving members, as well as the studio album, raw instrumentals, remixes and live performances. Buyers of the LP will have to shell out again on Record Store Day, when Power Mad: Live At The Spectrum drops on vinyl.

The funk-infused rock of The Power Station is on full display on the remastered studio album (the first disc), and the group’s performance at Live Aid and their contribution to the soundtrack of the movie Commando, ‘Somewhere Somehow Someone (We Fight For Love),’ are highlights of the second disc. By then, singer Robert Palmer had left to embark on the most commercially successful period of his solo career, and the Taylors and Chic drummer Tony Thompson soldiered on for a bit with new vocalist Michael Des Barres.

The live show features Des Barres, who sounds better than remembered but sorely lacks Palmer’s blue-eyed soul swagger. As on the album, ‘Harvest For The World,’ featuring co-lead vocals from Andy Taylor, is a highlight. And the Duran covers, ‘The Reflex’ (played with ‘Communication’) and a rocked-up version of ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ are fun, though Des Barres is a no Simon Le Bon either.

But DLX is worth it, especially on CD, and especially considering that the forthcoming Duran Duran reissues look to be bare-bones versions. But it’s still good that the brilliant The Wedding Album and the not-bad Thank You will finally be back in print.

The Damned ‘Not Like Everybody Else’

The Damned are also looking back these days in the wake of founding guitarist Brian James’ death last year. They pay tribute to him with their latest album, Not Like Everybody Else, a collection of covers that inspired James himself.

The Damned hammered out the LP in just five days following a tour last fall. It’s a bit rough around the edges at times, but that may be the point, as the band’s debut album with James, the opening salvo of English punk rock, was recorded in a similar spirit.

‘I know a lot of music these days can be done remotely, with participants sometimes on different continents,’ the band’s Captain Sensible told ClassicRockHistory.com. ‘But The Damned still do it in an old-school style in a big, old noisy room, all together. I think you can hear the excitement and fun of the sessions on the record.’

Captain Sensible moved from bass to guitar after James departed and hasn’t looked back. (James went on to form goth rockers Lords Of The New Church.) Here, Sensible delivers an album highlight with a cover of Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play,’ taking on lead vocals. Elsewhere, Dave Vanian’s gothic drama takes center stage, particularly on the album’s strong second half, including The Lollipop Shoppe’s ‘You Must Be A Witch,’ The Animals’ ‘When I Was Young’ and The Stones’ ‘The Last Time,’ featuring James’ guitar from his last live shows with the band in 2022.

After James left The Damned in 1977, the band reformed and were never better, delivering the one-two punch of Machine Gun Etiquette and The Black Album, the latter with current members Vanian, Sensible, drummer Rat Scabies and bassist Paul Gray. Now with the addition of keyboardist Monty Oxymoron (who regretfully doesn’t appear in the new LP’s cover art), they’re a force, both live and on record.

‘28 Years Later’ doubles down on Duran Duran

Two UK cultural treasures, Duran Duran and the 28 Days Later film franchise, come together in thrilling fashion in the new movie 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

Viewers of the first film in the new trilogy already know that Dr Ian Kelson, played by Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes, has built a Bone Temple, a memento mori, or reminder of death. But we now learn that Kelson is a Duranie, too. The walls of his underground space are covered in old photos, reminders of his life before the rage epidemic, as well as a poster of Simon Le Bon. He listens to Rio and presumably The Wedding Album (although only the cover of Rio is seen) on his hand crank record player.

Above ground, as he continues to build his temple and develop a friendship with an infected Alpha named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), he sings ‘Girls On Film’ and ‘Rio’ to pass the time. Along with ‘Ordinary World,’ played prominently during one powerful scene, the Duran Duran songs were all in writer Alex Garland’s script, director Nia DaCosta told IndieWire. ‘It was there, and it made sense for the character (Kelson), and I thought it was really tender,’ she said.

Garland also wrote the script for the seminal 2002 horror film 28 Days Later as well as last year’s 28 Years Later, horror movies about a rage inducing-virus and its aftermath, in which humans are often bigger monsters than the zombie-like infected. 

Along with the Duran Duran songs, two tracks by other UK rock titans Radiohead and Iron Maiden are featured in The Bone Temple. But it’s Duran Duran whose songs seem to play the biggest role as far as the film’s overarching theme. 

Their music helps Kelson stay in touch with his humanity and Samson, his brain clouded by the infection, reconnect with his. Amid an epidemic, they are just two ordinary people seeking an ordinary world.