Duran Duran New Album Announced, New Single Shared
Duran Duran have announced their new studio album, Future Past, due 22 October 2020. it’s the first from the 80s pop legends since their 2016 album, Paper Gods, hit the UK Top 5. Today fans get their first taste of Future Past, with the release of the first single from the album, Invisible, due to be performed at the Billboard Music Awards on 23 May.
Future Past can be ordered in various configurations here. Though the final tracklisting has yet to be announced, the band have revealed that the album “features special guests Graham Coxon of Blur on guitar, Mike Garson from David Bowie‘s band on piano, and guest vocals from Lykke Li, with more exciting collaborations to be announced.” Meanwhile, production duties are handled by the “Father of disco” Giorgio Moroder, DJ and remixer Erol Alkan, and Mark Ronson. The latter co-produced Duran Duran’s last two albums, 2015’s Paper Gods and 2011’s All You Need Is Now. A deluxe edition of the album will add three bonus tracks.
Frontman Simon Le Bon discussed Invisible on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 this morning: “It kind of started with the beat,” he explained. “It’s got a very, very assertive drum track, it’s really all about the rhythm. I just had to fit in a melody around that, really.” In terms of the lyrics, Le Bon revealed the song relates to, “a slightly dysfunctional relationship.” He also noted that one lyric in particular (“And the voiceless crowd ain’t backing down”) stood out when considering the impact of the global pandemic, with “Everything that’s been going on in the last year and a half really, with all the different public movements and all the noise people have been making… it suddenly sounded relevant in a much bigger way.”