Talking to Girls About Duran Duran

Author: Rob Sheffield
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101437200
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
From the bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape and Turn Around Bright Eyes, "a funny, insightful look at the sublime torture of adolescence".—Entertainment Weekly The 1980s meant MTV and John Hughes movies, big dreams and bigger shoulder pads, and millions of teen girls who nursed crushes on the members of Duran Duran. As a solitary teenager stranded in the suburbs, Rob Sheffield had a lot to learn about women, love, music, and himself. And he was sure his radio had all the answers. As evidenced by the bestselling sales of Sheffield's first book, Love Is a Mix Tape, the connection between music and memory strikes a chord with readers. Talking to Girls About Duran Duran strikes that chord all over again, and is a pitch-perfect trip through '80s music-from Bowie to Bobby Brown, from hair metal to hip-hop. But this book is not just about music. It's about growing up and how every song is a snapshot of a moment that you'll remember the rest of your life.

Turn Around Bright Eyes

Author: Rob Sheffield
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062207644
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description
Once upon a time I was falling apart. Now I'm always falling in love. Pick up the microphone. When Rob Sheffield moved to New York City in the summer of 2001, he was a young widower trying to start a new life in a new town. Behind, in the past, was his life as a happily married rock critic, with a wife he adored, and a massive collection of mix tapes that captured their life together. And then, in a flash, all he had left were the tapes. Beyoncé , Bowie, Bon Jovi, Benatar . . . One night, some friends dragged him to a karaoke bar in the West Village. A night out was a rare occasion for Rob back then. Turn around Somehow, that night in a karaoke bar turned into many nights, in many karaoke bars. Karaoke became a way out, a way to escape the past, a way to be someone else if only for the span of a three-minute song. Discovering the sublime ridiculousness of karaoke, despite the fact that he couldn't carry a tune, he began to find his voice. Turn around And then the unexpected happened. A voice on the radio got Rob's attention. The voice came attached to a woman who was unlike anyone he'd ever met before. A woman who could name every constellation in the sky, and every Depeche Mode B side. A woman who could belt out a mean Bonnie Tyler. Bright Eyes Turn Around Bright Eyes is an emotional journey of hilarity and heartbreak with a karaoke soundtrack. It's a story about finding the courage to move on, clearing your throat, and letting it rip. It's a story about navi- gating your way through adult romance. And it's a story about how songs get tangled up in our deepest emotions, evoking memories of the past while inspiring hope for the future.

Duran Duran's Rio

Author: Annie Zaleski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501355201
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
In the '80s, the Birmingham, England, band Duran Duran became closely associated with new wave, an idiosyncratic genre that dominated the decade's music and culture. No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound-influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock-the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the title track. However, Rio wasn't a success everywhere at first; in fact, the LP had to be buffed-up with remixes and reissued before it found an audience in America. The album was further buoyed by colorful music videos, which established Duran Duran as leaders of an MTV-driven second British Invasion, and the group's cutting-edge visual aesthetic. Via extensive new interviews with band members and other figures who helped Rio succeed, this book explores how and why Rio became a landmark pop-rock album, and examines how the LP was both a musical inspiration-and a reflection of a musical, cultural, and technology zeitgeist.

Wild Boy

Author: Andy Taylor
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1409111164
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
The first member of Duran Duran to write his memoirs tells the full story of the excesses, glamour and excitement they lived through in the 1980s. When 19-year-old Andy Taylor returned from his band's tour of military bases in Germany and saw an advert in Melody Maker in April 1980 asking for a 'live wire guitarist' to audition in Birmingham, he saw his chance. Even he could not have predicted what happened next. The group, Duran Duran, released their first single, 'Planet Earth', ten months later and soon became the biggest band since the Beatles. Emerging in the post-punk era, Duran headed the New Romantic movement and with their stunning videos and style consciousness, they set the trend for the consumerist 1980s. Popular with everyone from rockers to Princess Diana, they had a string of massive worldwide hits such as 'Rio', 'The Reflex' and 'A View to a Kill'. They won Grammys and an Ivor Novello award among many other things. By Live Aid, in 1985, they were at their very pinnacle of success - and then the band began to fall apart. At the centre of it all, giving the group its musical pulse, was lead guitarist Andy Taylor. In this revealing and raw memoir, Taylor recalls the highs and lows of an unbelievable period where the squeaky clean facade hid the truth of wild partying as five young men took just about every opportunity that was offered to them. Andy Taylor's story is of an era when MTV was new, the media allowed superstars to get away with lots and rock stars knew how to party like there was no tomorrow. Wild Boy is a book that millions of fans of Duran Duran around the world will want to read to know the full story of what really happened.

In the Pleasure Groove

Author: John Taylor
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0142196940
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
With a new introduction by Nick Rhodes The talent. The charisma. The videos. From their 1981 hit "Planet Earth" to their latest number-one album, All You Need Is Now, John Taylor and Duran Duran have enchanted audiences around the world. It's been a wild ride, and—for John in particular—dangerous. John recounts the story of the band's formation, their massive success, and his journey to the brink of self-destruction. Told with humor, honesty—and packed with exclusive pictures—In the Pleasure Groove is an irresistible rock-and-roll portrait of a band whose popularity has never been stronger.

Please Please Tell Me Now

Author: Stephen Davis
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0306846101
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Book Description
Lifelong fans and interested newcomers will love this stunning biography of Duran Duran by the bestselling author of Gold Dust Woman and Hammer of the Gods. In Please Please Tell Me Now, bestselling rock biographer Stephen Davis tells the story of Duran Duran, the quintessential band of the 1980s. Their pretty boy looks made them the stars of fledgling MTV, but it was their brilliant musicianship that led to a string of number one hits. By the end of the decade, they had sold 60 million albums; today, they've sold over 100 million albums—and counting. Davis traces their roots to the austere 1970s British malaise that spawned both the Sex Pistols and Duran Duran—two seemingly opposite music extremes. Handsome, British, and young, it was Duran Duran that headlined Live Aid, not Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin. The band moved in the most glamorous circles: Nick Rhodes became close with Andy Warhol, Simon LeBon with Princess Diana, and John Taylor dated quintessential British bad girl Amanda De Cadanet. With timeless hits like "Hungry Like the Wolf," "Girls on Film," "Rio," "Save a Prayer," and the bestselling James Bond theme in the series' history, "A View to Kill," Duran Duran has cemented its legacy in the pop pantheon—and with a new album and a worldwide tour on the way, they show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Featuring exclusive interviews with the band and never-before-published photos from personal archives, Please Please Tell Me Now offers a definitive account of one of the last untold sagas in rock and roll history—a treat for diehard fans, new admirers, and music lovers of any age.

Rat Girl

Author: Kristin Hersh
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101459026
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Book Description
"One of the 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time” --Rolling Stone Magazine (#8) “Sensitive and emotionally raw… it’s also wildly funny”--The New York Times Book Review A powerfully original memoir of pregnancy and mental illness by the legendary founder of the seminal rock band Throwing Muses, 'a magnificently charged union of Sylvia Plath and Patti Smith' - The Guardian Kristin Hersh was a preternaturally bright teenager, starting college at fifteen and with her band, Throwing Muses, playing rock clubs she was too young to frequent. By the age of seventeen she was living in her car, unable to sleep for the torment of strange songs swimming around her head - the songs for which she is now known. But just as her band was taking off, Hersh was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. Rat Girl chronicles the unraveling of a young woman's personality, culminating in a suicide attempt; and then her arduous yet inspiring recovery, her unplanned pregnancy at the age of 19, and the birth of her first son. Playful, vivid, and wonderfully warm, this is a visceral and brave memoir by a truly original performer, told in a truly original voice.

Duranalysis

Author: Morgan Richter
Publisher: Luft Books
ISBN: 9780990936794
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
No band epitomizes the eighties, a decade of stylish and absurd excesses, as much as Duran Duran. Certainly no band inspires the same dizzying range of emotional responses-adoration, lust, delight, confusion, contempt-as those five beautiful and cocksure boys from England, who burst onto the scene like a glitter-encrusted wrecking ball at the start of the decade and held the public's attention in a vise grip. Still (mostly) together and going strong, they've endured because no one could ever quite forget them, even when the end of the eighties threatened to turn them into relics of an era that overstayed its welcome. Duran Duran are celebrities par excellence: glamorous, ridiculous, larger than life, and absolutely hilarious. With wit and affection, Duranalysis tackles the Duran Duran phenomenon. Duranalysis is composed of a series of insightful, informative, irreverent essays encompassing the complete history of Duran Duran, from their inauspicious origins in working-class Birmingham through the crazy chaos of megafame in the eighties to their lower-profile but still glamorous present. Welcome to Duranalysis. It's going to be a wild ride.

How to Kill a Rock Star

Author: Tiffanie DeBartolo
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402250398
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
"Funny, tender, edgy. I wanted the love story to go on forever."—Joan Johnston, bestselling author of No Longer a Stranger Written in the wonderfully honest, edgy, and hilarious voice she perfected in God-Shaped Hole, Tiffanie DeBartolo shines in a passionate new story of music, love, and sacrifice. Eliza Caelum, a young music journalist, is finally getting her footing in New York when she meets Paul Hudson, a talented songwriter and lead singer of the band Bananafish. They soon realize they share more than a reverence for rock music and plunge headlong into love. When Bananafish is signed by a big corporate label, and Paul is on his way to becoming a major rock star, Eliza's past forces her to make a heartbreaking decision that might be the key to Paul's sudden disappearance. A layered and emotional look into the world of music, this raw summer read will resonate with readers who loved Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Praise for Tiffanie DeBartolo's God-Shaped Hole: "From highs to heartbreak, DeBartolo conjures an affair to remember."—People "Honest, raw, and engaging."—Booklist "This generation's Love Story."—Kirkus Reviews

Dreaming the Beatles

Author: Rob Sheffield
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062207679
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
An NPR Best Book of the Year • Winner of the Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism “This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them. Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up? As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia. Dreaming the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.