With the 80s came a sense of excitement with newness. New bands and new sounds were embraced, analyzed, scrutinized, and picked apart by us children and teenagers who sought the perfect form of art to define our own senses of being. Being an adolescent is a difficult time and we were ready to be swept off our feet and allow music and art to be our safe place. Duran Duran sought us out, took us by storm, and became that very place.
We had never heard anything like it before. It resonated with us on a level that we never knew existed and it became that safe place in both sight and sound that we could hide inside. Seeing videos, hearing songs, internalizing the art associated with different songs, and collecting memorabilia all became an experience in itself, materializing into an escape of sorts. When things in life went bad, we could tune in and duck inside, even if just for a while, and things didn't seem so bad for the time being. I tend to think of the experience of safety as an invisible cloak of comfort, activated with a magic that only Duran Duran can conjure.
Years later, Duranies can hear a Duran Duran song, or spot a picture of the band, or somehow otherwise experience a Duran Duran memory, and a piece of these Duranies will go back and touch on a bit of the safe place that was built back in the mid-80s. Here we are, 30-some years later, and the resonating sound of Duran Duran, both old and new, still takes us back to that adolescent time where the core of us was unsure and worried, but the familiar cloak of Duran safety would give our shoulder a slight squeeze for assurance.
There is one place, however, that instead of us stepping back into a piece of that Duran era, a piece of that Duran era is brought to us.
I have mentioned in previous posts my friend, Durandy (aka Andrew Golub,) and his amazing collection of Duran Duran memorabilia that he refers to as "The Archives." Anyone who has experienced Duranieism the way I described above would experience the incredible rush of the Duran world if they should ever visit Durandy's amazing collection. During my visits to The Archive, I have experienced a wide variety of emotions ranging from laughter to tears. Looking through posters, magazine clippings, pins, books, etc., I relived my walk through my life as a Duranie, remembering where I was at certain times when I heard this song, bought that album, or wore a Duran Duran T-shirt. Many hours of my life vanished in a matter of minutes there as I allowed the essence of Duran Duran to consume my very being as it had many years ago.
Durandy has been very generous to open up his world to many who wish to share in it, but of course, because of the volume of Duranies there are in the world, it is impossible to invite them all inside. This is unfortunate, because this is something that all deserving Duranies should be able to experience.
However, Durandy very cleverly took a piece of the magic from his archives to share with Duranies around the world by placing it in a book. Made out of a labor of love, his book, "Beautiful Colors (The Posters of Duran Duran)," is an adventure through time starting with the very earliest promotional posters on to the present. Each page is splashed with color and love, containing the very magic that can bring Duranies to the safe place carved out of our adolescence with the music and art that resonated with us Duranies in the most intimate of ways. "Beautiful Colors" transports us through past and present, taking us through our own personal journeys as the band itself is chronicled through its varying images over time. It is a journey that all deserving Duranies should take.
Beautiful Colors (The Posters of Duran Duran)
Living and loving in the Duran world does something wonderful for me. Something close to sacred. I grow strong in the present while taking comfort in the familiarity of the band that I have loved for a long time. "Beautiful Colors" is a glowing example of the way Duranies can do just that. As I said before, being in the world of Duran is not unlike the feeling of belonging in a spiritual home.
Not unlike...
a New Religion.
