Old Enough to Forget

Once upon a time the boys in Duran Duran were taking a break, and two of the three Taylors formed a band with Robert Palmer and drummer Tony Thompson, who had pounded the literal shit out of the skins on Bowie's 1983 album Let's Dance . In the spring of 1985 they dropped an album called The Power Station, named after the legendary New York studio. I'm guessing the guys were having trouble coming up with a suitable band name as they opted to use the same name. The album opens with "Some Like It Hot" and right off the bat you really get the feeling you're in for a ride. To say Tony Thompson sounds huge on this song is an understatement. At this point in the mid '80s Phil Collins was sort of the standard bearer for big gated toms and from the get go it's like Tony said to the engineer, "Hold my beer." Having Robert Palmer front the band was pretty cool, as at this point in his career he was still better known as that guy who covered "Bad C...

Once upon a time, the cool boys would trash Duran Duran, and the cool girls the boys wanted to get to know had Duran Duran posters on their walls. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. Begrudgingly, I had to admit they had a few decent earworms, and their videos were like cool mini movies. It wasn't easy to keep shitting on them, but I tried. I remember going to the mall back in 1984 with my buddy Mike - not that one, the other one - who used to date my wife (that's a story for another day). We were talking about new music as we walked into a record store, and there on the wall was a Duran Duran poster for Seven and the Ragged Tiger. I launched into my whole "Duran Duran sucks" thing, and he looked me in the eye as if he was about to reveal a secret. "That's a pretty good album, you know." I can't remember my response, but it was probably really caustic. I think that was the trip I bought the new solo albums by Dennis DeYoung an...