2. Duran DuranRio
I do think a lot that’s wrong with the way music is reported is how things get tagged as unworthy of your love and trust. I resent it when people do that revisionist thing – they need to get over themselves. All I’m aware of is the emotional response I get from something and Rio is an album I can listen to any day of the week – it’s pure adrenaline pop and every song is fucking killer. John Taylor said that they were all at the top of their game on that record: no one is showboating or slacking, everyone is doing exactly what they’ve got to do and when you listen to it you know exactly what he’s talking about.
Scott and I met them once but not in the way you might expect. My mum was the manageress of the British Lion bar at Shepperton Studios and if she couldn’t get a babysitter she’d have to take us to work and we’d sit in the office or sleep in the car. On one side that may sound like bad parenting but on the other it was the greatest education I could have had for this weird job I’ve ended up doing. We got to meet everyone – Howard Jones, Phil Collins, Nik Kershaw. And Simon Le Bon and John Taylor gave us a tour of the ‘Wild Boys’ video set explaining everything that was going on: "This is a severed robot head… this is a thing Simon’s gonna get strapped to…" I really loved them.
A lot of people have said that my song ‘Low Company’ on the new album reminds them of ‘The Chauffeur’ and, while totally unconscious, I can really dig that.
