So why is Duran Duran’s All You Need Is Now on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
This is the best Duran Duran album that most people haven’t paid attention to.
And in fact, it’s incredible. Top 400 best 1000 albums ever incredible.
All You Need Is Now is a throwback to the band’s “classically” infectious ‘80s synth pop sound but with a modern and even mature twist that makes for a consistently great listen end to end. I have no problem stating that the album as a whole stands up with Duran Duran’s very best work.
The album’s first eight tracks are particularly strong (though note that the seventh track, “A Diamond In the Mind,” is more of a really nice interstitial or palette cleanser).
The title track, “All You Need Is Now,” kicks off things off and sets the tone for everything to come. A strange-o synth hook holds down a mid-tempo beat that shows off Simon Le Bon’s vocals in top form and a chorus as catchy and gorgeous as all get out.
“Girl Panic!” might be the strongest song of all. It has a “big” sound that feels like it would perfectly serve as the featured song on a movie soundtrack (much as “A View to a Kill” serves that role for the James Bond movie of the same name back in 1985).
“Safe (In the Heat of the Moment)” is both as funky and sexy as Duran Duran gets. It features a saucy little spoken section by Ana Matronic that lands on: don’t you want to be misled, don’t you want to be misled?
“Leave A Light On” is a wonderful slower number that stands with the best songs on Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) (#662 of best 1,000 albums ever) from 1993.
Some stats & info about Duran Duran – All You Need Is Now
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Pop Music, Synth Pop, Dance Music, British Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was All You Need Is Now released? 2011
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #391 out of 1,000
Duran Duran’s All You Need Is Now on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Duran Duran’s All You Need Is Now that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Safe in the heat of the moment, a stillness that comes to me when I’m close to you.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.