As a teenager in the 1980's, I was the proverbial "kid in a candy store" when it came to all the great music that was at my fingertips for me to explore and experience. Many of the discoveries I made during the "decade of decadence" have stayed with me until this day and more than likely will until the day I hang up my rock 'n' roll shoes. I'll never be able to deny the impact that Billy Idol and U2 had on me. They both helped define who I was and who I've become and they gave me a feeling of importance and belonging. I will always be eternally grateful to those artists for helping me achieve that.
The band that pretty much defined the decade wasn't really a major player in my adolescence until the latter part of the '80s, though. I owned a few 12" singles by Duran Duran and that's about where it ended. I loved "Girls On Film"; I thought it was the quintessential bridge between 1970's Disco and present-day dance music. It fused loud guitars with syncopated dance rhythms and naughty lyrics to boot. I thought it was brilliant … and in all honesty, it still holds up and sounds devastatingly modern today.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.