1981 single by Duran Duran
"Planet Earth" is the debut single by English new wave band Duran Duran, released on 2 February 1981.
It was an immediate hit in the band's native UK, reaching number 12 on the UK Singles Chart on 21 February, and did even better in Australia, hitting number 8 to become Duran Duran's first Top 10 hit anywhere in the world. Along with the track, "Girls on Film", "Planet Earth" also hit the Top 40 on the US, dance charts.
The song later appeared on the band's eponymous debut album Duran Duran, released in June 1981.
About the song
"Planet Earth" begins with a mid-tempo synthesised sweep backed with sequenced electronic rhythm, but the real rhythm section of throbbing bass and crisp drums soon kick in. Muted guitar carries the up-and-down throbbing as the singer joins in.
The sequenced part on this song is a Prophet-5 synth, while a Roland Jupiter-4 and a Crumar Performer were used for strings and other sounds.[2] The flanging intro sound was the Jupiter 4 processed by an MXR flanger.[3]
Record World described the song as being a "simple, catchy cut" with "a flexible bass [that] sets the consistent, throbbing pulse" and "mechanistic keyboard lines."[4]
The song was the first to explicitly acknowledge the fledgling New Romantic fashion movement, with the line "Like some New Romantic looking for the TV sound".
The original demo had an extra verse at the end, as can be heard in the Manchester Square Demo version, released in 2009:
"I came outside I saw the nightfall with the rain,
Sheet lightning flashes in my brain,
Whatever happened to the world we used to know?
I've got you coming over fear now."
Music video
The music video for the song was directed by future film director Russell Mulcahy, who would go on to direct a dozen more for the group.
Fairly primitive by the band's later standards, the video features the band (dressed in New Romantic fashions) playing the song on a white stage tricked out with special effects to look like a platform made of ice or crystal. Interspersed with the performance are shots of the band members alongside the four elements. The video focused closely on the band's faces. The instrumental middle section features two friends of the band from the Rum Runner nightclub nicknamed Gay John and Lavinya[5] dancing in their full New Romantic regalia. In an apocalyptic science-fiction style, various world facts slide cross the bottom of the screen as the video plays, including: "the area of the surface of the earth is 196,937,600 miles"; "247,860 people are born every day"; "the oldest known song is the Shadoof Chant"; and then it ends with a warning of "Doomsday." At the end of the video, singer Simon Le Bon leaps from the stage, caught in a freeze frame shot above an apparently bottomless abyss.
The video was recreated in the music video for The Dandy Warhols' "You Were the Last High" (which was produced by Nick Rhodes, the band's keyboardist).
B-sides, bonus tracks and remixes
For most countries, the B-side track for the "Planet Earth" 45 is a concert favourite called "Late Bar" which was one of the earliest songs Duran Duran had written together after their classic Le Bon/Rhodes/Taylor/Taylor/Taylor line-up had solidified.[citation needed] However, the B-side track for the North American release of "Planet Earth" is "To the Shore".
Beginning with "Planet Earth", Duran Duran began creating what they called "night versions" for each of their songs; extended versions that were featured on their 12-inch singles. Back in 1981, the technology to do extended remixes was still quite rudimentary, so the band chose instead to create a new arrangement of the song, loosely based on the version they were playing live at the time. This formed the basis for the "night" version.
The night version of "Planet Earth" appeared in place of the original on some early American releases of the Duran Duran album.
In addition to the 12", the night version of "Planet Earth" was included on the EPs Nite Romantics and Carnival.
For the 1999 remix album Strange Behaviour, EMI inadvertently unearthed unreleased alternative mixes of both "Planet Earth" and "Hold Back the Rain".
The alternative mix of "Planet Earth" called the "night mix" also appears on the special edition of Duran Duran, released in 2010.
Charts
Weekly charts[edit]
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Year-end charts[edit]
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As of October 2021 "Planet Earth" is the ninth most streamed Duran Duran song in the UK.[13]
