I got it. I got it. I fucking got it! Don’t ask me how. Don’t ask me where. Don’t ask me for a copy. I can’t say a word about it. But. I got it. I have it here in my hot little sweaty mitts! And what I can do is review it for you.

I have a copy of the new Duran Duran album, Astronaut.

*Dwanollah LeBonollah begins yet another Dance of Spastic Glee*

I can’t promise to be overly objective when I review a new Duran album, the first Duran album featuring all five original members since freakin ’ ARENA was released twenty years ago. And I can’t promise cutting-edge predictions, either. My radar with Duran is usually off the mark anyway; I mean, I thought “Out of My Mind” would get massive airplay. But I can promise to be detailed.

And excited.

I was more than a little apprehensive about the reunion, mind. Obviously, I hadn’t abandoned Duran in years past, and really enjoyed some of Warren’s contributions to the band. Waz is a brilliant musician, in fact. A reunion album and tour seemed like such a mercenary, cheese-wad, stupid, publicity-whore thing for Duran to do. Not that that’s surprising, of course. But, Simon being Simon, it sounded like “Hey, all the other 80s-era bands’re doing it, why don’t we do it too?” (because My Boyfriend has a habit of hopping on every passing bandwagon as it heads out of town after a full circuit of the town square).

And part of me wants my little underappreciated band to stay that way for all us hardcore fans who’ve been there through the less-than-fun times. Like “911 is a Joke.”

But once the ball started rolling, suddenly the Durans were being glommed onto by all and sundry. The Roxy show over a year ago was the hott summer ticket in Los Angeles. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were gushing about how much they loooooved Duran. Even MTV was finally finally FINALLY saying “Hey, this was the band that made us” after a decade of pretending Duran didn’t exist. Even Kevin at KROQ stopped pretending he didn’t really go to those Duran shows (even though we all saw him there). And us hardcore fans were pushed and shoved by 30- and 40-somethings who decided to be nostalgic about a band they liked back in high school, and peppered concerts with brainless shrieks of “Play ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’! Play ‘The Reflex’!” (Dudes, if you’ve been to ANY Duran show in the last 20 years, you know they will. They will. Really. They will. So shut UP!) They fucking won an MTV LIFETIME ACHEIVEMENT AWARD AND A BRIT AWARD! That bobsled track in Hell is opening next week.

But all that pales now. Because I have the album, and who cares about stupid fair-weather fans and crap like that, when the album is so fuckingly good!

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