“Planet Earth” by Duran Duran

Duran Duran announced themselves with "Planet Earth", their debut single, released on 2 February 1981 and later tucked onto their self-titled first album that June. It's disco with a punk-sharpened edge: a sequenced Prophet-5 ticking away underneath, strings from a Roland Jupiter-4 and a Crumar Performer, and that swooshing intro, which is the Jupiter-4 run through an MXR flanger. Colin Thurston produced and engineered it, and the writing credit goes to Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Andy, John and Roger Taylor.

It was an instant hit at home, reaching 12 in the UK, and did even better in Australia, where it hit 8 and gave the band their first top 10 anywhere. In America it joined "Girls on Film" in the top 40 of the dance charts.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.