Stop Fretting and Enjoy the Now!

Duranies are obsessed.  Well, some Duranies are obsessed with Duran’s future.  For some Duranies, this means that they feel like they should offer advice about what the next steps should be in the band’s career.  For others, it means adding the nails to the coffin by talking about how much they are failing to have success in the current music industry.  Of course, there are those fans who don’t think about things such as this and focus on the latest picture John posted of Roger by the pool.  Guess which group I’m gravitating towards today? 

I, honestly, get frustrated with some fans’ never-ending focus on how the album is doing and where it is in the charts.  I swear they focus more on these things than the band does.  I haven’t heard John tweet much about album sales or chart placement except when he gives out a little cheer for something good.  The rest of the time, he is tweeting about his quest to quit smoking or what they are doing on a rare day off.  He seems to be focused on the now, not on album sales.  Of course, he and the rest of the band could be fretting behind closed doors.  I can acknowledge that as a possibility.  I guess I just don’t understand why some people are so obsessed with this.  I suppose that, for them, they are obsessed because they think it matters to the band and will ultimately determine the band’s future.  This could be very similar to fans of TV shows focusing on ratings and worrying about whether or not a series will be cancelled.  There is a very big difference, though.  In TV, some network executive is the one deciding the show’s fate.  For Duran Duran, they are deciding it.  So, the question comes down to will the band call it quits if this album doesn’t do well?  I don’t honestly know.  I’m not in their heads.  I do know a couple of things, though.  First, I know that they have been through hard times before and I’m not even sure that I could or would call this a “hard time”.  Do you think it was really fun to be in Duran during the Pop Trash era?  It sounds like Simon didn’t think so based on interviews I have heard/seen.  Forget about album sales, he just didn’t seem happy.  Isn’t that the important thing here?  Are they happy now?  Again, I don’t know but they don’t seem UNhappy.  I see lots of smiles and laughter in behind the scenes footage, which leads me to my second point.  They have a long history.  Nick, for example, has been in Duran all of his life.  I can’t imagine what it must be like to have been involved in something like this band since the age of 16!  Do you think that Nick is all that excited over the idea of starting something completely new?  This is what they know.  They know Duran.  They know how to make music, how to tour, how to do interviews, etc.  It can’t be all that easy to walk away, even if things aren’t great on paper.  Thus, I think those fans who hear or read some interview about how Duran is going to call it quits might be making a huge assumption.  Now, they might be right in that assumption but they also might be wrong.  Duran might not be planning to call it quits no matter what happens with album sales.

Then, there are the other group of fans who focus on what the band should do in the future.  This segment of the fan community assumes that they will be around but that they need advice about how they should proceed from here.  Some of the advice includes who to work with or who not to work with, where to play, what types of venues are good, what the setlists should be, etc.  Geez.  I suspect that the band might have thoughts about all of these topics and more.  Maybe they would like to do things a little differently but have run into problems.  Maybe they can’t work with everyone they want to work with due to scheduling issues.  Maybe their management is unable to get some venues for whatever reason.  I don’t know.  I understand both groups.  I definitely get the fear that many of the first group has.  I, too, don’t want Duran to end things.  If I thought that my offering solutions for the lack of album sales would help keep them around longer, I would go for it.  I don’t think the fans will have anything to do with it, however.  Likewise, no matter how good the suggestions are for the band, I don’t know that they will pay attention or be able to follow any of them.  I realize that both groups of fans mean completely well and just want the best for a band that they care about.  I get that.  Yet, I don’t understand why we can’t just live in the moment and enjoy what we have now.  We have a great album.  We have a band on tour.  Isn’t that reason alone to celebrate?  Shouldn’t we be focused on the now like the song, AYNIN, is reminding us to do?  Why do we as a fan community always have to find some problem? 

Perhaps, this negativity is what is drawing me to the third group of fans who are pretty content to look at shirtless pictures of Roger.  It isn’t that I don’t like discussion about what the band is doing because I do, but I don’t like it if it feels focused on failure and a failure that has yet to really be determined.  It reminds me of judging a baseball batter in April because he is batting less than .200 Will the same guy be batting the same in September?  It is hard to say.  Maybe that ball player will end up getting sent back to the minors because he couldn’t handle it and this will be the end of his career.  He might, though, end up batting over .300.  Why not enjoy today?  Why can’t we be happy to still have the band around?  There isn’t many bands who have lasted this long.  Isn’t that reason enough to celebrate?  Reason enough to stop fretting about statistics?  The future is obviously unknown.  Will Duran end soon?  I don’t know.  If they do, I don’t want to spend the last album and last tour thinking about chart positions.  I want to enjoy them.

-A