Duran Duran “Violence of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)” 1990, 12″single. Today, June 8th, is Nick Rhodes’ birthday (b. 1962). Funky “Violence of Summer” was the lead single off of their 1990 LP Liberty: it went to #20 in the UK and to #64 in the US. Honestly (and regretfully) I wasn’t paying much attention to D2 in ’90 so I’m woefully unaware of this single and that LP. This was the time period where both Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor had left the band and Warren Cuccurullo was on guitar and Sterling Campbell was filling in on drums. There were several variants of the single released: this one is the US 12″ with four versions of “Violence” plus “Throb,” a previously unreleased track which is an instrumental remix of “My Antarctica” (also on Liberty). The four remixes are pretty similar: lots of throbbing dance beats, Simon vocal samples, sci-fi(ish) voiceovers, etc. which make it difficult to pinpoint a favorite. The Story Mix is kinda cool as it starts out with Simon doing a beat-poet-like thing which is kinda awesome and hilarious. The Power Mix is super ass-shaking and segues seamlessly into the Dub Mix. I’d say my least favorite (though it’s still good!) is the Rock Mix with the train horns but the beat is crazy infectious and hypnotic which almost balances out the horn blast. The radio single/album track isn’t on the 12″ but it is here: