Girls on Film


"Girls on Film" is the third single by Duran Duran, released on 13 July 1981.
The single became Duran Duran's Top 10 breakthrough in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at Number 5 in July 1981. The band personally selected the song for release following the failure of its predecessor, "Careless Memories", which had been chosen by their record company, EMI. Its popularity provided a major boost to sales of the band's eponymous debut album, Duran Duran, which had been released a month earlier.
The song did not chart in the United States on its initial release, but it became popular and widely known after receiving heavy airplay on MTV when the Duran Duran album was re-issued in 1983. The song was used as the opening theme song for the anime series Speed Grapher in the Japanese-language version, and the night version appeared on 2012 Square Enix video game Sleeping Dogs.

About the song

Originally written and demoed in 1979 by an early line-up of the band featuring singer Andy Wickett, Duran Duran re-wrote and re-recorded the song in 1981. The different original version, which co-writer Wickett said "was inspired by the dark side of the glitz and glamour", was released as part of an EP in 2018.
The song begins with a recording of the rapid whirring of a motor drive on a camera. Both manager Paul Berrow and photographer Andy Earl claim to have supplied the camera for the recording.
Over the years, "Girls on Film" has become a staple of the encores for Duran Duran's live performances and is often the final song of a concert, during which lead singer Simon Le Bon introduces the rest of the band.
The song, along with "Rio", was originally omitted from the 1984 live album Arena to make room for newer and less familiar album material from 1983's Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Both tracks were included as bonus material in the 2004 CD reissue of Arena.

Music video

The song fared well on the radio and the charts before the video was filmed, but the controversy that ensued helped to keep the band in the public eye and the song on the charts for many weeks.
The video was made with directing duo Godley & Creme at Shepperton Studios in July 1981. It was filmed just weeks before MTV was launched in the United States and before anyone knew what an impact the music channel would have on the industry. The band expected the "Girls on Film" video to be played exclusively at nightclubs that had video screens. The raunchy video created an uproar, and it was consequently banned by the BBC and heavily edited for its original run on MTV; the band unabashedly enjoyed and capitalised on the controversy.
A Video 45 for "Girls on Film" and "Hungry Like the Wolf" was released in the United States in March 1983. The VHS-format tape contains the MTV-friendly edited "day version" of "Girls on Film", while the Betamax and CED Videodisc format contained the original uncensored "night version". The Video 45 won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video in 1984, the first year the Academy gave that award. The uncensored video was also included in the Duran Duran video album and the Greatest video collection. The edited version would later be used in the 2008 karaoke video game SingStar Pop Vol. 2.
Simon Le Bon commented in the audio interview on the Greatest DVD collection that the scandal of the music video overshadowed the song's message of fashion model exploitation.

Summary of the uncensored full-length version

The band performs on an elevated stage behind a models' catwalk, which resembles a boxing ring, as various scantily clad women act out a series of erotic vignettes. A number of these scenarios feature mild depictions of BDSM, sexual fetishism, fantasy and recurring themes of sizzling erotica such as seduction and abandonment:
The b-side of the single was another song initially unavailable anywhere else, a synthesiser-heavy dance track called "Faster Than Light".
The extended night version of "Girls on Film", similar to "Planet Earth" wasn't a remix, but a completely new arrangement of the song.
There are two slightly different mixes of the Night Version, one clocking in at 5:45, the other at 5:27. The video version clocks in at 6:19.
In 1998, EMI released Girls on Film – The Remixes, featuring a swathe of newly commissioned re-constructions of the song by Tall Paul and Tin Tin Out. A couple of these mixes were included on the 1998 UK release of the single "Electric Barbarella".

Covers, samples, and media references

s of "Girls on Film" have been recorded by Björn Again, Wesley Willis Fiasco, The Living End, Girls Aloud, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, Billy Preston, Kevin Max, La Ley, Midnight Oil, Mindless Self Indulgence and Chord Overstreet. The Pussycat Dolls performed this song as a part of the 80s-themed finale to Vh1 Divas 2004.
The song was featured in the second season of the Netflix series Stranger Things and is the Japanese opening of the anime Speed Grapher.

Formats and track listing

7": EMI. / EMI 5206 United Kingdom

  1. "Girls on Film" – 3:29
  2. "Faster than Light" – 4:26

    12": EMI. / 12 EMI 5206 United Kingdom

  3. "Girls on Film " – 5:31
  4. "Girls on Film" – 3:29
  5. "Faster than Light" – 4:26

    12": EMI. / 062-20 07176 Greece

  6. "Girls on Film " – 5:45
  7. "Girls on Film " – 5:41
  8. "Faster than Light" – 4:26
  1. "Girls on Film" – 3:27
  2. "Faster than Light" – 4:26
  3. "Girls on Film " – 5:31

    CD: Part of Duran Duran 2010 Special Edition (CD2)

  4. "Girls on Film" – 5:45
  5. "Girls on Film" – 5:42
  1. "Girls on Film" – 6:55
  2. "Girls on Film" – 6:29
  3. "Girls on Film" – 7:28
  4. "Girls on Film" – 8:28
  5. "Girls on Film" – 5:31
  6. "Girls on Film" – 5:47
  1. "Girls on Film" – 6:55
  2. "Girls on Film" – 6:29
  3. "Girls on Film" – 8:28
  4. "Girls on Film" – 5:47

Other appearances

Apart from the single, "Girls on Film" has also appeared on:
Stranger Things
EP's
Mini-LP:
Albums:
Singles:
Duran Duran are:
Also credited: