New Duran album news

In what was considered by many (including a former band member) to be a few too many shades of crazy, Duran Duran's last album was helmed by famed hip-hop producer Timbaland.

Duran are no strangers to the hip and the hop having covered "White Lines" and "911 is a Joke" on their 1995 covers album Thank You. Again, those who thought the pairing for Red Carpet Massacre was crazy also skip over the band's 95 foray into other people's tunes.

The band have announced - via their blog - that they've entered the studio for their 13th album with producer de jour Mark Ronson. Now this is such a better pairing than the hippy hoppy.

The band have already gelled nicely with Ronson, having reworked a number of their hits for a one off performance in Paris last summer for the Smirnoff series of events. They also contributed a reworking of "A View To a Kill" to the recent War Child album, Heroes.

I'm very interested to see what this pairing will produce. In fact, I haven't been this interested in a Duran project since Nile Rodgers took the reigns for Notorious.