Happy ‘Spandau Ballet vs. Duran Duran on Pop Quiz Day,’ to all who celebrate!

Published On December 28, 2024 » By »

Happy holidays and New Year, everyone. There’s something you should know. To cut a long story short, 40 years ago, a true Christmas miracle took place. And you can witness it, in its full VHS glory, in the YouTube player above.

Happy Spandau Ballet vs. Duran Duran on Pop Quiz Day, to all who celebrate!

Yes, on Dec. 28, 1984, the United Kingdom’s two prettiest, pinuppiest, pouffiest new wave bands battled in a TV war of wits and wingtips on the British game show Pop Quiz, fielding trivia questions about Howard Jones, Tracey Ullman, the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and even each other’s music. Television gold was indeed created that day. This episode, the holiday gift that truly keeps on giving, was nothing less than a historic fight for New Romantic supremacy.

The rivalry between these two superstar groups was as fierce as Nick Rhodes’s eyeliner back in 1984. Duran Duran had become the more successful band internationally, especially in the United States, but the BBC’s Pop Quiz offered a chance for Spandau to settle the score. Duran Duran were hungry like the wolf for victory, but Spandau had the power to know they were indestructible.

“I think we had a little dip at the beginning of the ’80s, and [Duran Duran] popped in with a few hits then. So, we’d open the door, and then they’d come in and there was that moment,” Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp told me back in 2014, when the (sadly only temporarily) reunited Spandau were promoting their excellent documentary Soul Boys of the Western World, which featured clips of this heavily rouged face-off. “I think it’s great to have that whole classic rock history about rivalry, whether it’s the Beatles and the Stones or Blur and Oasis. And actually at that point, it was us versus Duran.”

“Interestingly, in all that time that we were producing records, Spandau and Duran never released a record at the same time,” noted Spandau multi-instrumentalist Steve Norman.

“That’s because they were scared!” joked drummer John Keeble.

Spandau-vs.-Duran mania had already reached a fever pitch that holiday season, a month before the Pop Quiz episode, when both bands participated in Bob Geldof’s all-star Band Aid charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Gary recalled, “There’s a bit in [Soul Boys of the Western World] when we turn up at the Band Aid recording, and the night before we’d been in Germany on a TV show with Duran. It was the first time we’d ever been brought together since really early on, and we had a bit of a drinking competition. I think that’s why we all look so awful in that Band Aid documentary.” [Editor’s note: They did not look awful.]

“The competition between us and them was so strong when we left that bar the night before Band Aid, we both had private planes waiting; we even had a race to London, to see who could get there first!” laughed Spandau bassist Martin Kemp. (“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” producer and co-writer Midge Ure later told me that the two bands were actually in a race to gain first-dibs access to the on-set makeup artist at the Band Aid session, which tracks.)

The Spandau guys didn’t divulge who won that drinking competition, or who made it to Trevor Horn’s SARM Studios in London first, but in the new Band Aid 40th anniversary doc, Spandau’s hungover arrival is shown first. And Spandau frontman Tony Hadley was the first person who volunteered to record a vocal that day. So, it seems Spandau Ballet did win the Band Aid challenge.

However, Duran Duran ultimately won Pop Quiz, with 52 points to Spandau’s 40. Gary admitted in Soul Boys of the Western World that he and his hyper-competitive bandmates were “truly gutted” that they lost on Pop Quiz, but ironically, Duran Duran won because they had better knowledge of Spandau’s lyrics — while the Spandau guys couldn’t even answer a trivia question about one of Duran’s most recognizable hits, “Hungry Like the Wolf.” So, in an odd way, Spandau Ballet were the real Pop Quiz champions that evening, right?

Four decades later, however, there seems to be no hard feelings between the two groups (and in the new Band Aid doc, they’re seen chumming about in the studio and conducting interviews together, so clearly this was a faux feud). “There was always rivalry, whether it was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Culture Club, Duran, Classix Nouveaux, whoever it might be,” said Hadley, who left Spandau Ballet in 2017. “There was all that chart rivalry that goes on, but when bands and musicians get together, it’s all, ‘Hi, let’s get to the bar and talk nonsense,’ you know. … We’re good friends with them to this day. I love Duran. I’ve got every Duran record. I’m actually a big fan.”

Well, since Hadley seems so familiar with the Duran discography, I suggest he reunite with his former Spandau bandmates this year for a trivia rematch against Duran Duran to commemorate the anniversary of this landmark Pop Quiz episode. Surely he and the Kemps will get those lyrics right this time.

Share this post

Tags

Comments are closed.