Paper Gods is the 14th studio album from the British band Duran Duran, released in September 2015 on Warner Bros. Records. The album was produced by Mr Hudson and Joshua Blair, who had worked with the band on All You Need Is Now and A Diamond in the Mind; Nile Rodgers, who had previously first worked on the band's "The Reflex", his remixed version reaching number 1, "The Wild Boys" single and Notorious album, and Mark Ronson, who produced All You Need Is Now. The first single, "Pressure Off", features vocals from American singer Janelle Monáe. Duran Duran promoted the album through the Paper Gods on Tour.
Release
The album cover, designed by artist Alex Israel, is his 2013 painting titled, "Sky Backdrop", that features icons that represent the band's history. This includes lips and the eye painted by artist Patrick Nagel for their Rio album; also representing the Rio album is a chauffeur's cap alluding to that record's closing track "The Chauffeur"; a pink telephone, champagne glass and the saxophone representing the single "Rio"; a sumo wrestler representing their controversial video for "Girls on Film"; Duran Duran's teeth are shown to be from "The Wild Boys"; the Eiffel Tower is a reference to the title song from the film A View to a Kill; a rocket from the greatest hits album, ; a silhouette of a female representing the single "Skin Trade"; an image of a tiger and a snake nodding to their third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger; a white shoe from the single cover and the music video of "Come Undone"; a stylized ice cream cone taken from their "Perfect Day" single. The deluxe physical copy of the record comes with sixteen stickers of Duran Duran iconography to mirror the album cover.
Promotion
The band announced a tour of the United States and the United Kingdom to coincide with the album's release. The lead single from the album, "Pressure Off", was released in the United States on 19 June, first via Microsoft's Xbox Music. The song subsequently appeared on Google Music.
Commercial performance
The album entered the UK albums chart at number 5, becoming their 9th Top 5 album overall and making them one of only a handful of bands who have scored Top 5 albums in four consecutive decades. In the US it entered the Billboard 200 at number 10 and became their first top 10 album since 1993's Duran Duran. In its second week, the album fell to number 76, and in its third and final week fell to number 194, though it reentered the Billboard 200 at #45 in January 2016. In Italy, the album peaked at number 2.
