"Planet Earth" is the debut single by the British pop rock band Duran Duran, released on 2 February 1981. It was an immediate hit in the band's native UK, reaching #12 on the UK Singles Chart on 21 February, and did even better in Australia, hitting #8 to become Duran Duran's first Top 10 hit anywhere in the world. The song later appeared on the band's eponymous debut album Duran Duran, released in June 1981. About the song "Planet Earth" begins with a mid-tempo synthesised sweep backed with sequenced electronic rhythm, but the real rhythm section of throbbing bass and crisp drums soon kick in. Muted guitar carries the up-and-down throbbing as the singer joins in. The sequenced part on this song is a Prophet-5 synth, while a Roland Jupiter-4 and a Crumar Performer were used for strings and other sounds. The flanging intro sound was the Jupiter 4 processed by an MXR flanger. Record World described the song as being a "simple, catchy cut" with "a flexible bass [that] sets the consistent, throbbing pulse" and "mechanistic keyboard lines." The song was the first to explicitly acknowledge the fledgling New Romantic fashion movement, with the line "Like some New Romantic looking for the TV sound". The original demo had an extra verse at the end, as can be heard in the Manchester Square Demo version, released in 2009: "I came outside I saw the nightfall with the rain, Sheet lightning flashes in my brain, Whatever happened to the world we used to know? I've got you coming over fear now." Music video The music video for the song was directed by future film director Russell Mulcahy, who would go on to direct a dozen more for the group. Fairly primitive by the band's later standards, the video features the band (dressed in New Romantic fashions) playing the song on a white stage tricked out with special effects to look like a platform made of ice or crystal. Interspersed with the performance are shots of the band members alongside the four elements. The video focused closely on the band's faces. The instrumental middle section features two friends of the band from the Rum Runner nightclub nicknamed Gay John and Lavinya dancing in their full New Romantic regalia. In an apocalyptic science-fiction style, various world facts slide cross the bottom of the screen as the video plays, including: "the area of the