Music
 

Colin Thurston

DDW: the united memory of all the fans

Colin Thurston
Born UK
Date 1947
Occupation

music producer

recording engineer

Associated Acts

Duran Duran

Talk Talk

producer

Colin Thurston (1947 – ) was a British recording engineer and producer.

Born in Singapore, Thurston played in bands in London before he "bluffed his way" into audio engineering After hooking up with Tony Visconti he co-engineered David Bowie's "Heroes" and Iggy Pop's Lust For Life (both 1977); he is also credited with co-producing the latter album with Bowie and Pop, under the collective pseudonym "Bewlay Bros".

Thurston's debut as a solo producer was Magazine's second album Secondhand Daylight (1979). He later recalled, "I think they were a bit nervous and so I didn't tell them it was my first production". The same year, he produced The Human League's first album, Reproduction and their single "I Don't Depend on You". His lesser-known productions around this time included the single "Move in Rhythm" by Airkraft (1980) on the Square record label, now a collector's piece.

He achieved widespread recognition with Duran Duran's debut album (1981) and the follow-up Rio (1982); bassist John Taylor later described Thurston as "a major catalyst for the Eighties sound" After working with Duran Duran he produced Talk Talk's The Party's Over (1982), and Kajagoogoo's White Feathers (1983), the latter with Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes. He also worked with Gary Numan on his 1985 album The Fury.

Thurston became an in-house producer for the Canadian independent record label Brouhaha in the late 1980s before the company dissolved. In 1999 he was again associated with Duran Duran for the Strange Behaviour remix compilation He. had been suffering from a long illness and doing occasional production work before he died on .