Red Carpet Massacre

Red Carpet Massacre is the twelfth studio album by the English pop rock band Duran Duran, released on 13 November 2007 by Epic Records. Most of the music on the final incarnation of the album was completed in late 2006 following the departure of band member Andy Taylor with new guitarist Dominic Brown replacing him, when record producer Timbaland began working with the band. However, Brown is not considered an official member, so Duran Duran is featured as a quartet. "Falling Down" was the only single released from the album.

Red Carpet Massacre debuted at number 44 on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the band's second lowest-debuting album on the chart, after Pop Trash (2000). The album debuted at number 36 on the US Billboard 200, selling 29,000 copies in its first week. The following week, it fell to number 116. As of February 2011, the album had sold 102,000 copies in the United States.

It was Duran Duran's second and final album released under Epic Records, before the band parted ways with the label in 2009. It was reissued by BMG in 2022, after the band's signing with the label.

The band did its initial recording for its follow-up to Astronaut with producer Michael Patterson between September 2005 and April 2006. Roger Taylor said in March 2006, "The record will be in some ways a homage to our roots as a band, more direct and a return to our dance and 'new wave' origins", adding that they had brought 15 tracks to near completion.

The record was provisionally titled Reportage and expected to be released in late May 2006 with a summer tour to follow, but as reported by Billboard, the album was delayed as guitarist Andy Taylor had a falling-out with the rest of the band for unknown reasons, and the material was eventually shelved altogether in favour of recording Red Carpet Massacre.

In early October 2006, vocalist Simon Le Bon announced that the band had recorded three songs with Timbaland, his protégé Nate 'Danja' Hills and engineer Jimmy Douglass at Manhattan Center Studios during September. Billboard reported that one of those tracks was "Nite-Runner", featuring Justin Timberlake, which at the time was expected to be the first single from the album. Two additional songs on which the band worked with Timbaland were titled "Skin Divers" and "Zooming In". Also mentioned were two other tracks, "48 Hours Later" and "Transcendental Mental", which were not used on the album.

Andy Taylor did not perform at any of Duran Duran's October shows and had not participated during the New York sessions with Timbaland, and on 25 October 2006, a message posted on the band's site announced: "As of last weekend [...] the four of us have dissolved our partnership and will be continuing as Duran Duran without Andy, as we have reached a point in our relationship with him where there is an unworkable gulf between us and we can no longer effectively function together."

Dominic Brown, who had taken Taylor's place at several previous missed concerts in the past, was hired as Duran Duran's guitarist, taking part in the recording sessions. Brown has since performed with the band as their full-time touring guitarist, but he has never been introduced as an official member.