Blaming a promoter who ‘defaulted on the contract,’ Duran Duran today canceled a planned five-date South African tour that was scheduled to begin next Monday — and serve both as a debut of parts of the band’s forthcoming album ‘All You Need Is Now’ and mark ‘the start of an enormous global campaign’ to promote the record.

With the release of the digital edition of Duran Duran’s new album ‘All You Need Is Now’ now less than a month away, the band on Monday night revealed the album’s cover art — which may, truthfully, be more important to those fans waiting for the expanded CD edition to come out in February.

The new album from Duran Duran — ‘All You Need is Now,’ which Nick Rhodes declares ‘the best record we’ve made in over two decades’ — will be released exclusively on iTunes on Dec. 21, but won’t come out on CD until February.

Producer/DJ Mark Ronson tonight gave Duran Duran fans their second taste of the band’s forthcoming album ‘All You Need Is Now,’ premiering the track ‘Being Followed’ — part of it, anyway — on his East Village Radio show.

Today is Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon’s 52nd birthday, and to mark the occasion — and with a tip of the hat to the current batch of reissues — we present this fabulous clip of DD playing its single ‘Notorious’ on an Italian television show in 1987. I

This week’s new releases include Trent Reznor’s score for ‘The Social Network,’ a super-limited 12-inch from The Cult, the U.S. editions of Duran Duran’s ‘Notorious’ and ‘Big Thing’ reissues, a disc of Suzanne Vega acoustic re-recordings, and a CD/DVD of film soundtrack work from John Foxx.

It’s a huge new release week, with new albums from Killing Joke and Bad Religion; live albums from Yazoo and Tom Tom Club; reissues from Duran Duran, David Bowie, The Fall and Morrissey; and new compilations from Soundgarden, KMFDM and David Sylvian.

With its as-yet-untitled new record nearly complete, Duran Duran today announced its first South African concerts in 17 years, a five-date run in December that’s being billed as ‘the start of an enormous global campaign around the release of their next studio album.’

This week’s new releases include ‘Who We Touch,’ the 11th album from The Charlatans; ‘The Morning After,’ a new mini-album from James; a David Bowie tribute album featuring Duran Duran and Mick Karn; and reissues from Madness and Flesh for Lulu’s Nick Marsh.

The first taste of Duran Duran’s long-in-the-works 13th studio album hit the Internet this evening after Mark Ronson — who’s producing the disc — played 30 seconds of ‘Blame the Machine’ on his East Village Radio show.

Now that EMI has come out defending its last set of expanded Duran Duran reissues, the label has pushed back the release of the band’s next pair: 1986’s ‘Notorious’ and 1988’s ‘Big Thing,’ both now due on Sept. 27, nearly four months after their original June release date.

More than three months after Duran Duran reissued its self-titled debut and ‘Seven and the Ragged Tiger,’ the band’s label, EMI, is defending the albums’ remastering amid fan complaints, acknowledging that ‘the mastering on these versions is different to that of previous remasters — however that does not necessarily make it wrong.’

Monday, Duran Duran co-founder Nick Rhodes — who today celebrates his 48th birthday — posted a short video update on YouTube to bring fans up to date on the band’s lengthy sessions for its 13th studio album.