Duran Duran - The golden fairy tale of the wild boys

 

There's a light breeze blowing over Birmingham. An afternoon like any other, drifting towards evening. Over there, near the arena that usually hosts a couple of hours of thrilling pop-rock, a fairly sizeable queue has already formed. Young people dealing with the line that will lead to the coveted entry ticket. About three pounds, under that mid-70s sky. The band has just arrived in town: Roxy Music, far more than a chart-topping icon, almost a philosophy of life. The elegance and melodic-rhythmic sharpness of theensemble fronted by Bryan Ferry's pomaded quiff smell of vindication for kids forced to bow to the whims of an economically depressed city, devoid of stimulation. Among other things, they've just landed in record shops for the fourth time with a new collection of songs christened "Country Life". Enough to make your still-smooth lips curl in anticipation.

In the middle of the restless crowd, someone has started taking notes. Especially two kids. The first is a bespectacled beanpole, the archetypal shy loser, solitary and perhaps even a bit of a dreamer. His name is Nigel Taylor, but those who know him call him John. Long-legged John is 14, with a bedroom plastered with posters capturing the heroes of his adolescence: Mick Ronson, Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), David Bowie. Next to the bed, stuck up as best as he could, there's also a picture of a dreamy Johnny Thunders. Every now and then Nigel picks up his £10 acoustic guitar and tries to see his reflection in those photos. Right beside him is the diminutive Nicholas James Bates. A black beret on a boy of just 12. Little Nick is sharp, with clear, pragmatic ideas. Ever since he started cutting his teeth on bread and vinyl, he's been captivated by the figure of Brian Eno, the eccentric, highly intellectual genius of Roxy. But young Brian had already decided, two years earlier, to leave the RockSexy gang. No great loss: Andy McKay and the rest of the band kept on sketching out the lines of his thoughts, his desires. A perfect soundtrack to help restless Nick fly out of Birmingham. A remark about Paul Thompson's steady beat, the enthusiastic applause rising in unison after the final note of "Prairie Rose", and the two carry on with their usual lives, which mostly consist of hanging out together, sometimes purely for the competitive thrill of showing off their own 'war trophies': limited editions of cult albums, 45s with narrow centre holes, the supposed shoelaces from the boots Bowie wore at the gig he played in those parts the year before (an unpublished and not especially flattering glimpse into the adolescence of the future Durans would later be offered, in 2008, by the late Nikki Sudden, co-leader of fellow townsmen Swell Maps, in his autobiography: the singer-songwriter, who had his epiphany on the road to Keith Richards after his initial ultra-experimental post-punk escapades, doesn't hold back and describes young Rhodes as a bully, always keen to be seen at school with precious vinyl records under his arm, haughty, well-off, an only child and therefore spoiled, willing to pay to have someone he disliked beaten up, only to then be threatened by his own 'men' and run off in terror. In the first part of the book there are constant references to a Nick 'disguised' as a pirate, that is, as a thief, always present at the amateur rehearsals of various local music projects with a hidden tape recorder to steal ideas and sequences; this is also where the controversy originates regarding the contribution of the newly formed Duran's second frontman, Andy Wickett, allegedly the hidden author of an early version of "Rio", who was ready to sue in 1982 and was then talked down by the legal office set up by the band's management).

Between a bit of guitar strumming and tea in the shade of the record player, always spinning, the two keep steadily treading the concert halls, and in the summer of 1975 they repeat the experience with Roxy's "Siren" (a lavish mix of sophisticated dance, futuristic yearnings and oblique rhymes redolent of a corrupt jet-set, and the notebook mentioned above keeps filling up). Both attend, with reasonable results, theart school of their hometown, an almost obligatory step for a certain strand of English-language pop. But the urge to devote themselves to the seven notes becomes pressing. A goal that, until not long before, had been off-limits to amateur guitarists. But the dawn of 1977 changes the rules of the game: suddenly it seems like anyone can get up on a stage and perform their own compositions. And even write convincing ones. The punk movement explodes in the blink of an eye, highlighting the drive and desire to get organised.

The first to leap in without a parachute but with plenty of enthusiasm is John, who installs his five-string guitar within Shock Treatment, trying his best impression of Mick Ronson. The first escape of his still-young musical career is engineered by Nick, who brings him into an initial three-piece project. Alongside them, on vocals and bass, is Stephen Duffy. Nicola has recently convinced his parents to buy him a synth. Meanwhile, the situation out there has changed further still. To the primal fury of the early punk of the Pistols and by Clash, in an environment deeply shaped by the affair Ramones, electronic-mechanical suggestions crept in. The Kraftwerk finally broke through, effectively creating a technological current that was skilfully blended with guitar aggression, often leaning toward the dancefloor, with the dark disco sounds that from New York's Studio 54 were winning over European audiences too. A rather tasty, adventurously flavoured stew (or, as would be written years later Simon Reynolds, in his paragraph devoted to the Durans, one of the most successful examples of the post-punk concept).

 

 

The three fleeing friends mentioned above are joined by a breathless Simon Cooley. In his suitcase, a clarinet and another bass. The first experiments, described as rather eccentric, if not downright absurd, are presented by schoolboy John Taylor to a couple of baffled teachers. The name is still missing: John and Nick settle the matter in the living room, while the television plays images from Roger Vadim's old feature film, "Barbarella". And who was the villain holding the sexy, half-naked Jane Fonda captive?! Why, Doctor Durand Durand. There it is, Duran Duran, it sounds good.

The difficulty now lies entirely in the tricky task of blending these fresh influences within a personal style: Ultravox!, Magazine, Simple Minds, Wire, Gary Numan, the usual Bowie now in German uniform. But also Giorgio Moroder and the old favourite Brian Eno.

Too bad that after a few shows Duffy and Cooley don't trust the first tentative rounds of applause and slam the door shut. Nick and John take the opportunity to give their dreams a more fitting shape. They meet Roger Taylor, share a few laughs at a little party and decide to join forces with the young drummer (still within his biography, Sudden describes with great affection the figure of the teenage Roger, considered the best rock drummer in Birmingham and the surrounding area, capable of blowing away the Damned and their audience when, during a gig, faced with Rat Scabies's typical punk request "Does anyone want to take my place?", he sets aside his shyness, climbs on stage and plays the second part of the set. A close friend of Epic Soundtracks, he often rushes to his aid and sets up the drums for him before shows. Sudden describes him as peaceful, humble but very determined). Roger drops his Scent Organs without notice and finally convinces John to fall in love with the groove funky. Taylor, future and still unaware of it sex symbol, on a pleasant afternoon spent at the bar, is left shaken by two songs coming out of the jukebox: the first is by the Pistols, already idols alongside the Clash, the second is by the celebrated firm of Rodgers-Edwards, namely Chic. John wonders how it's possible to combine the two influences. In the meantime, he rushes off to buy "Le Freak". Once in his room, he breaks into a cold sweat in front of the record player blasting out Bernard Edwards' powerful, sinuous basslines. He loses his mind, sells off his 1974 run of "Spiderman" comics and buys himself a Wal bass. Under the strobe lights of the dancefloor, Rodgers and Edwards are brewing up a scene within the scene, achieving, in a different field, more or less the same feat as Kraftwerk.

Meanwhile, the line-up is temporarily filled out by a certain Andy Wickett, with his dark voice and eccentric lyrics, and together they lay down a rough first version of "Girls On Film". But Wickett too proves to be short on patience. For every Andy who leaves, another one turns up. John and Nick are by now at their wits' end in their desperate search for a guitarist — someone able to skilfully blend the liquid, expansive atmospheres of a David Gilmour as well as the ferocity of Mick Ronson and the rhythmic drive of Carlos Alomar. They copy the Genesis and place an ad in Melody Maker to track down their own Steve Hackett. Thirty people respond, but then John meets Andy Taylor, a stocky 18-year-old from Newcastle. He asks him who his hero of the moment is, and he instinctively replies Gary Moore (John had been struck by the Irishman's solo debut, Back On The Streets, released the previous year, and hoped to find an instrumentalist with the same great versatility as Phil Lynott's sidekick). The audition, in any case, goes brilliantly, revealing a curious story full of rock passion. Andy started taking his first lessons at the age of six, then had to make do as money ran short at home. At 14 he dropped out of school and threw himself into his first rock'n'roll adventures, ending up playing all over Germany, even at air force bases. Despite his young age, he's a musician who can already boast considerable stage experience; his background is a profoundly varied one, ranging from raucous rock'n'roll (Keith Richards is his spiritual guide) to blues to funky soul, not to mention the odd fusion trick (Jeff Beck is his ultimate sonic role model).

The quartet's base has meanwhile become the Rum Runner, a pub-turned-hangout with a decadent flair, in the blink of an eye, in imitation of the legendary Blitz club in London. Over there, the movement is explodingfuturistic dance music, closely tied to electronics. It's the era of new wave, of post-punk, of syncopated music that hasn't forgotten punk's irreverence but is far more sophisticated in both content and form, happily dressed up in outrageous clothes and hairstyles. Not wanting to be left behind, the Birmingham crowd throws itself into evenings devoted to Berlin-era Bowie and, as ever, Ferry, amid cocktails and variety-show posturing. It's an aesthetic drift that nonetheless conceals real unease, a yearning to escape and a concrete sense of purpose. John and Nick talk the other two into spending time working inside the club of their dreams. Between kitchen shifts and stints behind the DJ booth (with Rhodes indulging in daring mixes between "John I'm Only Dancing" and "Both Ends Burning"), he studies and takes note of the paying crowd's behaviour, challenges them by hitting them with gusts of hits before moving on to material underground). Backing up their passion are the owners of the Rum Runner, Paul and Michael Berrow, who turn into managers. 

 

But… the singer?” He's not there. Not yet, anyway. Fate steps in through the new barmaid, who it turns out has been dating a certain Simon John Charles Le Bon for some time. The guy is studying drama and apparently has a decent voice too. They grant him an audition.

He shows up wearing a pair of pink leopard-print trousers and impenetrable sunglasses. In his hand is a notebook full of scribbles and poems. Among the titles you can make out an early draft of what would later become "The Chauffeur", "Sound Of Thunder", "Tel Aviv". They decide to set them to music, and during that first sessions they even manage to write a song. Simon, still vocally immature (though he's the only one who can read sheet music, having spent his childhood and teenage years in the church choir of Bushey, his hometown), can nonetheless count on a natural magnetism that makes all the difference. Or at least that's what the other four think, now steadily backed by the Berrow brothers, who have become full-fledged managers. The lad feels part of the punk movement, coming from bands with names like Dog Days or Robostrov, but his current passions clash quite a bit with the adolescent idolatry that still burns strong in Le Bon's heart: among his fetishes, in fact, are Peter Gabriel and the Genesis, Patti Smith e Jim Morrison. The point of contact lies in a few recent shared obsessions, like the second album by Simple MindsReal To Reel Cacophony, which both parties regard as the turning point of new pop.

The singer's memories recall an evening, during a party fuelled by drinks that had gone on a little too long, in which Simon found himself gripped by the first effects of a proper bender, when the din of the Pistols was torn apart by the sound washing out of Ray Manzarek's keyboard. The dirge of "Riders On The Storm" woke the future pop star, who left his fellow revellers sprawled on the floor, went straight for the turntable and wouldn't let go of it until the first light of dawn. He would later admit that the often-cryptic lyrics of songs like "Hungry Like The Wolf" and "Union Of The Snake" owe a great deal to the visionary imagery of the Lizard King. With him, Duran Duran tackled their first demanding shows: they played the Edinburgh Festival and kept diligently doing the rounds of their hometown's club stages.

movement is exploding: EMI, Planet Earth, Andy Warhol and the music video revolution

The Berrow brothers believe in it more and more, sell their house and use the proceeds to organise more out-of-town forays. They make their London debut supporting Pauline Murray, former singer of Penetration, and stand in for Associates in front of the Marquee crowd. They sweat it out and try to dodge the spit of the punk era during a tour alongside Hazel O’Connor. One morning John goes down to the newsstand beneath his house and buys a copy of “Sounds”. Inside the magazine is an interview with a small London outfit: Spandau Ballet are setting alight the neo-aesthetic nights of early-80s London. The article is introduced by an eloquent headline: “Enter the movement is exploding era”. Handsome Taylor mulls it over and realises the adventure might have reached a turning point. That evening at the pub he convinces his friends to embrace a look made of lace and frills, without however falling into easy preciousness, keeping a personal identity all the same. Meanwhile, the five who will one day become fabulous get down to business and keep touring venues in and around Birmingham, personalising their sound, rubbing shoulders with more or less important figures, learning to show up at the right moments and in the right places. They entrust their first five recordings to the care of Bob Lamb, the man who had produced UB40's debut. Betty Page, a “Sounds” journalist, gets them to open up about their ambitions and strategies. Someone takes notice, does the maths, and puts a draft contract on the table.

In the end, interest from record labels grew and led to the classic no-holds-barred bidding war, from which Phonogram and EMI emerged as the frontrunners. And Duran Duran, true patriots in love with British tradition and historical echoes (Beatles and Queen), voted for the latter. EMI sealed the deal, backing it up with £50 a week for each of the five, with the promise of a substantial raise should the band honour the agreement and complete their first album within six months. In December 1980, Barbarella's disciples entered Air Studios, focused and professional. Outside, the new romanticism of Steve Strange and Visage was in full swing, the Ultravox are now fronted by Midge Ure and tell of decadent plots set in decadent cities, Bowie has already made things clear amid Martian harlequins and the outrageous "Fashion" sweeping the streets. It's the right moment to jump on a defined trend and step into the spotlight all at once. EMI puts them in the hands of Paul Edmond, and the first glossy shots begin circulating through the print shops.

Meanwhile, Duran Duran are holed up in a hotel around Fulham, not far from the recording studios. With the attentive company of Colin Thurston, hired as producer (engineer in Berlin with Bowie, behind the mixing desk for Magazine e Human League), Nick (who had taken to calling himself Rhodes, perhaps to shake off any rumours of kinship with the Norman Bates of "Psycho“) and co. record a series of demos (which will later feature prominently on the deluxe editions released decades later), and among these they choose “Planet Earth” for the first single. Almost four minutes of elegant, driving pop-dance, a song draped in technology, robotic funk-disco, decadent vocals, meticulously crafted keyboard effects. A surprisingly mature sound, with Andy’s guitar lines lashing yet sinuous (even in synth form), the metronomic rhythmic drive of Roger, which pairs well with the triplet feel of John’s four-string bass. The opening atmosphere spawned by the sequences Rhodes-ian will give rise to a misunderstanding that, more than 40 years on, has lost none of its force among historians, critics and anyone who considers themselves as such: the supposed resemblance to their contemporaries Japan, often twisted by the more spiteful, inattentive and superficial into claims of outright copying. Yet even on first, fleeting comparison the differences are glaring: where would the scores of Sylvian and Barbieri echo on the Duran debut? What do Japan have to do with the fabric of Rio? Rhetorical questions, matters to be settled once and for all: the sequencer that pervades “Planet Earth” does bear a real resemblance to that of “Quiet Life”, but only because both derive from Giorgio Moroder. Duran and Japan, like all their post-punk-era peers, had a fortunate adolescence steeped in glam and art rock, but no one tried Bryan Ferry and David Bowie’s patience quite like Sylvian did. The supposed kinship between the two bands is constantly being refreshed, as shown by a lengthy analysis published by The Quietus in 2013, but on closer inspection it has more to do with photo poses and hairdresser's appointments, both common, moreover, to the entire new pop scene rapidly emerging at the time. Adding to the confusion is the proximity of the recording studios, with Karn and co. busy in autumn 1980 with the final sessions for “Gentlemen Take Polaroids“. In 1999, Mojo magazine will devote a long article to Sylvian’s return to the scene and will put in writing the rumour that the five lads from Birmingham had asked the services of the ‘new Ferry’ as a producer. In 2003, the year the original quintet reappeared on stage, Richard Barbieri would once again bring up the subject: “Duran were always at the front of our gigs… You could tell how good and determined they were but, although our influence was obvious in their sound, they had already developed a style of their own… Within a shared background, we tended towards a darker approach, they shaped their lines in a more pop direction”. A shared outlook once again linked to appearance: “When I recently saw Nick on TV collecting his British Award, he hadn’t changed at all: he still looked, as back then, like a member of Japan”. As the seasons went by, it would mainly be John who invoked the Japan legend; a friend of Karn’s, he thought of him as a guest of honour while writing All You Need Is Now, but fate would turn its back on both of them. In a lengthy interview given in 1984 to Keyboards Magazine, Nick Rhodes would cite Barbieri and Thomas Dolby among the chief architects of the new synthetic sound. Here is a summary of the article

Nick Rhodes: “The synthesizer isn’t a piano. It’s a completely different instrument”

May 1984: who is Nick Rhodes? A keyboardist more interested in sound construction than technical showmanship, a perfectionist who treats the recording studio as a laboratory for experimentation.

Rhodes recalls getting into music through the guitar, only to abandon it when he and John Taylor decided to form a band. “I thought there had to be something more interesting to do than guitar. Synthesizers offered so many possibilities that I immediately realised that was what I wanted to play.” With savings earned from odd jobs, he bought an EDP Wasp, teaching himself the principles of synthesis.

It’s precisely this unconventional background, he believes, that shaped his approach. “People who learn piano first often end up playing the synthesizer as if it were a piano. But it’s not the same instrument.” A statement that perfectly sums up his philosophy: the synthesizer isn’t an extension of the traditional keyboard, but an autonomous sonic universe with its own language.

How is Duran Duran’s now-signature sound built? Rhodes explains that he almost never starts from the melody, but rather from the sonic texture, the rhythm or an atmosphere. “Sometimes a part, on its own, seems completely useless. But when you layer it with five or six others, it suddenly makes sense.” It’s an almost cinematic conception of arrangement, in which every element contributes to the depth of the whole.

Among the most important tools in his arsenal are the Roland Jupiter-8, the Sequential Prophet-5, the Crumar Performer and, above all, the Fairlight CMI, which was set to revolutionise his way of working. While admitting he only used it in part while making Seven and the Ragged Tiger, Rhodes says he’s fascinated by the possibilities of the Real Time Composer. “You can take a bass line, double its speed, reverse it or transpose it instantly. It’s incredible for experimenting.”

There are plenty of technical curiosities. The famous riff of “Hungry Like the Wolf” came about by playing around with the Jupiter-8’s arpeggiator and hold function, while the pattern of “Rio” comes from the Roland Jupiter-4. The instrumental “Tiger Tiger” took shape from improvisations recorded on the Fairlight, while “Save a Prayer” was built through the interaction between sequencer and echo machine. For “The Chauffeur”, meanwhile, the band even went as far as using an ocarina to achieve an unusual timbre.

When the conversation turns to musical influences, Rhodes avoids name-dropping the great keyboard virtuosos. He prefers to talk about musicians who redefined the way sound is conceived. Among them he names Richard Barbieri, Japan’s refined sonic architect, capable of turning keyboards into atmospheric landscapes; Thomas Dolby, a model of the integration between technology and pop songwriting; and above all Brian Eno, whose ability to use silence, space and sound treatment as an integral part of composition he admires. “I like the way Brian Eno thinks about sound. I like it when a record has room to breathe,” he explains, hinting at a conception of music closer to sonic painting than instrumental showmanship.

The recording studio is his natural habitat. Rhodes recalls that Seven and the Ragged Tiger took months of work, often running into the small hours of the morning, in a constant pursuit of perfection. "When you've listened to the same song two hundred times you start to go a bit mad, but I think it's worth it." It's hardly surprising, then, that he's also developed a keen interest in record production, following his experience working on "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo.

Live, though, his role is far less flashy than that of his bandmates. While Simon Le Bon hogs the spotlight, Rhodes is busy switching programs, managing effects and keeping the instruments in sync. "I'm too busy to put on a show. If I have to choose between something that looks good and something that sounds good, I'll always go for what sounds good." A philosophy that also explains his firm refusal to touch a keytar, which he considers neither elegant nor, above all, practical.

Image inevitably takes up part of the conversation. Rhodes doesn't deny that Duran Duran have always placed huge importance on aesthetics, fashion and videos, but he flatly rejects the idea that this has ever overshadowed the music. "To anyone who thinks we're just image, I'd say: actually listen to our records. There's a lot of work in there."

In the closing moments, the musician's more personal side comes through. Despite worldwide success, Rhodes says he never feels fully satisfied. "I think if I were completely satisfied I'd stop doing what I do. It's a certain dissatisfaction that pushes you forward." And when asked what his biggest fear is, the answer is telling: "I'm afraid of getting bored, of repeating myself, of stopping growing."

Duran don’t even have time to finish supporting Sweet at the Lyceum in London before, on 2 February 1981, “Planet Earth” lands in the shops, climbing within a few weeks to number twelve in the charts with 300,000 copies sold. Simon’s words echo the space themes of David Bowie as well as, with some explicit references, the neo-romantic movement. The B-side of the seven-inch offers “Late Bar”, a small, direct track, driven by a razor-sharp guitar, backed by a hefty, extremely funky rhythm, blessed with a verse-chorus one-two so effective it’s almost disarming, showing one of the key qualities that would lead Duran to glory: the ability to be precise without ever losing elegance and immediacy.

The single rocks the afternoons of countless British teenagers and starts to seriously worry their potential chart rivals. The press has just artfully manufactured a supposed rivalry with their cousins Spandau Ballet, based in London and therefore considered more refined than the provincial exponents of the Birmingham scene. The Kemp brothers also have a few more months of experience under their belt and two top ten singles. Their debut album would not be long in topping the British chart charts. But unkind words also come from other quarters, as shown by Midge Ure’s frequent jibes. By contrast, the increasingly contrarian John Foxx sends sincere notes full of compliments. The instant success is also, and perhaps above all, due to the brilliant intuition of pairing images with sounds.

At the time, the music video is still an art form for the few. Even the future wild boys don't seem to believe in it all that much. The record label suggests they have a chat with a certain Russell Mulcahy, who had already been behind the camera for the Buggles from "Video Killed The Radio Star”, the Ultravox from "Vienna” and the Spandau of “To Cut A Long Story Short”. After a couple of beers, Simon and co. agree, and end up inside a quasi-cartoonish science-fiction comic strip, where every stereotype of the new romantic' fashion is pushed to the max. Back in the studio, they try again with a second episode: “Careless Memories” (with two unreleased tracks, the melancholic “Khanada”, which starts hushed and gradually becomes increasingly epic, and a stark cover of “Fame”, the song that gave Bowie his first American number one) from April 1981 is a more ambitious, syncopated song, certainly, but not exactly suited to the dancefloor. Claustrophobic and almost angry, the track accentuates the minimal element and explodes into a sound where, as a further hallmark of the band, no one member prevails over the others, in a shared sense of purpose that favours the balance of the whole. The only shame is that the early fans aren't yet attached enough to want to take on a test so far removed from the debut. Indeed, they don't, and the single stays outside the top 30. A resounding setback, while the competition presses on and sneers mercilessly. And since it never rains but it pours, the accompanying video is also one of the least successful of that first season of music videos.

After hastily offering their condolences, Duran Duran shed their rushed mourning clothes and finish the debut album. Self-titled, with a white cover featuring a photo of the five of them in period costume, the LP includes nine songs that follow the melodic-rhythmic conventions of the synth-romantic era, while already presenting them within a more classic pop-rock framework, somewhere between dance and a sense of depression. All of this is preceded by the releases of the third single: it's called “Girls On Film”.

 

 

First of all, the year: 1981, the exact moment when punk has already shattered rock's old codes and new wave is beginning to turn music into aesthetics, technology, fashion and image. And it's the moment when Duran Duran realise what kind of band they could truly become: not just a musical act, but a universe in which sound, body, photography and film coexist. Musically, the track is a devastating collision of funk, disco, punk and synthesizers: John Taylor's syncopated bass converses with Roger Taylor's jittery drums, Andy Taylor's cutting guitar and Nick Rhodes' electronic surfaces. Colin Thurston's production leaves every element crisp, physical, almost photographic — even the ghost notes of the bass feel like details from a film reel. Over this rhythmic machine, Simon Le Bon doesn't tell a story, he lays out frames: models, lenses, bodies, lights, lipstick, water, desire. The invisible verb of the song is “to watch”. The girl becomes an image, the image becomes a spectacle, and the spectacle becomes merchandise: “you've just made a million” turns the body into economic value. This is where the track takes on a surprising sociological depth, because it doesn't simply condemn that world: it's seduced by it while also exposing its ambiguity. The echo of Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder's famous film, is telling: like Norma Desmond, the person risks disappearing behind their own persona, while the camera doesn't merely record reality, it constructs it. And in the background there's Bowie, not just as a musical influence, but as the idea of a pop music capable of turning identity into theatre, fashion, photography and myth. Kevin Godley and Lol Creme's video makes it all even more radical: a song about the transformation of the body into image becomes an image itself, so powerful it gets banned by the BBC and MTV. It's the perfect paradox of “Girls on Film”: a song about looking becomes famous precisely through what it shows. For Duran Duran it's a decisive turning point: after “Planet Earth”, and after the misstep of “Careless Memories”, the track reaches the British top 5 and proves that mixture can work. The band thus starts to understand that the music video isn't mere advertising for the music, but part of the music itself — an insight that will become crucial with the videos taken from Rio and everything that follows. “Girls on Film” therefore already contains, in a rawer and more sensual form, almost the entire DNA of the band: the bass, the sonic exploration, the glamour, the fashion, the cinema, the ambiguity between desire and unease, the fascination with the body, and above all the ability to create whole worlds. And this is perhaps its most modern legacy: that girl from 1981, turned into an image in front of a lens, anticipates a culture in which the body will become content, the person will become a brand, and the image will end up coinciding with identity. “Girls on Film” is the moment Duran Duran stop being simply a new wave band from Birmingham and start becoming a sonic image of the future. So when the camera shutter clicks, it isn't just starting a song: it's a world being born, theirs, but not only theirs.

 

The explosive disco-punk-funk of “Girls On Film” is the opening track of the debut album. The band keeps the flame of mystery well lit, the allure that lies between the lines, an elegance that's never flaunted yet always evident, and it grows over the course of the record: the already-released “Planet Earth”, the reworked pop classicism of “Anyone Out There” (which, through its staccato bass, quotes the nearly contemporaneous “Ashes to Ashes” in its ending), the desperate anguish of “To The Shore”, with Andy disguised as Robert Fripp, the pounding drive of “Careless Memories”, the cinematic and sinister “Nightboat”, with ultra-dark keyboards ultra-dark and harmonic bass flourishes from a thoroughly inspired John Taylor, the homage Moroder-esque to “Sound Of Thunder”, galloping sequencer, disco drums, an evocative synthetic embrace of guitar and keyboards, four strings pushed over the top to colour and propel the train hurtling along at great speed, the hyper-melodic chorus of the mysterious and eccentric “Friends Of Mine” (among the cornerstone tracks of Britain's decadent nights), the instrumental experimentalism for strings, synth and guitars of “Tel Aviv”, with its Middle Eastern flavours; a track that, in its final form, undergoes a decisive transformation: from a rock song, complete with a long guitar solo by Andy, to an epic ride with symphonic tones, stripped of lyrics and counterpointed by Le Bon's 'wails' in the background (the original version would be released 30 years later on the album's deluxe edition). The production, overseen by Colin Thurston, is, as would also happen with the second album, among the most memorable in Duran Duran's history: the sound, clear and balanced, makes the performances incredibly mature; the definition of the bass-and-drums combination is spectacular; Andy's guitar remains aggressive even within a scene that often softens such tones (and it will never again sound as raw and brazen on a Duran record); the synths are everywhere, atmospheric yet also rhythmic, hazy and gritty, but never gaudy and always elegant. A chapter of its own is represented by Simon's vocals, whose interpretations shun the baritone models paying homage to Scott Walker or Bryan Ferry, as well as the deeper register of Bowie, remaining tied instead to a more punk vision, and therefore less affected; we're still at the beginning, and the former aspiring actor's progression will be constant and very rapid).

The lyrics flowing from Simon's pen go along with the sometimes leaden pessimism of pop at the time, and often linger on themes dear to loneliness and stifled joy, preferring to frame them in the shadow of dark settings; they are cryptic, dreamlike words, charged with symbolism. A record that therefore honours the quintet's passions while immediately following its own personal paths. The differences compared to the output of the multitude of colleagues/rivals are already evident: a guitar that loves the din of valve-driven rock but has the intelligence to move sinuously, accommodatingly and allusively through disco synth textures; a rhythm section that clearly marks out the whole proposition and doesn't base its trajectories directly on the typically post-punk, “straight” and incisive vocabulary, but dares to embrace the soul-funk bearing inaugurated by the Thin White Duke on Young Americans and carried forward on subsequent albums thanks to the mastery of Dennis Davis and George Murray; confirmation comes from John Taylor in his autobiography published in 2010: "With Roger we ventured straight into American r&b territory and tried to capture the flavours of disco-funk; obviously it all ended up sounding like a version played by young punks". A hybrid that would become a dominant part of the band's style.

 

Luck is also needed, perhaps disguised as scandal: the aforementioned video for “Girls On Film”, directed by Godley&Creme, who had been the leaders of 10CC, relies on images of nudity that verge on soft-core. The result is a sizeable media uproar triggered by a housewife from Solihull who had caught her young son watching the video while simultaneously engaged in masturbation. The clip is reported and banned from the leading music schedules, from the BBC, from the newly-born MTV. 

The single, with its B-side filled by the acrobatic rhythm of “Faster Than Light”, a new episode of decadent dance with an unusual rock edge for those months, reaches the longed-for British top five and attempts to take over American club playlists. And the five of them really do go to America. They land on the new continent for their first stateside dates, a fair challenge in a land that goes into raptures over stadium hard rock, AOR and the odd idea black that emerged from the fringes disco. On that occasion, Duran Duran get to meet Andy Warhol, guru ofart-business, Nick's undisputed idol. A lunch invitation, a photo sessions and Warhol becomes their first supporter. A dream come true for mister Rhodes, who had long been convinced of the supreme greatness of debut of the Velvet Underground, a fan to the point of obsessive collecting of Lou Reed e Nico.

The master of pop art will back the group's fortunes right up until the day he dies, and will confess in his diaries: “I love Nick Rhodes, he's a genius. Every night I masturbate watching Duran videos!”. Further confirmation of their first taste of fame comes meanwhile from the chart charts back home, where the self-titled album settles in at number three and sells over half a million copies. It will remain on the charts for 118 weeks.

Suddenly Duran Duran find themselves on the pages of all sorts of magazines, especially those aimed squarely at teenagers - a move that will cost the five of them any real consideration from the so-called serious press. And yet Bowie, Roxy and Bolan too, early in their careers, had been hailed as heroes by legions of very young fans, without losing a shred of credibility in the process... With Duran Duran, though, nothing gets forgiven. The media seem to have an open score to settle with Le Bon and co. Rhodes shrugs it off and borrows one of the parables of his guru Warhol: “I never actually read what the papers wrote about me, I only ever weighed the pile of magazines that talked about my life every week. The heavier the stack of paper, the better the publicity I'd gotten.”

Suddenly, aided by increasingly elaborate articles, interviews and photographs, the band's once-unified identity gets broken down into precise roles, projecting a series of snapshots that help build the image of each member, who is (in short) described as follows: Andy is the spotless, fearless rock'n'roller always with a beer in hand, Nick is the androgynous intellectual, Roger is a shy pop James Dean, Simon is the new Romeo, a conqueror drawn to risk and adventure, John is the prototype of the mysterious, attractive artist, always impeccably made up. And as the summer season draws to a close, the group goes back on the roadon tour, between England and Northern Europe, with a French date thrown in. They close out the year on Christmas Eve with three shows in front of their home crowd. And they don't take a holiday. Meanwhile, a fourth single, “My Own Way”, tried to confirm their new status, but surprisingly missed the mark; in mid-December it climbs only as high as number 14 before sliding back down, out of steam. It's a kind of super-white disco-funk, with synthetic strings echoing the by-then-faded disco era, a track overloaded with ideas. It won't be abandoned, though - rather, it will be nurtured and reworked in a more considered, fitting way.

 

Her name is Rio e lei balla sulla sabbia: endless beaches, jet set and America

A bite of panettone, and the next appointment is once again in the recording studio, still under Thurston's watchful direction. By the end of February 1982 the album is practically finished, and Duran fly off with their trusted collaborator Russell Mulcahy to Sri Lanka, the earthly paradise of the island once known as Ceylon. Just in time to launch a new era for the music video, one that looks to cinema, preferably adventure cinema, with nods to "Apocalypse Now" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark". After just one month, the guys stepping off the plane on Indian soil barely resemble the Duran Duran known only a few months earlier: more tailored, casual, fresh-cut outfits, designed by British stylist Antony Price, the man behind Bryan Ferry's latest look since Manifesto. They shoot three clips amid snakes popping up out of nowhere, unruly elephants, malaria scares and the furious glares of the local population. Rhodes and Andy Taylor will join them a few days late in order to put the finishing touches on the album, and the keyboardist can't get over what he considers some disappointing recordings on the imminent second LP; he'll later say: "It was only on the flight that I realised how sloppy the work behind the synths on 'Hold Back The Rain' really was. A mistake I've never forgiven myself for."

Between March and April the five of them showcase their new musical-visual image to Australian and Japanese audiences (nations that had sent “Planet Earth” to the top of their charts, as had Portugal, which had just embraced “Girls On Film” with the same affection and the same commercial results). Down under, Andy falls victim to a tropical fever contracted in Indian waters. In April EMI releases the single “Hungry Like The Wolf”, a happy landing point between sequencer and almost-hard guitars. An electro-rock homage to the Bolan of “Get It On”, with a structure that has completely shed the echoes of just a few weeks earlier. Dry, metronomic drums, an 'ambiguous' bass that props up and syncopates relentlessly. The sequencer rules supreme and incisive, Simon's voice talking about sex in metaphorical terms. A song that becomes the manifesto of an era, and seems crafted with extreme precision. In fact, it was born and grew almost by chance over the course of a few hours, out of a rhythmic idea from Nick, on top of which Andy laid down a riff both classic and fresh, cutting. The British top five is conquered once again. On May 10th, the windows of music shops display for the first time the face of a woman, drawn and stylised by illustrator Patrick Nagel: young, cheeky, modern, smiling - the painting is the cover of the new album, the stylistic signature of a new era.

Just a few weeks earlier, behind the cameras of “Top Of The Pops”, Simon had chatted with a charismatic Ian McCulloch frontman 's Echo And The Bunnymen just back home after a long stint touring the United States. A curious Le Bon, keen to hear his colleague's impressions of America, is met by a disenchanted, almost disgusted McCulloch: “It's a sad thing, mate, the States are just a pile of plastic - appealing, but still plastic,” he apparently tells him. But it's precisely toward that controversial, risky territory that the blond singer and his friends want to head. They start right away, full throttle. A guitar sinister, almost chilling [sound] (achieved by Nick dropping small metal bars onto the strings of a piano), implodes and is swallowed up by a wild, crystal-clear bass-and-drums combo fired off at full speed; the decisive drum roll tears through the curtain and ushers in a new golden age of pop.

La title track di Rio it's sunny, energetic, enthusiastic, acrobatic: the Rhodes sequences pervade the entire sonic spectrum but, unlike what happens in most fashionable popular music, the tendency to delegate every ounce of inspiration to technology alone is here balanced by a more traditional use of pop instrumentation. Andy's aggressive but controlled rhythm guitar seasons a perfectly built chorus, free of gaps or filler, nourished by an almost fusion attitude. Halfway through the track, Duran Duran embrace Roxy Music from a different angle, updating them: over an imposing sax backdrop, played by Andy Hamilton, John Taylor lets loose on his four strings (by now an Aria Pro II), expanding with excellent timing and plenty of imagination the whirling bass line that underpins the song. An epic, dazzling finale.

The dry slapping from the usual Taylor opens the already-released "My Own Way", in which Duran Duran show they've learned the lesson: the song is stripped of its original trappings, dried out and transported into a more modern dimension, a musically energetic synth-rock that contrasts with lyrics that are once again dark. Andy Taylor, meanwhile, phrases between the lines. The party continues with yet another nod to top-tier pop, this time in its more melancholy guise: "Lonely In Your Nightmare" is a limpid ballad with semi-acoustic touches, its grace driven by the nimble drumming and the bass fretless of John. Needless to say, Rhodes colors the underlying canvas with measured elegance. After the successes of "Hungry Like The Wolf", the tempo rises again with another example of disco-rock, "Hold Back The Rain", obsessive Moroder-esque sequences, hard guitars, disco-funk rhythm, a vocal more aggressive than ever, lyrics that Le Bon seems to write to remind John Taylor of the risks of his increasingly pronounced devotion to the tenets of sex, drugs & rock'n'roll.

Flipping the side of the vinyl, "New Religion", a long and adventurous track marked by Le Bon's lyrical verbosity, once again reveals the band's darker side, with Nick Rhodes moving between eno-esque touches and nods to ecclesiastical ambient (the sepulchral, organ-driven guitar), John's syncopated bass shifting between breaks and second thoughts alongside Roger's now-classic drumming, amid sweaty toms and electronic sections, and Andy's funky, often razor-sharp guitar. The lyrics tell of an inner conflict, the whole thing built as a dialogue between ego and alter ego, between what others impose and what the individual feels themselves to be. The "new religion" thus becomes the search for a personal faith, a system of values to navigate by when outside certainties fail. A track about identity, conformism, doubt and the need for self-determination. It offers no definitive solution: its strength lies precisely in leaving the conflict open. It's a song about the necessary uncertainty through which one builds one's own identity. Musically, John Taylor has also recalled that the idea was to fuse something "lean and groovy" with an almost progressive dimension, in the vein of Pink Floyd. "Last Chance On Stairway" brings the five Englishmen back to the enthusiastic, intricate dimension of the title track. An incisive, soaring rhythm section, John Taylor syncopating as much as possible, Andy indulging in solos, breaks and breaks tie it all together.

The epilogue then deserves a standing ovation: first the heavenly scenery of "Save A Prayer", synth-ballad with acoustic echoes, born harmonically from the partnership between Nick and Andy, blessed by Le Bon's melodic gift, enriched by the band's instrumental versatility, with Rhodes's evocative exotic caresses, Andy's mini-solos as simple as they are memorable, and the functional rhythm section allowing itself some pleasures on the four strings. It would go on to become a sort of eternal lighter-waving anthem, anything but cheesy.

The finale is entrusted to “The Chauffeur”, another ballad, this time icy, completely synth-oriented (though an acoustic demo also exists). The lyrics, written by Le Bon in 1978, are constructed like a cinematic sequence: the road, the car, the heat, the fading light, the woman's body next to the narrator, the landscape sliding past, insects in the haze, seagulls, a distant island. There's no real plot; there's a journey suspended, almost outside of time.

The car, however, becomes much more than just a physical setting. It's a zone of intimacy, an enclosed space in which two people are close but not necessarily within reach. The engine pulsing in time with the heart creates one of the song's central images: the outer landscape and the erotic-emotional one end up coinciding. The journey becomes a metaphor for desire (with Crash, James Ballard's 1973 novel, lingering like a ghost between the lines).

The song evolves into a more melancholy section: the sight of lovers parting, the "shards of glass" that seem to represent inner wounds, and above all the awareness that this person will eventually drift away. From contemplative eroticism, we move into loss.

Throughout, Le Bon almost never says directly what's happening. He doesn't say "I want you", "I love you", "I'll lose you". He does it through light, skin, road, engine, glass, wind, distance. It's impressionistic songwriting: emotions aren't named, they're projected onto the landscape. A song that, over the decades, would become a kind of alternative Duran manifesto, cited, revered, reinterpreted in its most gothic forms.

Rio immediately reaches number two on the UK charts and wins over a suspicious press: Steve Sutherland of Melody Maker can't believe his ears and admits he was blown away. Here's what the magazine's editor wrote at the time of the releases

“FLYING DOWN TO RIO”

When Duran Duran's debut album began climbing the charts, the arbiters of taste wrinkled their noses in disbelief, and rushed to rewrite the rules of rock'n'roll.

Before Duran Duran, it was almost standard practice to tear apart any record, regardless of its emotional or musical merit, if it didn't attempt to make some social or environmental statement. Pop was expected, at the very least, to try to change the world.

Duran Duran put an end to all that. They shoved half a decade of hysterical angst and squat-dwelling mindsets back into the closet, cutting the purse strings of an entire legion of hypocritical moralists who had turned punk and protest into a shabby shortcut to ravenous fame.

Along with Spandau Ballet, The Human League and even Altered Images, Duran Duran couldn't have cared less about changing the world… and yet they ended up changing the face of pop.

Pride in art, in image and, above all, in the SONG swept away the patronising dole-queue mentality and dared to suggest, by simple example, that being young, poor and unemployed didn't necessarily have to lead to the morgue.

Today, though, only Duran Duran remain. Spandau Ballet tried to dictate their own rules three or four times too many, and the trick stopped working before their talent ever got the chance to win out. Altered Images, on the other hand, really did "alter" their image, leaping, spooked, off the coattails of Siouxsie and the Banshees, only to resurface in a pathetically adolescent guise. And Duran Duran?

Well, Duran Duran are back on tour, they've once again handed audiences songs to sing at the top of their lungs, and as if that weren't enough, they've re-recorded Rio.

Rio is the true high point of New Romanticism, a movement that's often misunderstood: an energetic, proud, exuberant, joyous album in which it's impossible not to be completely swept away. It cultivates the elegance that made Roxy Music great, absorbs almost every rhythm and trend of the moment, ranges from funk to Thin Lizzy, and, despite it all, keeps sounding unmistakably like Duran Duran: a new breed of rock band free of any hang-ups, an unrivalled master of melody.

And the details? Where to even start? Rio bursts out of the gate like a film run at breakneck speed, telling the story of a Saturday shoplifting spree through a department store overflowing with musical clichés.

The hit My Own Way is completely reinvented: a brutal bass drum carves a path through clouds of gossiping guitars until it reaches that solitary beauty at the edge of the dancefloor, and it only takes one savage burp of the bass to tear those softies Haircut One Hundred to shreds.

Last Chance On The Stairway boasts probably the most irresistible chorus of all time; Save A Prayer is soft, sinuous and seductive as silk; Lonely In Your Nightmare is a HIT.

If there's a weak point, it's the lyrics. Why bother printing them, when they don't mean a thing?

If there's a less successful track, it's The Chauffeur, a touch too ponderous compared to the rest of the record. But if there's a real danger, it's something else entirely: good God, Rio is so good, it holds such an exuberant grandeur, that you can't help but ask yourself one question: where could they possibly go after an album like this?

Hugs and kisses, with a vaguely patriotic flavour, also come from the rest of the British press. The album starts taking off across the whole of Northern Europe, but Duran Duran want to hit the big target. They set off for a second attempt at America, where what will come to be called the second British Invasion is increasingly taking hold. And in North America, where Human League's synths and company have blown the bank wide open, Duran Duran want to go further, they want to join the ranks of the Police, to become the Rolling Stones of pop.

A tour of no fewer than 34 dates is organised, mostly aimed at clubs, save for about ten support appearances for the Blondie by now in disarray, yet still the stars in front of the huge stadium and arena crowds. A long hot summer, that of 1982, in which Andy also finds time to marry the band's trusted hairdresser. Meanwhile, out there, a cable channel called MTV is growing in popularity. The five of them notice, and so does EMI. The third single lifted from the album, “Save A Prayer”, is accompanied by another sequence of images shot in India, amid beaches and aerial footage of Buddhist temples, with a visual style that enhances the sense of relaxed peace expressed by the song. And while Duran Duran tread the autumn stages of Northern Europe, the ballad captures hearts and settles at number two on the UK charts. In an extraordinary season for the subjects of Elizabeth, with the Costello crooner pop-blues of “Imperial Bedroom”, the Joe Jackson jazzy from "Night And Day“, the elegant lessons in love dispensed by the Abc, the absolute perfection reached by Roxy Music's “Avalon“, the golden dream of Simple Minds, the debut sophisti-pop by Scritti Politti, the Caribbean-tinged funk of Haircut 100 — it seemed pop had rediscovered adjectives long since given up for dead, a rainbow of colours in which Duran stood out as the band of the moment. Between October and November Britain sold out tickets for their homeland shows at record speed (many of that year's performances can be found on YouTube thanks to the boldness and foresight of the era's "pirates"). Not even dazzling debuts like those of Culture Club e Tears For Fears seemed to dent the absolute fame of these gentlemen, who, in a reflection Beatles-esque, are by now known as the "Fabulous Five".

In the end even Lady Diana came out into the open — young pop icon and future queen, but above all a devoted fan of the band, for whom, with regal restraint, she apparently tore her blonde hair out. Towards the end of the year EMI released the compilation "Carnival" for the American market only, and the five appear for the night that ushers in 1983 in front of the cameras of Mtv's "Rock'n'Roll Ball", for a concert filmed in the stages of the Big Apple. Nearly ten million Americans savoured them in a frenzied hour-long performance. Smart promotional moves. And theairplay of the music network seemed increasingly held hostage by their images. In February they were invited to perform on "Saturday Night Live", the country's most celebrated satirical show, the same one that had launched the Blues Brothers and a whole line of new comedians who were reshaping the nation's habits. They were accompanied by their 'godfather' Warhol, who also filmed them for his cable TV show; they played two songs and took off for good. "Hungry Like The Wolf" burst into the Billboard top three, dragging the album along with it into the top five. An overwhelming success that didn't depend solely on the quintet's musical abilities and the charisma pouring out of television screens, but also on managerial savvy: even in the middle of 1982, the Berrows and Duran themselves couldn't understand America's reluctance towards Rio and the resulting lack of radio play. What to do? Make peace with it and try again with the third album? The pair of managers learned of a document called the Abrahams Report, which analysed the kind of sound American radio stations favoured: drums in the style of John Bonham, guitar like Van Halen or Angus Young, and so on. They decided to remix the album, despite the objections of an offended John Taylor. Andy and Nick, however, decided to meet producer David Kershenbaum (the man behind the sound of Joe Jackson, among others) and with him reshaped side A of the record, boosting the guitars and drums and making the whole thing punchier (the first results can be heard on the aforementioned Carnival compilation).

In no time Rio it passed the million copies sold mark and earned a platinum disc. It would stay on the American top 200 for 132 consecutive weeks. England again rewarded them, this time with the British Rock & Pop Award. The third single was released, the title track, backed by a stunning video shot in the Caribbean Sea, in Antigua, with part of the scenes filmed aboard a sailboat, amid gaudy colours, electric-blue telephones, shocking-pink cocktails, humorous touches, and a constant sense of adventure, in a perfect union of sound and image; with Duran caught in the vain and often tragicomic attempt to win the attention of a beautiful girl (an iconic, groundbreaking video, often misread by left-leaning artists, in the vein of Paul Weller, often too full of themselves to notice the irony running through the images, quick to brand the five as peddlers of false images and unattainable dreams). The "Rio" single climbed into the UK top ten and came close to doing the same in the US. Just a month later, Duran stepped up their attack strategy and released their first video cassette, collecting the visual themes that had accompanied their career as young hitmakers united by a kind of filmed narrative all their own. They go to present it all in New York and find themselves besieged in Times Squarethe reports speak of 15,000 fanatics triggering the swift intervention of law enforcement. Screams, sighs, kisses blown into the air, and even a few truncheon blows handed out indiscriminately. A kind of devotion Beatles-esque that spreads like wildfire.

 

But what really lies behind an album like Rio, so often wrongly applauded as the manifesto of a slick, uncommitted brand of pop?

There's one starting point for truly understanding Rio: the dream of five working-class kids from Birmingham. Steven Wilson talks about it too in a clip about Duran Duran: behind the album there isn't just an exotic aesthetic, but the desire for a different life, for a better world, for an elsewhere to be pursued almost obsessively. And this is where what might be called a genuine Byronic wanderlust comes into play: not so much the figure of the poet Byron himself, but the Byronic imagery of restlessness, of travel, of adventure, of escape toward a world that might still be possible.

The difference from punk nihilism is crucial. Punk starts from the observation that the world is rubbish and turns that awareness into rage, rejection, provocation. Duran Duran start, in part, from the same reality: their world too, the industrial Birmingham they came from, hardly offered a dream landscape. But the response is the opposite. They don't simply say "how awful." They say: let's seek out beauty. Let's seek out pleasure. Let's seek out adventure. Let's chase another life as if there were no tomorrow, almost as though tomorrow the bomb might really drop.

That's why it's better to draw a distinction between exoticism, energy and sunniness. Rio is certainly exotic, sensual, exuberant, full of movement. But "sunny" risks being a label built mostly on the music videos, which fixed in the collective imagination a world of sea, pastel colours, boats, bodies, luxury and holidays. The music tells a more complicated story. The vocals still carry that tension between light and shadow found on the first record. "Lonely in Your Nightmare" and "New Religion" don't belong at all to a simply sunlit world. "Hold Back The Rain," with its reference to John Taylor and drugs, actually introduces an almost apocalyptic dimension, a world away from the tropical postcard.

"My Own Way" should be read in the same light. It's not a Caribbean holiday. The reference is to New York's Peppermint Lounge, a specific, urban, nocturnal place tied to club culture. Even when the album looks toward elsewhere, that elsewhere doesn't necessarily line up with a sun-drenched beach. It's a mental territory before it's ever a geographical one.

The case of "The Chauffeur" is telling. The album's closer arrives after a journey in which the energy was never simply festive. Before it come "Rio," "Hungry Like the Wolf," "New Religion," "Lonely in Your Nightmare" and every other piece of the record: "The Chauffeur" doesn't breaks the narrative, it carries it into its most shadowy, mysterious territory. Rio holds both dimensions together.

The misunderstanding stems largely from the videos. That's where the more explicitly sunny imagery takes shape: the sea, the sailboat, the tropical landscapes, the sensuality, the escape. But even the famous boat in "Rio" isn't a yacht: it's a sailboat. A detail that conveys the idea of a journey and an adventure far better than one of flaunted luxury.

The much-quoted "My Own Way" perhaps distills, more than any other track, the force of Duran Duran's youthful bravado. It's almost the arrogance of youth turned into pop energy. Listening to it gives you the sense of being able to do anything, go anywhere, with the whole world laid out ahead. It isn't simply cheerfulness: it's the power of youth wanting to devour experience before it runs out.

The American energy running through Rio should be read the same way. Their first trip to the United States becomes a kind of creative detonator: new places, new sounds, new clubs, new cultural reference points. It isn't tourism. It's discovery. It's the dream of five kids from Birmingham coming into contact with a world far bigger than the one they came from.

Rio isn't just a great pop record, it's a generational manifesto. Behind the exoticism lies the energy; behind the energy lies the enthusiasm; behind the enthusiasm lies the desire. And behind the desire lies the dream of a different life.

The Byronic wanderlust, then, isn't an intellectual ornament applied after the fact. It's a possible key to reading the deep current running through the record: setting out from an industrial, peripheral place, looking toward the horizon and imagining that somewhere out there another life exists. Not to forget the world, but to try to reinvent it. And Rio is born exactly there, in the tension between shadow and light, discomfort and pleasure, reality and desire.

Toward the end of 1982, after a concert in Germany, the band crosses paths with Roxy Music, who are busy promoting Avalon on European stages; Nick and John end up having dinner with Andy McKay and Phil Manzanera, confide their restlessness for something new, and perhaps are also looking for a new producer, so the two colleagues suggest calling in Ian Little, already a key figure in designing Manzanera's own Gallery Studio and, ultimately, assistant producer on Avalon. Little, after sharing his Duran-related memories across the internet for years, would go on to publish the definitive book in 2021, "Baptism Of Fire", revealing the writing and recording processes behind Le Bon and company throughout 1983 - the year of their first global breakthrough. The producer is summoned to London, to the Good Earth studio in Soho, for an initial trial. The Durans aren't there; Little is simply asked to remix a few tracks. The result is positive, and Ian Little is hired. Rhett Davies's assistant finds himself facing this setup: on one side Andy and Nick, busy building the harmonic framework, on the other Roger and John, laying down the grooves, and in the middle a fluttering Le Bon, notepad and pen in hand, ready to capture his bandmates' energy and ideas and turn them into words and melodies. Andy digs up a guitar riff reminiscent of the early Beatles. The chemistry between the parties works, confidence grows, and within a few days a new song is finished; it will be the single that opens the band's third era. But the process hits a sudden snag: when it's time to mix the song, Little fails - not once but three times; one attempt suffers from a guitar that's too dominant, another lets the Rhodes take over too much, yet another comes out sounding muddled. The producer, struggling, seeks help from a string of prestigious colleagues, including American Bob Clearmountain, but still can't crack it. The band, and especially the managers, grow impatient. The solution has a name: Alex Sadkin, the sonic architect behind Bob Marley and later Grace Jones, Marianne Faithfull, Robert Palmer, Joe Cocker, Talking Heads, Thompson Twins, who nails the mix on the first try. Little breaks out in a cold sweat, and rightly so: the Berrows call him into the office and fire him. But a special bond has formed between the five band members and the once-hesitant engineer - or at least that's what Sadkin himself believes, and when he's picked as producer for the third album, he insists to the Berrows that Little be brought back.

At the start of March, Duran Duran land back in record shops with the single "Is There Something I Should Know", which skillfully blends clean guitar riffs embroidered by Rhodes's keyboards, a syncopated yet tightly disciplined rhythm, almost sixties-style backing vocals, and Le Bon's voice hiccupping ever more extravagant lyrics, in one of the frontman's most eccentric and cryptic texts. The song closes with a more pronounced, almost epic finale, heralded by the sound of a harmonica, in which John Taylor indulges in slap bass, a technique increasingly fashionable in dance-pop circles. The song marks yet another shift in direction, toward sounds that are harsher, drier, colder, far removed both from the original decadence and from the airier pop of "Rio". The single, backed with "Faith In This Colour", a tentative, melancholy synth-dominated instrumental, shoots to number one on the UK charts within hours, placing the five of them among the select few acts to reach the top of the British charts in the blink of an eye. The accompanying video, with its geometric visuals, mirrors the quintet's new ambitions, and by late spring the single climbs to number four on the American chart. EMI reshapes the debut album to include this very record-breaking single. No sooner said than done: the long playing record breaks back into the American top ten.

Two albums and four different singles present in the American charts since the start of the year. It's delirious duranmania. A few weeks earlier, Rhodes had wanted to test his own Midas touch. So he meets, in a nightclub, an eccentric character by the name of Limahl, lends an ear to his chatter as a promising star in the making, pitches his band to Capitol Emi, and produces their debut album. Kajagoogoo and their catchy-pop "Too Shy" reach the top of the British charts and of seven other European countries, plus fifth place in the US. The album faithfully follows the same golden path. But for Duran it's already time to deliver a solid long-term follow-up. Their manager brothers convince the young dandies to relocate to France to take advantage of the much-coveted tax havens, almost a replay of the Stones' "Exile"-era saga. Especially where the excess is concerned. John Taylor decides to follow the path of perdition, amid parties, alcohol and assorted drugs. He's happily joined by that heavy drinker Andy (decades later, in one of their frequent retrospective chats, Rhodes will recall how John and Andy had decided back then to personally bankroll a certain South American trade…). The party doesn't last long, time enough for it to be filmed by the British format The Tubewith Jools Holland (great pianist, already one of the founders of Squeeze and, in those days of 1983, the star of a long solo on "Uncertain Smile", the launch single from Matt Johnson's project, The The) and Paula Yates (future wife of Bob Geldof) ready to gather confessions and footage.

The new destination, within a year that John Taylor would later call geographic, is a Caribbean island, Montserrat, at the studios founded by Sir George Martin. A paradisal setting, endless stretches of sand, crystal-clear water - and work that, once again, struggles to take off. Something, however, starts to take shape: a new single comes together, titled "The Union Of The Snake", built on a rhythmic pattern echoing Bowie's "Let's Dance", which at the time is competing with the five exiles for the top spot; on June 20th, John's birthday, the first sketch of "The Reflex" is born. The atmosphere, though, quickly turns sour, as Andy and Nick raise technical issues they claim are affecting the studio, and the staff respond first with surprise, then with irritation. Two concerts help smooth things over, the first of which is in support of Dire Straits at a charity event for the Prince of Wales Trust, a fund dedicated to the less fortunate. Also present at London's Dominion are Charles and Diana, who, amid a flurry of camera flashes, finally get to shake hands with their idols. Years later it would emerge that the IRA had its eyes - and apparently a few faulty bombs - set on the venue that night. A few days later comes another show with humanitarian undertones, in front of a very young crowd at Villa Park, a crowd of 30,000 devoted fans (with Robert Palmer as guest). Back in Montserrat, the atmosphere has become unbearable; bags packed, they fly off to Australia: at Sydney's 301 Studios, the album is finally completed. For a title they settle on Seven And The Ragged Tiger, where the seven are the band themselves, the five plus their two managers, while the tiger represents the success that's devouring them. The album is preceded in mid-October by the much-anticipated "Union Of The Snake". The B-side features a spartan little synth-and-voice minuet, "Secret Oktober", put together by just Simon and Nick hours before the sessions officially wrap. A kind of symbolic interlude that says a great deal about the aesthetic and conceptual ambition of that era. We might call it a threshold track, a nocturnal fragment embodying the most inward, secret dimension of the "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" universe. For Le Bon, October isn't simply a seasonal reference but a symbolic time of transition and suspension: a mental space where emotions, memories and desires remain held back. The "secret" evoked by the title doesn't point to a specific event, but rather to a state of the soul, a guarded, unshared awareness that defines the deepest identity of the lyrical self. The lyrics proceed through allusive, fragmentary images, avoiding any linear narrative. As usual, Simon Le Bon doesn't tell a story, he suggests one: waiting, distance and memory overlap in a dreamlike dimension. Musically, the song mirrors this poetics of suspension: the circular chord progression, the cold, lunar keyboards and the absence of any real climax create a ritualistic, introspective, almost liturgical atmosphere.

In defiance of the clichés of the time - which still crop up every now and then in current, imagination-free analyses written on the usual autopilot - Seven and the Ragged Tiger is, first and foremost, a 'drugged' record, in the literal sense of altered perception. It's an album that shimmers in a surreal, anxious, almost hysterical way, and that makes one thing clear from the start: there's little that's explicit here, little that's immediately graspable (in his autobiography, John Taylor recalls the recording sessions as 'the era of smoke' and philosophical conversations drawn from the pages of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the foundational texts of Indian spirituality). The images it conjures in the listener's mind are vivid, fantastical, layered. It's an experience that's more imaginative than rational. This elusive quality perhaps explains why, especially in the United States, Duran Duran have so often been approached and discussed through the wrong categories: rock, image, surface. In many cases, there's simply a lack of sensitivity to grasp what's really happening on this record. Seven is, at times, a transcendent experience, something that goes beyond everyday reality and suspends it. Unfortunately, the teeny band label has long obscured any proper critical reading. This is a band obsessed with art, one that also became famous for its own beauty, for the impeccable way it presented (and presents) itself - not meant pejoratively, but as a simple fact - and the public, quite simply, couldn't get there. As for the music: the opener is a frenzied, erotic, wild dance. A kind of hysterical, almost bacchic writhing. "The Reflex" isn't funky in the traditional sense: there's something different at work, an anomalous energy, with choruses that sound like howls at the moon. The same tension returns in "New Moon on Monday", where the vocal seems to conjure rather than narrate. This is music that isn't after stability, but constant motion. The next three tracks seem strange, disorienting, yet they're tied to what came before by a precise conceptual thread, even if inflected differently. "(I'm Looking For) Cracks in the Pavement" initially feels like a moment of relaxation, an apparent breather, but that's only an illusion. The vocal starts out raspy, almost aggressive, then transforms, becoming smooth, almost soulful, in contrast with an attitude that borders on punk. "I Take the Dice" and "Of Crime and Passion" are delirious, but not in the sense of incomprehensible chaos; it's a delirium that isn't calculated: artistically free, and for that very reason increasingly lucid. "Dice" is feverish and hysterical. "Crime" is dark, gothic, even in the vocal delivery. From "Union of the Snake" onward, the record takes on an openly occult dimension. Powerful imagery comes into play, like the serpent, along with an exotic, unfamiliar symbolism with the flavor of a treasure hunt. It's an esotericism that's suggested, never spelled out. And yet, musically, everything remains extremely deliberate: balance, precision, gripping melodies that are clearly and recognizably 'signed' Duran Duran, driven by rhythm in a way that constantly invites repeated listening, as happens on "Shadows on Your Side". "Tiger Tiger" and "The Seventh Stranger" close the album like two journeys into magical dimensions. It's like reading books on Romanticism: the calm of a beautiful landscape, crossed by the constant sense of an approaching storm. The lyrics are hermetic, built from words that contain other words, in a game of echoes recalling Baudelaire. The atmosphere, by now, has settled compared to the opening, but it's no less intense. The initial frenzy gives way to a spirituality made of senses pointing to other senses, of invisible correspondences. It's a bewitched, occult album. The number seven is no accident: it's a figure of spirituality, of the occult, of ritual. Freemasonry and drugs coexist here, not as provocation, but as elements of a coherent imaginative world. The lyrics also look to Novalis, with his obsessions with water and the blue rose, a symbol of Romanticism and of a beauty doomed to the fleetingness of time. The cover itself, designed like a kind of 'map', becomes an initiatory path, the eye an all-seeing symbol, the runes an arcane alphabet. We're dealing with a grammar of ambiguity: more than proof, these are associations by resemblance, an eroticism of the symbol that thrives on allusion. And, tellingly, the band itself has always fed this fascination without ever closing it off into a single meaning: the symbols exist to suggest that 'there's a mystery' here to explore.

For a more technical look at the album's musical content, we turn to a summary of Ian Little's recollections from the aforementioned book "Baptism Of Fire". Below is his song-by-song analysis.

The Reflex
The album kicks off explosively with "The Reflex", a track that immediately defines the record's sonic identity. In the original album version, drums and bass launch the track with a lively, abstract rhythmic interplay, underpinned by Nick Rhodes's synths, which introduce subtle pulses and melodic fragments that build tension and anticipation. The entrance of Simon Le Bon's voice, with the line "You've gone too far this time", suspends time before relaunching the track's energy with a vocal and instrumental escalation. Andy Taylor's guitar adds powerful chords and rhythmic figures that reinforce the verse structure and lead into the bridge, marked by its famous wavering, distorted opening. The remix by Nile Rodgers, later released as the single, radically transformed the track, taking it to number one in both the UK and the US. Rodgers made creative use of the multitrack material, highlighting elements like female backing vocals, steel drum and bold sampling that was still surprising at the time. The use of the sampler, pitched-down vocals and rhythmic effects turned the remix into a statement of modernity, foreshadowing the importance sampling would come to have in dance and hip hop. Particularly memorable is the steel drum part, deliberately ambiguous and imperfectly tuned, devised by Nick on a Roland Jupiter-8: a detail that, precisely because of its 'out-of-tune' quality, contributes to the track's singular character.

New Moon On Monday
"New Moon On Monday" opens with a furtive hint of synth before Roger Taylor's drums establish a direct, incisive groove, enriched by wood block and light percussion. A pulsing synth accompanies the entrance of Simon's voice, anchoring it firmly to the rhythm and contributing to a sense of constant flow. Andy's guitar stays spare but effective, while the track gradually builds toward the chorus, where new electronic pulses amplify the overall energy. The rhythm section, driven by the almost telepathic understanding between Roger and John Taylor, is one of the track's great strengths: the bass stays simple and locked to the kick drum, but is enriched with slap hits and high notes that lend it a funky touch and boost its danceability. The song's structure is conventional but highly effective, with verses that build precisely toward the chorus's releases. Particular attention goes to Simon's vocal performance, which alternates seductive low notes with higher melodic flights, supported by low pads and understated rhythmic pulses. A more atmospheric middle section introduces ambient sounds, Mellotron and 'alien' textures that add depth and mystery, before a layered final chorus that leaves the listener wanting to hear the track again.

(I'm Looking For) Cracks In The Pavement
Among the album's most surreal and playful tracks, (I'm Looking For) Cracks In The Pavement stands out for its eccentric atmosphere and the perfect alignment between lyrics, arrangement and performance. Simon's lyrics, rich in quirky, childlike imagery, find an ideal counterpoint in a carefully built soundscape: descending synths, deep toms, dissonant lines with a circus-like flavor, and measured yet incisive guitars. The track moves between mystery and irony, evoking the childhood game of avoiding cracks in the pavement as a metaphor for mental fragility and repressed memories. The band masterfully accompanies the narrative with abstract parts and bizarre sounds that heighten the sense of mild madness. The chorus emphasizes this theatrical dimension through a deliberately exaggerated vocal delivery, while the bridge introduces a guitar with an Eastern flavor that reinforces the sense of instability. Despite its apparent lightness, the track is built with great dynamic care and proves to be one of the most creative and successful moments on side A.

I Take The Dice
The track grows out of the interplay between Nick's synths, which introduce almost circus-like, percussive motifs, and a rhythm section rich in nuance. Simon's voice enters in a low, menacing register, using phrasing to emphasize the percussive nature of the vocal. The track's structure shows just how essential a real drummer's contribution is: Roger's velocity variations and rhythmic choices add a depth and vitality impossible to replicate with rigid programming. Andy's guitar provides solid, memorable riffs, while the sequenced synths keep the track in constant motion. The chorus is driven by a tight, incisive kick drum, underpinned by dark pads and 'ghost carousel' atmospheres. Particularly effective is the transition section, enriched by complex claps and hybrid percussion, which leads naturally back into the verse. The result is an energetic, upbeat and technically polished track that showcases the excellence of the band's rhythm section.

Of Crime And Passion
With "Of Crime And Passion" the band clearly shows a desire to sound more adult and intense. The guitar, built on a pulsing, heartbeat-like impulse, flows into the powerful chords of Andy's guitar, which plays a central role in defining the track's character. The verse moves through dark tonalities, with Simon alternating low, tension-laden lines with sudden vocal outbursts. The chorus, split into two sections, moves from apparent softness to growing aggression, supported by sequenced synths, clashing guitars and targeted rhythmic interjections. The middle eight introduces unsettling elements - drones, organ sounds and percussive vocalizations - that heighten the sense of drama. Overall, the track represents a decisive step toward a sharper, more experimental sonic maturity.

Union Of The Snake
A key track on side B and the album's first single, it was born almost by chance from a drum machine beat quickly claimed by the band as their own. The song's strength lies in its open, minimal structure: drums, bass, rhythm guitar and a few well-placed elements create a sound that still feels remarkably fresh today. The verse stays lean, while the bridge raises the tension with tighter staccato hits and heavier chords. The chorus explodes with toms fills, muscular guitars, high synths and an effective use of cowbell. The middle eight, enhanced by Andy Hamilton's sax, adds an unsettling, cinematic tone. The track builds steadily without ever feeling crowded, showing an exemplary command of dynamics.

Shadows On Your Side
"Shadows On Your Side" continues along the album's more rock-oriented lines, with a high BPM and a driving groove. Andy's plucked rhythm guitar and Nick's percussive synths create instant tension, while John's bass moves with a funky complexity well integrated into Roger's drumming. Although it works well structurally, the track suffers from a verse-to-chorus transition that's less striking than in other moments on the record. Still, the arrangement grows in the second verse thanks to new mallet sounds and pads, while the middle eight introduces unexpected elements, including a guitar solo with a western flavor. The outro, led by a low, almost spoken vocal line from Simon, closes the track with a tense, suspended atmosphere.

Tiger Tiger
A strongly atmospheric instrumental, built on a slow, hypnotic progression of synths, fretless bass and drumming that blends drum machine with live performance. The gradual entrance of each element creates a cinematic soundscape that finds its focal point in Andy Hamilton's sax, used as a genuine lead voice. The track is also known for its use in the documentary Sing Blue Silver, where it accompanies sweeping footage from the band's American tour. A club-oriented remix was also made later on, but the album version remains the most effective within the context of the track listing, acting as an atmospheric bridge toward the finale.

The Seventh Stranger
An epic, narrative track that showcases the band's total chemistry. The guitar, built on reverbed wood block, metallic percussion and slow pads, creates an immediate sense of mystery. The rhythm section is dark and controlled, while the synth and guitar parts intertwine with great refinement. Simon sings mostly in a low register, enriching the track with harmonies and spoken ad-libs that heighten the sense of latent danger. After a stripped-down middle section and a measured, melodic guitar solo, the track builds into a complex, almost chaotic outro that dissolves, making way for one last burst of percussion. It's a powerful, evocative close to an ambitious album, the product of a long creative process and a band at the peak of its artistic expression.'

Amid the countless twists of an album with a difficult gestation, someone among the protagonists loses their bearings, and the exotic maps become hard to read and littered with traps. Ego muscles its way into the cracks, and team spirit begins to fade. Nick Rhodes progressively sidelines his harmonic partner Andy Taylor and starts conferring more and more intensely with the producer and his assistant, pushing hard toward artifice, toward an almost obsessive reshaping of each individual sound; he imposes solos and fills on his bandmates, and whole sections, which he then devours, dissects and deconstructs. With Seven And The Ragged Tiger, Duran Duran definitively establish the synth-pop-rock 'wall of sound' that would set the template pretty much everywhere over the following three years. A real mortal sin in the eyes of those who judged the music of the time. And critics, in fact, didn't hold back: disappointment, indecision, flagging inspiration, a step backwards, confirmation of a mediocrity that had previously only been blessed by good fortune — these are the most recurring verdicts. It's as if Duran Duran had reined in their own ambitions, putting together a record made for everyone but devoid of surprises and memorable songs. The English public sends the album straight to the top, and a fanatical Europe applauds with equal intensity. And while "Union Of The Snake" lands at number three on both English-speaking sides of the Atlantic, "Seven…" bursts into the US top ten. It's the third album in a row able to win over the American audience in the same season. Duran Duran celebrate by putting together a mega-tour that kicks off in Australia and New Zealand, before going on to set English arenas ablaze (with five sold-out nights at London's Wembley Arena right before the Christmas holidays).

 

As 1984 opens, the five are ready to deliver the decisive blow. Emi releases the global sales figures: the debut album has won over two and a half million people, Rio has smashed through the five-million mark, Seven… has racked up almost two million in a month! The British Parliament publicly thanks them with an honour that testifies to the help Duran are giving Her Majesty's economy. Meanwhile, the Land of the Rising Sun also bows before the charm of Simon and co., and by the end of January everything is ready for the longest leg of the world tour: 54 dates in North American arenas, in venues holding anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 frenzied fans. The circus, staged and sponsored by Coca Cola, also features the permanent use of a giant screen to make the band's every move visible even from the farthest seats. Stops of sheer delirium follow one another, from Seattle to Los Angeles, from Chicago to Pittsburgh. And finally one of Rhodes and Taylor's teenage dreams comes true: playing New York's Madison Square Garden. Two shows and 40,000 tickets gone in an instant. Their trusty Mulchay films them, gathering footage for a celebratory documentary.

The American recording industry rewards them with two Grammy Awards, but Duran Duran aren't present at the ceremony because they're busy elsewhere on the road (a missed opportunity, an absence that according to Andy Taylor would create the first cracks between the band and management). Emi releases the second single, "New Moon On Monday", a top ten hit in America and England, accompanied by a video shot in France with which Duran Duran try to depict youthful rebellion erupting into revolt, a kind of homage to the French May '68. But the clip, essentially a 15-minute short film, comes across as contrived and falls short of expectations, especially those of its protagonists.

During one of the two shows at New York's Madison Square Garden, Simon introduces Tony Thompson and Nile Rodgers as special guests, hinting between the lines that the Chic leader has just finished remixing the new single "The Reflex". The 7-inch, which on its B-side features the five of them on the London stages of 1982 in a lively version of "Make Me Smile", originally by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, opens with a rare, catchy tongue-twister and is wrapped in a mix of sampled sounds. It hits stores the day after the end of the American tour, which drew 600,000 fans. And it's a boom. A total one. The record climbs to the top of the chart English charts and stays there for a month and a half. Right after, it also climbs to the top of the American charts and explodes everywhere, selling over three million copies. And it drags along the album, which, suddenly revived, reappears in the top ten worldwide.

While all this is happening, Duran Duran (who would soon celebrate the lavish weddings of Roger and Nick) are in the studio in London, working on a new single (with Nile Rodgers producing). There's a bit too much tension accompanying the new sessions, a subtle anger ready to surface, perhaps also the result of a tour that, musically, had shown the band moving on stage in a far more aggressive way.

The idea for "The Wild Boys" takes shape from a homo-erotic story written by William Burroughs using the cut-up technique, the rights to which Mulcahy has bought, hoping to turn it into a film. The dream doesn't come to fruition, but Duran Duran build a song on it that marks a stylistic turning point for the band. At first it almost feels like being in front of a track heavy: over a rhythmic pulse that pays homage to Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax", Rhodes' minimal, deep synths stand out alongside Taylor's dark bass and guitar flourishes as bombastic as Duran Duran had never sounded before. But what really makes the difference is Simon Le Bon's performance, passionate, warm, raw, screamed to the point of exhaustion (and further altered by a Nile Rodgers armed with a Synclavier).

 

Lyrically, "The Wild Boys" is not a simple transposition of William Burroughs' 'impossible' novel, but a refined poetic transfiguration of it. Simon Le Bon doesn't adapt the plot: he absorbs its imagery, its visionary tension and its mental cadence, turning fragmentary, violent and subversive material into a pop myth of great evocative power. Like Burroughs, he builds the lyrics through images and suggestions, giving up on linear narrative; but where the American writer shatters language through cut-up, Le Bon reassembles those fragments into a hypnotic language made of repetitions, symbols and suspended atmospheres. His Wild Boys are not guerrillas, but archetypes: timeless figures, suspended between danger and desire, rebellion and beauty. And this is where the deepest transformation takes place. The novel's physical brutality gives way to symbolic violence, chaos becomes ritual, disintegration becomes incantation. Le Bon retains Burroughs' subversive charge, but purges it of obscenity and despair, sublimating it into a poetics of seduction and mystery. The result is a text that doesn't tell a story but builds an imaginary universe, where words evoke more than they describe and meaning arises from their emotional resonance. In this balance between avant-garde literature and song form lies the often-overlooked greatness of "The Wild Boys".

It's released worldwide at the end of October 1984 and finds almost no competition. Number two in England and the United States, it allows the band to finally breaks through in the German market and, later, in Italy too.

The single paves the way for yet another stroke of media genius from Duran Duran: a live album chronicling three nights in Oakland, California, nearly 50,000 ecstatic fans, a decadent stage set framed by Roman columns, for a band that has developed an enviable cohesion. Produced by Duran Duran themselves and superbly mixed by Jason Corsaro, Arena bursts into stores at the end of November, accompanied by two films: a video version of the album, with the addition of "Rio" and "Girls On Film", titled "As The Lights Go Down", and the documentary "Sing Blue Silver", shot in the typical behind-the-scenes style. The record, which wisely opts for a single-disc format, strips the band's sound of the crowd's frenzied screaming and unleashes the new live dimension the group has developed. Nine songs that gain fresh vitality without ever resorting to rewriting. The opener "Is There Something..." immediately sets things straight and points the way: more energetic than the original, with Roger's drums sounding more powerful than ever, in perfect lock-step with John Taylor's bass, probably the main instrumental protagonist of the whole operation (perhaps not by chance, as he was the only member present during the mixing sessions with Corsaro), the keyboards massive yet always tasteful, Andy's guitar restrained but very much present. The ending, charged with an unexpected epic tension, is truly overwhelming. The whole album shows off, indeed flaunts, Simon's vocal cords, warm, versatile and unique. The closing trio confirms it: "Union Of The Snake", "Planet Earth" and "Careless Memories" sound almost transfigured by a breathtaking performance.

Under the Christmas tree, people realize with some surprise that Duran Duran are now the most famous band on planet Earth, confirming what Le Bon had declared at the start of the Olympic year: "The goal is world domination." What few know is that the band is in trouble, going through a deep interpersonal crisis, beyond the usual diplomatic statements, collapsing under the weight of success, split into factions that seem to have nothing left in common with one another, heading towards new and increasingly divergent musical directions.

 

 

Halfway through the decade, a new trend emerges in the pop-rock world: Bob Geldof is moved by the BBC footage showing the hardships endured by people in deepest Africa. He calls Midge Ure, opens up to him, and invites him to co-write a song. "Do They Know It's Christmas" is the message that the little parliament of new English rock sends out to the world. The single, an innocuous piece of synth-pop with choral, epic overtones, enters the homes of several million people worldwide who, in return, pour millions of pounds into the coffers to be used for the benefit of the world's poorest.

A huge success, to which Duran Duran also contribute, with Le Bon among the lead vocalists. Meanwhile, Duran Duran are cleaning up on the chart of half the world. In January Arena it's the best-selling album of the moment, and by March EMI is releasing dizzying figures: in just over three months the album has sold almost four million copies into bedrooms everywhere. In America it reaches number four, immediately earns a double platinum certification and 'forces' the label to put out a live version of "Save A Prayer" as a 45 (which, naturally, easily cracks the top 15). During yet another promotional tour, the five of them land in Italy, where they'd already appeared on TV screens more than once. This time the stage is that of the Festival di Sanremo. Three nights to the rhythm of "Wild Boys" and the whole country catches fever. The Duran saga grips both media and public, becoming one of the most talked-about topics. Even on a sociological level. Arena and the wild single grip the top of the charts for weeks, months. In the end the live record will stay in the top twenty for almost a year. In those days, meanwhile, John and Andy Taylor are holed up at Power Station Studios in New York, putting the finishing touches on a mysterious album that also features Robert Palmer, Tony Thompson and Bernard Edwards, drummer and bassist of the Chic, on drums and production respectively. It all seems to have sprung casually from a meeting dating back to the 1982 American tour, between the two long-haired Taylors and the chicest duo in the realm. Mutual compliments, birthday and Christmas calls, and the deal truly takes off.

The frustration of John and Andy, trapped in a machine as gilded as it was demoralizing for someone who feels more like a musician than a Vogue cover model, had reached breaking point. John takes charge of the situation, believing he can revive the original fire. He steers toward a soul-funk seasoned with fairly hard rock'n'roll. At first he imagines a record where every track would be sung by curious guest stars: Bowie, Jagger, Billy Idol, Richard Butler. Then Palmer settles the matter, writing the lyrics at his home in Nassau before flying to New York for the fateful meeting. On February 17th the quartet, calling themselves Power Station, make a surprise appearance on a live broadcast of "Saturday Night Live", playing two songs, the lead single "Some Like It Hot" and a reworking heavy of "Get It On", the old Bolan tune. The two Taylors show up dressed as fake-faded rockers, Thompson is decked out like a true Duran, while Palmer, in a double-breasted suit and tie, looks like he's just stepped out of a Wall Street meeting. They have a laugh, delivering a performance performance that's energetic and technically flawless. The next day the papers are screaming that Duran Duran have split up.

The die is cast: John admits he feels reborn, happy not to have to think constantly about his next haircut ("I'm not the best-looking Duran, I'm just the most available...", but also "300 years ago we'd have been court jesters, nowadays we just happen to be pop stars"), Andy fuels his reputation as the loose cannon lent to the charts, and the fans start to worry. In March EMI releases the "Some Like It Hot" single, a rhythmic charge with Thompson and JT locking together beautifully, Palmer syncopating erotically in a more assertive vocal style, Andy launching into an effects-laden solo in the style of Van Halen. And in America they're positively delighted: rave reviews, surprising and over-the-top praise for the two Taylors. The self-titled album Power Station contains nine tracks, cantering between quotations and old passions, coming across as cohesive in its blatant chase after funk, blues, rock and soul temptations, and benefiting from a meticulous production that highlights the quartet's performing chops.

After the aforementioned opening track, the LP detonates with Andy's fiery "Murderess", showcasing huge rhythmic impact throughout, especially on "Lonely Tonight", the instantly gratifying funk-disco of "Communication", and the breathless pulse of "Go To Zero". It whips the crowd into a frenzy with the torrential version hard of "Get It On", complete with a double bass-guitar solo, capturing in a flash the vocal duet between Andy and Palmer on the cover of the Isley Brothers' "Harvest For The World". It closes with the sophisticated slow-burn of "Still In Your Heart", which feels very nighttime New York, complete with lit-up skyscrapers and a closing sax solo. Not bad at all, in other words. And in America the record performs extremely well commercially: top five and platinum certification. But above all, crowds are clamoring for yet another round of shows. Palmer backs out to record "Riptide" (with Andy Taylor among its key contributors), which would go on to be one of the five best-selling albums in the world in 1986. John Taylor replaces him with an old rock fox, one Michael Des Barres, husband of Pamela, the most famous groupie of all time, a sort of vocal cross between Rod Stewart, Peter Wolf and Palmer himself, who, when pressed, tries to set the record straight and claim stylistic credit for the album. The truth is something else entirely: the seeds of Power Station can easily be traced back in the grooves of Arena: the enormous drum sound, its power further amplified in post-production, the explosive yet polished chemistry with bass that's both funky and rock, a super-aggressive guitar, vocal performances pushed to the edge yet meticulously crafted, soul barging forcefully into electro structures, the drive to innovate pop formulas without forgetting its roots. During 2026 a celebratory 40th-anniversary box set will be released, further highlighting the strengths of the record, also thanks to the inclusion of 'raw' instrumental versions and a live performance recorded in Philadelphia on 21 August 1985, with the much-underrated Michael Des Barres delivering a feverish performance that shifts the balance toward a rawer, more intense dimension. The Power Station LP also tickled the ears of audiophiles and industry insiders quite a bit, and from then on became a reference point for a whole string of hard & heavy productions, especially when it came to drum sound (with Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock taking note).

But meanwhile, back at Duran HQ, someone had really put their foot in it: one evening the usual John, a little the worse for wear at one of the countless parties of his life (Wimbledon, 1984 edition), stumbles upon Albert Broccoli, producer of the 007 saga, and tells him: "When are you going to get a decent theme song for your films, because the last few were really terrible!?" Broccoli, unruffled, replies: "Okay, John, this could be your chance, let's talk about it."

Duran Duran convene in the studio in autumn 1984 and witness repeated clashes between John Barry, the longtime composer of James Bond soundtracks, and Nick Rhodes; John tries to calm things down and calls in Bernard Edwards for help, with Nile Rodgers too busy to get involved (and in hindsight regretting the missed opportunity). The result is "A View To A Kill", the definitive culmination of the formula inaugurated with "Is There Something...": an aggressive synth-pop-rock sound with a dramatic aftertaste, befitting a true spy-filmtheme, a hook where the words lock perfectly into the music, and a chorus that's sharply drawn and galvanizing. This is the peak of Duran Duran's popularity: the single once again seizes the public's attention and hits number one across Europe, except in its home country, where it has to settle for runner-up, beaten by Paul Hardcastle's "19". In the United States it remains to this day the only song from the James Bond franchise to have topped the chart.

In Paris they shoot a video on the Eiffel Tower with a conventionally spy-thriller yet playful plot, in which the two leads, never filmed together, seem intent on eliminating each other... But it's in the French capital that Rhodes, Le Bon and drummer Taylor have holed up to work on a new project credited to the three of them. Free from pressure and overly frantic contracts, the trio slow the pace down. Even in the structure of the songs: from early listens it seems the songwriting has become more expansive, more atmospheric. But everything is still shrouded in mystery, no one is talking. A few images start to surface: there's Simon, Nick, Roger and... Masami Tsuchiya, guitarist and founder of Ippu-Do, a Japanese pop ensemble much admired by Rhodes and Le Bon, as well as the extra six-string added for Japan's final go-round, the one behind Tin Drum.

But Africa is calling and pop answers: Geldof organizes Live Aid, a huge concert broadcast live via satellite between London and Philadelphia, with a flood of stars taking turns, inspiring dreams and hopefully loosening plenty of purse strings for the cause. Sponsors need reassurance too, and ask: "Will Duran Duran be part of it?" "Of course," Geldof replies. Too bad the Fab Five haven't played together on stage in over a year. Geldof negotiates and then admits: "Guys, if you play we get ten million extra dollars." So Le Bon and co. go for it. They rehearse in a basement near the stadium over the two preceding days. They'll take the American stage toward the end of the show, among the most eagerly awaited attractions, with their James Bond single sitting at number one, sandwiched between Led Zeppelin and Mick Jagger. During the afternoon the two more hot-headed Taylors show up with Power Station, with whom they're busy setting fire to the American summer. Then, there they are, at ten at night, nervous but proud, almost cocky. It's not exactly the ideal moment for artistic reflection. At first everything seems to go fine, then Le Bon stumbles over the tail end of "A View To A Kill"... They carry on with three more songs, in a performance that's decent enough overall, but the firing squad is already lined up and won't let up for days, months, years.

Once the lights go down, the five of them don't even say goodbye to each other and go back to their separate pursuits: the Paris album and the American tour. And the American parties. Women, drugs, buying apartments, surprise club gigs alongside friends like Billy Idol, Jeff Beck, Psychedelic Furs. On that note, it's said that Andy Taylor spent an entire night drinking with his idol Keith Richards, ending in a white flag — and subsequent retreat — waved by the Stones guitarist himself!

In the height of summer it becomes known that the upcoming album by the three "Parisians" will be titled So Red The Rose credited under the name Arcadia. During the mixing phase, Le Bon takes his sailboat out and, instead of enjoying a nice cocktail on board, decides to enter himself and his crew in the "Whithead Round The World Race", the most grueling race on the open seas. To train, he chooses the waters off Great Britain. So one fine morning, just a few miles from the coast, the little boat, named Drum, has its mast snap and capsizes, trapping the singer and his crew underwater, saved only by an air pocket. An hour later - an hour of sheer terror - rescue arrives and Le Bon escapes by the classic whisker. Back on dry land he embraces his new girlfriend, wipes away his tears and then defiantly tells the press: he'll try again...

In September, EMI releases the single "Election Day", dance-song ambitious, built around a melody by synth that might bring to mind the Metro by Peter Goodwin and Duncan Browne  and the Yes produced by Trevor Horn. Inside, Middle Eastern flavors, Simon's vocals devoted to his by-now-usual acrobatics, the rhythm driven by the excellent timing of Roger Taylor and Carlos Alomar on guitar. At the close, a long sax solo kindly provided by Andy McKay. Within the space of a year, the sound has grown even more full-bodied.

What's hiding behind "Election Day"? A bold political-ideological statement? Despite the title, this isn't really a political song, but rather an urban, uneasy vision in which power, desire, sex and freedom end up overlapping. The setting feels artificial, nocturnal and ambiguous, dominated by rivalry, voices, illegality and a kind of power capable of turning even the "saviour" into a sinister figure. Election day thus becomes, above all, a metaphor for personal choice: "my election day" is the moment in which the individual has to decide which side to stand on, whether to get drawn in or to look for a way out. As always, Simon Le Bon's lyrics proceed through fragmented, sensual, almost dreamlike images, more interested in evoking feelings than telling a linear story. Body, skin, heat, invitation and play introduce an erotic dimension that keeps intertwining with the political one. Suddenly, Grace Jones's voice appears, amplifying that ambiguity: her deep, theatrical delivery seems to embody a powerful female figure, at once seductive and threatening. Musically, the track translates the same tension: it's the sound of a contemporary city in which reality seems to turn into spectacle and desire into a form of power. "Election Day" thus becomes a threshold: the moment when choosing can mean breaking free, giving in to seduction, or risking a new kind of imprisonment.

The album, made up of eight songs (produced by an Alex Sadkin increasingly in sync with Rhodes), plus a brief instrumental fragment ("Rose Arcana") opening side two, continues with "Keep In The Dark", which sketches out Saharan landscapes over a modern-funky rhythm and shows the sophisticated yet decisive cohesion between the drums and Mark Egan's bass, fusion-leaning already a fellow traveler of Pat Metheny. "Goodbye Is Forever" is another syncopated, rhythmically irregular pop-funk track, with the dark shades becoming ever more prominent. "The Flame", opening with a spoken guitar by Grace Jones, recalls the moves of the almost contemporaneous "A View To a Kill", amid splashes of synth, a driving, perfectly balanced rhythm and a Le Bon who, rarely enough, seems to be channeling Scott Walker. "Missing", recorded live in the studio no less, plunges the album into a ambient dreamlike, whispered, exotic mood. The percussive side, besides Taylor's drums, is entrusted to two devotees of metropolitan Africa, namely Rafael De Jesus (who played with Duran Duran during the Sing Blue Silver Tour) and David Van Thiegen (already in the orbit of Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno and David Byrne). Un opening obsessive sequencer line instead opens the imperious "The Promise", an epic ballad, crossed at various points by breaks instrumental passages, with piano accompaniment by Herbie Hancock, the aching, liquid guitar of David Gilmour, backing vocals by Sting, McKay's dramatic horns and a Mark Egan in full Jaco mood.

"El Diablo" opens with an Andean flute line and develops the ritualistic, Latin, dark side of So Red the Rose: more hypnotic than melodic, more evocative than narrative, more sound-scape than pop song. The closing is entrusted to the long, glacial "Lady Ice", sinister and shot through with wintry keyboards, with Simon's vocals moving from faint, detached tones to the most desperate decadence. The track can also count on a different drummer, Steve Jordan, the drummer of the David Letterman Show, future star of hundreds of recording sessions as well as a member of the Rolling Stones from 2021 onward, but that year among the collaborators on the nascent "Dirty Work" by the Rolling Stones, being worked on in those very days in the French capital).

So Red the Rose can be read as a sort of "Duran Duran in prog mode", as long as "progressive" is understood not in its classic sense of suites and odd time signatures, but as a pursuit of layering, atmosphere and complexity. It's a project that takes the darker, more experimental side of Duran Duran and stretches it into a sophisticated art record, one in which the songs become soundscapes: drawn-out intros, instrumental sections, shifts in density, keyboards, percussion, guitars and vocals that emerge slowly.

The aesthetic heart of the project can easily be traced back to Roxy Music: decadent elegance, electronics, sax, sensuality and a certain European idea of art-rock. Andy Mackay is almost a mission statement in himself. To this foundation are added jazz and fusion, with Mark Egan's fluid, liquid fretless bass and the presence of Herbie Hancock, musicians chosen to expand Duran Duran's vocabulary beyond pop. Nick Rhodes continues turning synthesisers into sonic architecture: ever more pads, drones, reverbs and sequences building suspended, cinematic environments. This is the ambient dimension of Arcadia, already hinted at in "The Chauffeur", "The Seventh Stranger" and "Tel Aviv", here placed at the centre of the whole project. But So Red the Rose isn't just rarefaction. On "Election Day", jazz-funk, New York, percussion, Carlos Alomar and Grace Jones all come into play, a physical, urban component that balances out the more abstract side. Simon Le Bon also changes register: more theatrical, sensual, dramatic, almost an extra element of the arrangement. Alex Sadkin's production holds it all together with a sound that's lush yet rigorous, deep, detailed, seemingly conceived to be listened to on headphones.

This is where the key difference from The Power Station emerges: while John and Andy Taylor chase impact, physicality, drums, guitars and groove, Arcadia wants depth, space, detail and mystery. Even today, So Red the Rose looks less like a 1985 side project and more like the natural evolution of that part of Duran Duran that had already found its most mysterious dimension in "The Chauffeur" and "The Seventh Stranger": a suspended, sensual, cinematic record, in which the song is no longer just a song, but a space to get lost in.

Too bad the reviews, critical if not downright scathing, failed to notice any of this and accused the record of being a blatant imitation of Roxy Music-style schemesthe contrived nature of the compositions, the padded, overlong results. Even the audience ends up disoriented, and after a promising debut, with the single hitting the top five in the US and much of Europe, the album loses momentum. It fails to crack the top thirty in England, or the top twenty in America, where it does eventually go platinum, but it never wins over the lasting attention of the disco-and-Saturday-night crowd. No tour for Arcadia, just a global promotional run done in playback. MTV gives the duo an evening presentation special, a white room where Rhodes and Le Bon explain themselves, while their friend Keith Haring fills the space with his graffiti. They also make it to Italy in December, with five thousand fans laying siege to the Teatro delle Vittorie in Rome, locked down tight for a guest appearance on "Fantastico".

Amid rumors and whispers, at the end of the year Duran Duran announce at a press conference, with Roger absent, a concert to be held on 27 December in Los Angeles, broadcast live worldwide (alongside Culture Club). But the deal falls through for lack of sponsors. Le Bon takes the opportunity to get secretly, sensationally married to a model of Iranian origin.

 

 

With the Arcadia album struggling in the charts, while the media presence of the Duran Duran name becomes unbearable, Nick and Andy meet up in New York to start sketching out the first ideas for a much-rumored reunion that many are already doubting. John Taylor, for his part, records a song for the soundtrack of the year's cinematic phenomenon, "9 1/2 Weeks": he plays and even sings on the dark, erotic "I Do What I Do", synth-noir electronic and pulsing, with vocals by ferryane, produced by his new friend Jonathan Elias.

In April comes the first shock: Roger Taylor, exhausted by stress, falls into paranoia and quits. Down to one less. It's really just the official confirmation of a departure that had already happened, as Roger had been missing for some time, having taken no part in promoting So Red The Rose or in the videos for the singles drawn from the album. The drummer drops off the radar entirely, buys a house in the countryside and starts growing wheat. The band is in trouble, and EMI is seriously worried. John Taylor takes charge of the situation: he tracks down drum virtuoso Steve Ferrone, offers him a hefty sum and hires him (Steve had already been put on alert ahead of the aforementioned concert that was supposed to take place right after Christmas 1985). Le Bon, meanwhile, is busy with his boat in the long Whitbread regatta. After a few months he returns to England and discovers he's come in third. Applause and pats on the back, but EMI isn't moved and orders the singer to get into the studio immediately. Waiting for him at Air Studios in London are Nick, John, producer Nile Rodgers and Ferrone, but not Andy. The guitarist pens two fun but forgettable synth-rock tracks, "Take It Easy" and "When The Rain Comes Down", and seems seriously intent on finishing a solo album (Thunder, made together with Steve Jones, will be released the following year, aimed at pushing Andy into the hard rock and hair metal market). Simon tries to get in touch with him, but to no avail. John, armed with the patience of a saint, travels to Los Angeles, where the guitarist lives, and gets himself invited to dinner. He plays him the first recordings but, as John admitted nearly three decades later, the bassist's worsening drug addiction does nothing to build Andy's confidence. Lawyers get called in. He shows up with his own lawyers in tow. He advises the band to breaks up. They tell him to get lost. He sues them and spends weeks undermining the recording of the new Duran album. Down to two less. Guitar duties fall to Rodgers himself, but Steve Stevens also reportedly turns up in the studio. In fact, rumor has it that Billy Idol's faithful right-hand man wants to ditch glossy punk to join the Duran family. The spot, however, goes to Warren Cuccurullo, an Italian-American, already Zappa as well as axe man for the recently disbanded Missing Persons.

By mid-August, word spreads that the long-awaited album will be called Notorious, a cinematic tribute to the master Alfred. On 20 October 1986 the eponymous single hits stores: a taut, aggressive pop-funk number, less colourful and drier in execution. A song that has little to do with the Birmingham trio's past. The agile funk approach is embodied in Ferrone's masterful drumming, which launches a rhythm in which Taylor's bass becomes more minimal, with rigorous, pulsing staccatos. Nick's keyboards are thoroughly black-leaning and never overloaded, the guitar is Chic-style. Rounding it all off are the real horns of the Borneo Horns. The accompanying video paints black-and-white landscapes, shot with grainy photography.

On November 24th the album hits the shops. In 1986, nothing sounds like Notorious. At a time when electronic pop is chasing clarity, light, precision and function, Duran Duran choose to do exactly the opposite: they make funk dark, dance uneasy, black music shot through with a typically European, leaden sky. There's actually very little techno-pop here (the notorious synth-pop "wall of sound" that Duran Duran themselves had made so dominant barely three years earlier has vanished from their path, even as it continues to calcify much of the world's record output). What emerges instead is an amphibious, suspended sound, born from the hybridisation of funk and dark wave, of black music's sensuality and English new wave's sense of unease.

The snares aren't the bright, polished ones of American dance music, but the deep, reverb-drenched ones of dark wave: Asylum Party, The Mission, The Cure. It's funk recorded through gothic stylistic devices, with a sonic depth that looks more to a stormy sky than to the dancefloor. Drum machine, real and synthetic horns, and three coexisting guitars — one rock, one funky, one wave — build a soundscape in which every element seems to belong to a different world, and precisely for that reason manages to coexist with the others. The mood is unmistakably leaden, and it already is in the artwork: three cold, elegant, polished, almost ethereal dandies, under a sky of dark, threatening clouds. It's an omen.

Notorious is, first and foremost, a declaration of independence. Money, power, manipulation and public judgement are rejected with arrogance. The new Duran Duran is less romantic and more urban, more aware of their own fame, and above all of fame as a trap. The band no longer simply tries to represent desire: it observes the system that produces it, sells it, manipulates it and turns it into spectacle. New York, in some sense the philosophical headquarters of the new project, thus becomes a nocturnal, sensual, unsettling metropolis, the place where money, politics, advertising, sex and celebrity all end up speaking the same language.

"American Science" (with its melodic, sinuous bassline) places this idea at the centre of the record. American modernity appears as a seductive, unsettling machine: technology, desire, loneliness and alienation coexist within the same landscape. It's perhaps the track that best captures the image of an advanced civilisation that is nonetheless emotionally disoriented. The sound is apocalyptic and layered, always full and dramatic, built from real and synthetic horns, deep drum machines and a density that never truly seems to leave room for silence. Simply calling it "funky" isn't enough: it's black music dirtied by wave, or wave contaminated by black music. "Skin Trade" applies the same logic to the body, which becomes merchandise, desire turned into a marketplace. The sensuality here is no longer the elegant, aristocratic kind found on Rio: it's dirtier, more carnal, more physical, funkier, immersed in a world where everything can be bought and sold. Sex is no longer just a romantic promise, but one of the forms through which the market organises desire. (Le Bon has never confirmed it, but it's likely a nod to Dylan Thomas's unfinished novel Adventures in the Skin Trade, which tells of its protagonist's gradual loss of innocence and his entry into the adult world, all rendered in the author's characteristically visionary, surreal style).

"So Misled" shifts the focus toward manipulation. Advertising, desire and expectations produce a distorted reality; the individual ends up confused by their own illusions and by those that are constantly being offered to them. It's almost a small parable about consumer society, in which what we desire doesn't necessarily come from within us, but is built, directed and handed back to us as a need.

Yet behind a world made of money, spectacle and desire, the individual remains. "A Matter of Feeling" is the point where the machine stops and the person is allowed to surface. Behind the fame there's still someone surrounded by people yet unable to feel truly understood. It's the song of loneliness within popularity, of a crowd that isolates rather than unites, of polite smiles, of inadequacy, of time weighing heavy, and of the search for something that doesn't yet have a name. Feeling becomes the only authentic thing left. Here a deeply romantic, almost German quality emerges. "A Matter of Feeling" revolves around what the Romantics called Sehnsucht: an undefined longing, directed toward something unattainable, which for that very reason turns into restlessness. Simon Le Bon feeds on this romanticism and carries it into an album that is seemingly urban and American. This is why Notorious is less precise than traditional pop and more ambiguous, less interested in resolution than in sensation. The surface is funk, but underneath, mystery keeps on living.

"Hold Me" also turns desire into something deeper. It isn't simply seduction: it's a need for contact, a request for intimacy, an attempt to breaks free from guilt and fear. It's an almost physical plea addressed to someone who seems trapped by their own pride and their own defences. Musically, the track perfectly embodies the album's balance: the groove is funky-rock, but the sounds belong to English new wave. The flanged arpeggios evoke the Cure, while the words — ashes, violation, isolation — belong more to the imagery of Joy Division than to American club culture. In the bridge, the guitar shifts to an arpeggio treated with delay and flanger, once again evoking the Cure and even an Italian dark-wave imagery à la Diaframma.

If "A Matter of Feeling" is interiority, "Vertigo (Do the Demolition)" is its physical explosion. It's the album's most nocturnal, aggressive, nihilistic and post-apocalyptic side. Sex, excess, noise and loss of control become a metaphor for the destruction of the old rules. "Where is real life in your illusion?": the question holds the philosophical core of the album. Dancing coincides with destruction; movement becomes almost a way of no longer feeling, while pretending to listen. Simon's melodic lines are melancholy, and his performance here is among the finest he's ever delivered. His voice turns hoarse, then fragile, then soft; it flaunts Jim Morrison, brushes against industrial, and coexists with almost orientalist synthesisers. It's a transhuman work, yet always carefully weighed: it feels spontaneous, but is built with extreme awareness; it keeps its sense of wonder, yet subjects it to a precise sonic architecture.

The same polarity runs through the whole album. Each side opens with a title that seems to carry an almost cinematic function, offering a different vision of the world. "Notorious" is knowing, erotic, funky and mysterious; "Vertigo" is dark, futuristic, destructive. The cover art, as already mentioned, anticipates both dimensions: three beautiful men, polished and almost unreal, beneath a looming sky. They're dandies who seem to belong to an elegant world, but the sky already hints at the storm, at death, at vertigo. Even the seemingly more "fun" tracks hold onto this undercurrent of tension. "Meet El Presidente" presents power in a grotesque, theatrical, sexualised form: politics, media, money and spectacle become indistinguishable. The President is almost a dark-cabaret character, a caricature of power turned into performance. Even when the record seems to be having fun, it keeps speaking an oblique, European, uneasy language. "Proposition", on the other hand, is one of its most leaden moments. The opening toms sound like thunder, the synths are dark, the guitars aggressive, and the offbeat rhythms convey an anxious tension. The closing takes on the tone of a political and moral appeal: sacrifice, institutions, anger, generation and freedom. After all the album's cynicism, what remains is the question of what can still be saved.

And then there's "Winter Marches On", the moment where the album suddenly turns cold. As if to say: the party's over, winter arrives, along with loss and the sense that something has definitively ended. It's perhaps the track that most clearly links Notorious back to the world of Arcadia, to romanticism, to melancholy, and to that suspended dimension that Duran Duran never truly abandoned. Amid the city, sex, money and technology, an inner season still remains. That's precisely the point: Notorious doesn't reject Duran Duran's past, it transforms it. Nick Rhodes spoke openly of Siouxsie and Chic, not Sex Pistols and Chic. The reference is telling: this isn't simply about putting punk and funk together, but about preserving the link with mystery, with wave, with the legacy of Roxy Music, and with the parallel world of Arcadia. The goal isn't to chase America, nor to repeat the operation of Let's Dance, where Bowie is a crooner flirting with relatively conventional soul and dance territory; here the operation is the opposite: funk is carried into a more dangerous, darker, more ambiguous universe.

Even the start of the Notorious era communicates this choice. The band's image is still entirely black, Arcadia-like, before gradually lightening over the course of the tour. The fonts, the weighty titles, the photographic aesthetic and the far-from-lightweight lyrics all contribute to the same construction. The theme is cinematic, almost Hitchcockian: an atmosphere of suspicion and desire constantly rubs against the idea of funk as pure fun. This is why Notorious is a record in which categories collapse. Synth, pop, soul, funk, rock and jazz coexist without any one of these genres managing to fully define it. Its strength lies precisely in the impossibility of pinning it down. It's a crossover between funk and European new wave rarely attempted, and never before with such awareness. The result is a sound that seems American in its material but European in its unease. At its core, Notorious is about survival inside a world of power, desire, fame and artifice. It tells of the body becoming merchandise, power becoming spectacle, technology promising the future while producing alienation, fame isolating rather than liberating, and desire that keeps searching for something it can't name. But it's not just a record about disillusionment, it's also an aesthetic response to disillusionment. This is where romanticism in its highest sense comes into play, that of the sublime. In a world wrecked by human beings, populated by dandies moving among the rubble, beauty remains as a moral value. Not an innocent beauty, but a beauty aware of its own fragility. The dandy doesn't save the world: he moves through it, observes the disaster, and keeps on dancing.

Perhaps this is Notorious's great insight: turning New York's decadent nights into a graveyard of disillusionment and unknown, and therefore suffered, desires. Making funk dark, dance uneasy, sensuality threatening. Turning the dancefloor not into a place of escape, but into the exact point where desire and destruction meet. Notorious is thus shadowy even when it's sensual, dark even when it's fun. It's a black record in sound and in spirit. You look at it and you don't expect Chic. And it's precisely there, in that misunderstanding, that its greatness lies. Duran Duran seem to be heading toward America, but in reality they carry America inside a European sensibility; they seem to be abandoning romanticism, but they transform it into something more urban and unsettling. It looks like a record about power, sex and fame, but beneath the surface it keeps speaking of loneliness, desire and the need for meaning. It's perhaps the most ambitious project of their career: not simply changing their sound, but changing the very meaning of their music. And so the line that best sums it up isn't just an invitation to dance. It's an aesthetic statement: do the dance, do the demolition. Dance while everything crumbles. Preserve beauty once the categories have been destroyed. Make sensuality a form of resistance. And stay standing, elegant, above the ruins.

Although greeted with critical applause, over time the record shows its limits and fails to heat up the charts. In fact it's the first Duran-style album that doesn't sell. Nor does it create the fanatical stir of years past. The first blow comes from Britain, which relegates Notorious to number 16 and drops it out of the top hundred within just over a month. The title-track single, however, keeps the legend afloat and sweeps across Europe, stalling at number two in America. In Reagan's country the Duranies restart within a suddenly changed landscape: at one point, among the thirty best-selling albums, there are only two English names, Genesis and Duran Duran themselves. The British Invasion has dissolved. The album climbs to number 12 and goes platinum, partly quelling the grumbling. But the releases of the single "Skin Trade" and its lack of success reignite the difficulties.

After an intense radio and TV promotional campaign, the three survivors set off on a 100-date tour. They start in Japan and everything goes well, if not great. They land in Europe and fill, with ups and downs, arenas and stadiums across the continent. The finale brings the band to Italy too, for an epic ten-day run. Seven stadiums for as many cities: Palermo, Bari, Cava of the Tirreni, Rome, Modena, Milan and Florence. Over 200,000 people turn out, though a few disappointments aren't long in coming, for instance in Bari and Cava dei Tirreni, while there's good news from the 40,000 fans in Rome and Florence and the 50,000-plus at San Siro. On stage, the black-leaning approach is heightened by a horn section, two backing vocalists, and Cuccurullo's electronic guitar in fine form. Le Bon's verve takes care of the rest. The classic tracks come out modified when not completely rearranged ("Hungry Like The Wolf"), often slowed down, even given over to flashes of improvisation.

There are instead 34 American shows, met with a good turnout, with wild stops at Madison Square Garden in NY, the Forum in Los Angeles, San Francisco, but also a few gaps, and not exactly minor ones. In Canada they tag along with Bowie's dreadful "Glass Spider Tour", and at the Beacon Theatre in New York they close the show by calling up on stage Lou Reed for a memorable duet on "Sweet Jane".

Back home, the three realise the numbers don't add up. The third single has been a flop. Holidays, then it's back to work.

 

 

Paris is the chosen destination, with the trio still joined by Ferrone and Cuccurullo, but not by Rodgers. They'll produce the record themselves, with help from Daniel Abhram and Jonathan Elias. There's curiosity around it, but certainly not the feverish anticipation of the past. And while some bet on a confirmation of their American leanings, Duran Duran once again change course. In September 1988 the video accompanying "I Don't Want Your Love" makes its first appearance on television networks worldwide, dance-song catchy, revealing house-music undertones. Marked, synthetic rhythm, keyboards doubling and tripling every phrase, a choral chorus. Midway through there's a breaks, with Chester Kamen's heavily distorted guitar blasted to the forefront, which comes as a surprise (at the time of the recording sessions, a worried Cuccurullo would point out a certain resemblance to "Sign o' the Times" by Prince; exactly twenty years later, a Paris concert alongside Mark Ronson will see the band take part in a few medleys, including one combining "I Don't Want Your Love" with the single princely released in 1987). Barely a month later, it's time for the album. It's called Big Thing.

 

In 1988, club culture is shifting, with house and the new electronics reshaping the relationship between music, body and audience, while pop increasingly becomes material to be programmed, remixed and manipulated.
The band, however, doesn't simply chase the trend: they choose to step into it on their own terms, recording at Davout Studios in Paris with Jonathan Elias and Daniel Abraham, while Warren Cuccurullo takes on an increasingly important role on guitars and in shaping the new sound.
The result is an album threaded through with bass, synthesizers, drum machine, sequencer, electronic percussion and guitars, in which production is no longer just the song's outer garment, but becomes part of its very identity.
“Big Thing” is already a manifesto: the groove is physical, bass and drums seem built to lay immediate siege to the listener, Cuccurullo's guitar explodes in the finale, Le Bon builds a chorus of rare impact with pronounced gospel touches, while the lyrics mix sex, power, radio, “power rotation” and success, turning the language of desire into the language of the music industry.
“I Don't Want Your Love” carries that same tension into a romantic relationship: pulsing bass, dry drums, cold keyboards and an almost provocative vocal build a track that's sensual yet nervy, in which refusing love means, above all, refusing to be dominated by it.
This is music already conceived for the new world of remixes and clubs, so much so that Shep Pettibone's version will push its dance nature even further.
“All She Wants Is” is perhaps the most successful synthesis of this phase: a robotic funk, obsessive bass, hi-hat hyperactive and Cuccurullo's angular guitar turn desire into an almost feverish pulse; in the lyrics, sex, money, consumption and possession become different faces of the same appetite.
“Too Late Marlene” interrupts that momentum and opens a softer, more melancholy parenthesis: keyboards, suspended harmonies and melodic writing that recovers the band's more romantic side accompany the regret for something time has now made unreachable.
“Drug (It's Just a State of Mind)” brings the record back into the night, with an electronic rhythm, pulsing bass and a structure that seems intent on altering perception just as the lyrics suggest: the drug becomes, above all, the desire to inhabit another reality; even the different version of the track featured in remaster the album's remaster testifies to just how malleable that sonic reality was.
Then comes “Do You Believe in Shame?”, and suddenly everything turns more human: a lush arrangement, keyboards, strings and an intense melody replace the frenzy, as Simon grapples with loss, remorse and memory; dedicated to departed friends Alex Sadkin, Andy Warhol and David Miles, the song turns desire into something impossible: bringing back what has died.
“Palomino”, on the other hand, opens the landscape back up: atmospheric sounds, light percussion and a suspended melody build an almost cinematic image, while escape becomes a longing for change, for another identity, for another colour.
“Interlude One” and “Flute Interlude” breaks up the pop form with two brief instrumental passages: they're doorways, breaths, small shifts in perspective that make the album feel less like a sequence of songs and more like a sonic journey.
On “Land” the music turns broad and enveloping again: keyboards, bass, percussion and guitar build a liquid space, while the lyrics steer the journey toward its opposite, landfall; having longed for movement, one finally longs for a land, someone or something to settle on.
“The Edge of America” then carries that search onto historical and sociological terrain: a jittery rhythm, more aggressive guitars and a fragmented structure accompany an America made of concrete, fear, division and alienation, a far cry from the bright dream of previous years.
It's the point where individual desire meets the failure of the consumerist promise: having more doesn't necessarily mean living better.
And “Lake Shore Driving”, wordless, closes everything out with a cinematic instrumental sequence: a road, a car, the landscape sliding by and no real resolution, just the movement that keeps going.
Even the record's commercial history tells this story of identity-seeking: Big Thing reaches the UK Top 15 and the US Top 25, while to free The Edge of America/Lake Shore Driving from the baggage tied to the Duran Duran name, the track is promoted under the pseudonym The Krush Brothers.
So, amid the funk legacy of Notorious, new electronics, dance music, experimentation and Cuccurullo's growing centrality, Big Thing becomes the true bridge to the Duran Duran of the Nineties.
Its apparent fragmentation in fact conceals a precise arc: at the start there's success, sex, money, consumption and the distortion of reality; then come loss, escape, love, memory and the need to belong; and finally all that's left is an American road travelled through the night.
Big Thing is the album of desires, of what we want, of what we believe we want and of what we discover we truly desire when fame, pleasure and possession are no longer enough; from the need to be a Big Thing to the search for a person, a land or simply a direction, desire keeps shifting shape, but it never stops driving the way forward.

 

Duran Duran, however, no longer have the same appeal they had a few seasons earlier, and so, after the initial positive reception, they have to scale back somewhat and start settling for less. The results delivered by the second single, “All She Wants Is” (accompanied by a futuristic video by Dean Chamberlain, already at work on Arcadia's “Missing”, an American photographer and visual artist closer to photographic experimentation than to traditional music video, known for his work with light painting photography; his video also won an MTV Video Music Award for Breakthrough Video) look modest by comparison, even though it reached the top ten at home and around Europe. Little applause, on the other hand, for the third releases, “Do You Believe In Shame” (with another fine clip, this time urban and mysterious, directed by the up-and-coming Chen Kaige), which fell out of contention almost immediately.

Duran Duran, however, want to play live: they put together a tour that kicks off in October and won't wrap up until July. And on stage the band has never been more convincing. The soul-funk verve has been toned down, but the horns remain, there's more electronics now, and even the sophisticated guitar work benefits from it. Drum duties fell to a young sessions man, Sterling Campbell, Black and formidably powerful (and future David Bowie drummer).

 

In late autumn 1989 the album “Requiem For The Americas” hits stores, a work conceived by Johnatan Elias in honor and support of the Native American peoples. Among the record's featured contributors are Jon Anderson, Stewart Copeland, Tony Childs, Tony Levin, and the voice of Jim Morrison reciting two unpublished poems, plus Duran Duran themselves. An elegant operation, built on dramatic atmospheres and fine sounds. The lead single is the ballad “Follow In My Foosteps”, lyrics and vocals by Le Bon.

 

At the end of the year, EMI seals a decade that had ended in some difficulty with the band's first greatest-hits collection, Decade, a top-five hit at home, a solid success in Europe, a disaster in America (though with the 21st-century reunion things will go better for the compilation too). Duran Duran are now just a name tethered to the past. The five of them realize as much when they regroup at Olympic Studios in London. Yes, the five of them: the three original members, in order to shake things up both in the media and personally, have decided to take on Cuccurullo and Campbell as permanent members. Outside the studio, the musical world is changing fast: house, hip-hop, Madchester, alternative rock are rewriting the grammar of pop. The band senses it needs to react, but hasn't yet figured out how. And the new album is born right in the middle of that uncertainty: it's not a record lacking ideas, it's a record with almost too many ideas that never coalesce into a unified vision.

The result is a mess titled Liberty. The album contains 11 songs, muddled and indecisive both in the writing and, even more so, in the choice of sounds. Chris Kimsey builds a dense production around them, packed with guitars, keyboards, effects and overdubs. Everything is bloated, overblown, plasticky, and consequently reeks of the artificial. Duran Duran seem to want to be the funk-wave band of Notorious, the experimental band of Big Thing, and a new rock band ready for the Nineties, all at once. The opener is "Violence Of Summer", glam-pop danceable, of a discouraging banality. The title track, a velvety homage to Roxy Music, is marked by a fine vocal performance from Le Bon and a solo reminiscent of Knopfler-esque halfway through the track, but also by the aforementioned overly plasticky sounds. "Hothead" is a horrid declamation over a funk hip-hop backing that leaves even the most devoted fan almost aghast. Speaking of fans, pretty much all of them, both at the time and especially over the following decades, show an exaggerated, affectionate attachment to "Serious", a potential minor pop classic tinged with soul, graced by a more genuine choice of sounds and a remarkable vocal performance. A fleeting illusion: "All Along The Water" perhaps aspires to be the Duran-esque answer to the explosion of the new crossover but, lacking a chorus and wrapped in a sound as fake as can be, it's demoralizing. Joining the parade of horrors (considering the band's history, no small feat) are "First Impression", a blustering hard-rock number complete with a lengthy Cuccurullo solo tacked onto the end; "Read My Lips", a wretched song with a ridiculous verse and a refrain lifted straight from the glorious "Get It On"; and "Can You Deal With It", a bouncy, cartoonish dance-song (later revisited by John as a solo artist, in a live setting where it would prove not quite so dreadful). There are some bright spots too (hooray!): the ballad "My Antartica" is spare and dreamlike, with icy keyboards, a melancholy piano and two basses - one of them fretless - lending an odd, pulsing gait to a track that's anything but a conventional slow number; "Venice Drowing" is an eccentric, dramatic slice of atmospheric rock, with Le Bon sounding like he actually believes in it; "Dowtown" is an original glam song choral number marked by synthetic horns and interlocking keyboards, in which old temptations resurface and get an update. But even in its best moments, the band seems mostly busy trying on different outfits in front of the mirror.

On a lyrical level there's no real concept, but rather a thematic undercurrent made up of desire, sex, bodies, speed, violence, image, power and the need for validation. All typically Duran Duran elements, which now, however, come across as played out by characters performing themselves. Even the title, Liberty, takes on an uncertain meaning. Freedom from what? From the past, from expectations, from the image built up in the Eighties, from the need to still be Duran Duran? What emerges is the paradox of a record named after freedom that instead appears to be the least free: a band imprisoned by the need to reinvent itself.

An artistic disaster, and an even bigger commercial one: number eight in Britain but outside the American top 40 as well. By the end of 1990 it's as if the album had never come out. Duran Duran make a few TV appearances, scrap any notion of a tour, and retreat with their tails between their legs. Liberty shows a band looking in several directions at once, still unable to figure out which one is truly theirs - a confusion that would unwittingly become the foundation of their next record.

 

 

EMI calls them back to duty, though without much conviction. A dose of humility is in order. The budget on offer is laughable compared to the glories of the past. Taylor is off in Los Angeles, so it falls to Cuccurullo to reorganize the band's fate. The Italian-American sets up a home studio in the London district of Battersea, and there, together with Le Bon, Taylor and Rhodes, he starts putting together something resembling a new batch of songs. Campbell packs his bags, takes advantage of the gathering darkness, and slips away. He'll go on to join Soul Asylum and later become, as is well known, the trusted drummer for Bowie. EMI president Rupert Perry reassures them and puts them in the hands of Nick Gatfield, a record company executive and former member of Dexys Midnight Runners. The band also strikes a deal with new management, Allen Kovac of Left Bank, and it's he who turns an ordinary working afternoon upside down. He calls them and says: "I've listened to 'Ordinary World', it's a hit, I'm sure of it, but I need six months to set up a promotional strategy." It's the late spring of 1992.

Ahead of the following Christmas, EMI takes the radio's pulse and sends the ballad out across American airwaves. A dozen or so coast-to-coast spins and the stations are besieged with calls from listeners eager for information. Yes indeed, behind that seductive melody is Duran Duran. Someone senses a major coup. The single is scheduled for releases the following month and, once in stores, immediately shoots into the British top ten and storms into the American top three. The four survivors can't believe their eyes. A song that started out essentially acoustic, from an idea by Cuccurullo; Le Bon sings, disillusioned but ultimately hopeful, about the ills of a society corrupted by wars and assorted violence; Taylor (who would admit over the years that he was never a fan of the track) comes up with a melodic, lively bass line; Rhodes adds understated flourishes; there's even drumming from the resurrected Ferrone.

 

In February comes the album, officially titled Duran Duran but nicknamed The Wedding Album, the wedding album, with cover art featuring photos from the fateful wedding day of the four members' parents. Fifties imagery for a clean, cohesive, varied pop record that is (strikingly?) in step with the times. A work born not out of a search for a new style, but out of a return to the song itself. Nick Rhodes has spoken precisely of the need to "get back to basics": days and days spent writing and playing together, with no idea in advance where it would all lead. 

Musically, the album is also more varied than Liberty, yet it feels far more cohesive. "Too Much Information" brings together rock, funk, electronics and an almost punk attitude; "Drowning Man" pushes the band toward new, obsessive dancefloors; "Love Voodoo" mixes R&B, trip-hop ante litteram, disco and sensuality; "U.M.F." recovers funk and the shadow of Prince; "Breath After Breath", with an unexpected Milton Nascimento, even opens up a world-music dimension. And yet none of it feels like a mere stylistic exercise. The elements are varied, but the band owns them. The genres tackled become tools in service of the songs.

The other future classic is called "Come Undone": a ballad riding an unusual groove born from an idea by Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo, a song originally intended for a side project. Simon hears it, builds the melody on top of it, and turns it into a love song. The result is one of the most sophisticated tracks of their career: a hypnotic bass (but a synthetic one, John isn't there, he's in Los Angeles, taking his time to comeback, and he'll regret it...), a guitar with a sinuous flanger effect that locks in with liquid synths, and a sensual, vulnerable vocal. If "Ordinary World" is about loss and survival, "Come Undone" tells of the possibility of losing yourself inside love. It's an erotic song, but also a fragile one. The album also features a perhaps slightly too muscular rendition of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale", a track that foreshadows the covers project to come. "None Of The Above" is another soul-dance track, fizzy but armed with a noisy guitar solo. The energy ramps up with "Shelter", synth front and centre, insinuating vocals, dance rhythm, and an aggressive, choral chorus. More classically pop-rock is "To Whom It May Concern", with Cuccurullo's opening arpeggio, staccato bass, decent melodic-harmonic payoff, and Simon singing almost hysterically. A grand finale comes with the lengthy "Sin Of The City", hip-pop-rock with funky streaks, well-crafted and even better played, with Taylor taking the spotlight on four strings and Cuccurullo's super-noise coda.

In no time at all the album rakes in a level of success not seen since the days of "Wild Boys": number seven in the US, number four at home, and ever more frenzied mania pretty much everywhere. The critics don't quite know what to make of it. The consensus leans toward a drubbing, obligatory in times Nirvana-esque. No matter, Duran Duran ride the wave unplugged, put together an acoustic show with a string quartet, and set off around the globe to see what kind of impact it makes. Pity only that some venues aren't quite big enough to handle the suddenly multiplied demand.

A month after its releases, the album has already topped a million copies sold on American soil. Even John Taylor is stunned - the first to have lost faith in the project, strung out on drugs and alcohol, a new father, 'forced' to pack his bags and set off on a world tour, a real one this time, of massive proportions. The run kicks off in the United States in June, while the second single "Come Undone" nearly matches the success of "Ordinary World", staying among the cowboy through September, with supporting act such as Terence Trent D'Arby, Suede e Cranberries (who will benefit from this run on the road), while the first choice, Auteurs, John's favourites of the moment, will decline ("Thanks are due, but we have nothing to do with Duran Duran," he'll say right away Luke Haines).

 

Then Europe, hampered by serious vocal problems for Le Bon (who will undergo a reassuring operation on his vocal cords). Between rescheduling and postponements, Duran Duran also appear on MTV screens for their usual wireless performance, just the day after the legendary show by Cobain and friends. They opt for an show, acoustic yes, but without the aid of chairs: in other words, people dance and let loose. Then it's back to Europe. At the start of 1994 they're in North America again, then they fly off to the Far East. Meanwhile the record company does the math: a year after its releases, the comeback album has sold six million copies. They call it a day after a year and retreat to record a covers collection, as the fashion of the time dictates. An unexpected move in the wrong direction...

 

Cover flop ...and they were left as a trio

While pretty much everyone had been confident in tracing Duran Duran's musical family tree, not many had fully grasped the English group's tastes. Quite varied, curious, at times surprising. The four, who a few months earlier had received their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, decide to record an album of covers of other people's songs. They record it across multiple locations, surround themselves with sessions drummers, and title it Thank You. Thanks go out to Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five's "White Lines", a hip-hop track about the damage wrought by cocaine, turned here into a synthetic funk-rap with vocal backing from the original artists themselves, culminating in a woozy Cuccurullo solo (already a staple of the Dilate Your Mind Tour setlists, the track would go on to become a fixture of Duran Duran concerts to this day). Next comes a wild reprise of Sly And The Family Stone's "I Wanna Take You Higher", reuniting the Power Station rhythm section, with John Taylor, in the central breaks, nodding to John Deacon, who in turn drew on Bernard Edwards... "Perfect Day" is there too, with its enchanting, immortal melody; Simon renders it softly, almost dreamy, while behind him Rhodes and Cuccurullo work on dreamlike atmospheres, John Taylor offers melodic flourishes on bass and... Roger Taylor, having left the farm behind, briefly resurfaces with a pair of brushes.

"Watching My Detectives" is a plastic remake of the first Costello, again with Roger Taylor on drums. "Lay Lady Lay" is Dylan rewritten in pop-synth format, with guitars echoing "Come Undone". "911 Is A Joke" is the caustic denunciation of the Public Enemy turned into a version that thanks Beck, amid soul, hip-hop and country-blues. "Success" is the glam-rock reinterpretation of a classic by Iggy Pop, admittedly not particularly striking. "Cristal Ship" is just a carbon copy of Jim Morrison's dreams. "Ball And Confusion" is even the Temptations torn apart by a hyper-modern instrumental rendition. It closes with "Driven By" which, over a dreamy spoken part by Le Bon, turns into the full-bodied, instrumental self-quotation of "The Chauffeur".

What was the point of making such a project? The truth will be revealed a few years later by Cuccurullo: despite the success of the Wedding Album, the band no longer felt protected and cared for by the record label, and intended to hand over a new album and close out the contract that way. The timing seemed right, Duran were once again riding high on airplay worldwide, they were in dazzling form, feeling confident, wanting to have fun, wanting to surprise too, but they ended up disappointing everyone, first and foremost themselves included (John Taylor: “When we released the covers album, I realized I'd had enough of the band”), and they became a kind of proto-meme. The press, especially in Britain, mocked them: Q, a magazine that has always thrived on compiling endless rankings, placed it at number one on its list of the worst albums of all time, and the reworking of the Public Enemy track is trotted out every year by various magazines, short on ideas and eager to look shareable on social media, as the worst cover version ever. But is it really? What's certain is that 'covering', with such a light touch and within a celebratory project, what is in fact a fierce indictment of the American 911 emergency system, seen as a symbol of institutional indifference towards the Black community, wasn't a particularly smart move. In fact, Duran's choice is focused on the groove, on the musical energy the track contains, and the reinterpretation is, as already mentioned, surprising to say the least, unusual. Elsewhere, among the other tributes, there's worse, but something is done very well and sounds truly Duran-esque, like “Perfect Day”, “Lay Lady Lay” or even the Costello track. “White Lines” itself, which over time became a real nightmare for thehardcore fan, works well in the thick of the '90s.

 

The album is boycotted by the media, and certainly not adored by fans (number 12 in England, 19 in America), triggering a new crisis that this time seems irreversible. Duran, however, promote it with a series of dates around the States that rank among the best of their decades-long career (spectacular in this respect is a slowed-down electro-country-western version of “Girls On Film” which suddenly turns into Kraftwerk's “The Model”).

 

John Taylor, meanwhile, is adrift: he finally becomes aware of it and checks himself into rehab. Once back on his feet, he forms a band with Steve Jones, Duff and Matt Sorum called Gunners the Neurotic Outsiders, complete with an album produced by talking head Jerry Harrison, releases a solo work with dark-punk shades, gets clean and jumps off the Duran ship during the recording of the new record.

The three survivors look each other in the eye, toss most of the already-finished work in the bin and start over from scratch. Good move. But the EMI top brass have their calculators at the ready and intend to call the shots, whether the band likes it or not. At the start of spring 1997 the single “Out Of My Mind” is released, a semi-electronic ballad, epically gothic, with cadences Depeche Mode-esque, included on the soundtrack of “The Saint”, the film adaptation of the adventures that kept a pre-007 Roger Moore busy back in the 60s. The synth of Rhodes make themselves felt again as they hadn't in almost ten years, Cuccurullo etches things in with discretion, Simon sings with great melodic flair over a thoroughly nimble rhythm section. But the song, accompanied by a rather leaden film clip, fails to take off.

 

At the start of autumn 1997, Duran Duran arrive on the Japanese and North American markets with Medazzaland, their ninth studio album and, probably, the most unsettled of their career. The band emerges battered from the artistic and image-related failure of Thank You, Simon Le Bon is going through an unprecedented creative block, John Taylor leaves the group, and Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo find themselves having to imagine what Duran Duran can even be without one of the five men who had built its original sound. 

Even the title seems to tell the story. Medazzaland is the imaginary land into which Simon Le Bon plunges after a dental appointment under the effect of midazolam, a kind of pharmacological limbo in which the singer loses the memory of the preceding hours. Nick Rhodes turns that episode into a perfect metaphor: Medazzaland becomes a mental place where you forget what you once were, at the very moment the band no longer knows for certain what it will become. The track that opens the album, with Rhodes himself on spoken vocals, is something almost unique in Duran Duran's history: a deep, alienating voice, suspended over electronics, noise, and a retro-sci-fi soundscape. Rhodes would later reveal that the lyrics were also an ironic reflection on Simon's own block, on the difficulty of finding words once a formula that had worked for years had suddenly run dry.

Behind that hallucinated surface, Medazzaland remains deeply Duran Duran. Rhodes's keyboards return to centre stage, often more prominent than the guitars; Cuccurullo responds with treated, distorted, filtered instruments, layered over electronic backing tracks to the point where it becomes almost impossible to tell where the keyboard ends and the guitar begins. It's a weave in which pop, new wave, industrial, funk, electronica, alternative rock, trip-hop and eastern touches coexist without asking permission.

It's not quite electroclash proper yet, a term that would belong mostly to the following era, but it's certainly one of the records that anticipate that sensibility: the taste for the synthetic, for artificial surfaces, for the contrast between pop and noise, for the recovery of futuristic and decadent aesthetics. In this sense, Medazzaland seems to look further ahead than its releases year would suggest. It's no coincidence that, twenty years later, Duran Duran's own official website would point out how natural that combination of melody and dissonance now appears in a musical landscape far more freed from genre classification.

"Big Bang Generation" is the first real assault. The rhythm is contagious, but not clean-cut: Rhodes and Cuccurullo seem to be constantly fighting over space, layering keyboards, guitars, bass (the last one recorded by Taylor, along with the one on the title track) and programming into an electronic-rock magma that still carries Duran Duran's old dance DNA inside it, but treats it with an almost industrial harshness. It's one of the moments where the band best manages to turn its old melodic vocation into something contemporary.

"Electric Barbarella" pushes the process into a more immediately pop form. It's a song built on an ironically perverse idea: a robot woman, a technological creature who can become the surrogate for a human relationship. Behind the sexy, playful surface, though, lies a much darker theme: loneliness, and the way technology can anaesthetise relationships. Rhodes himself has described it as a reflection on the growing technologisation of human relationships.

Musically it's one of the tracks closest to Duran Duran tradition: pulsing bass, dancefloor rhythm, instant melody, a memorable chorus. But Cuccurullo keeps short-circuiting that perfection with a noisy, cutting guitar, almost a blade slicing through the song's polished surface. It's precisely this contrast that makes it representative of Medazzaland: the band hands the audience a pop song and then immediately sabotages it.

Even the story of the single perfectly captures the era. "Electric Barbarella" was one of the first songs commercially distributed via paid digital download, well before the iTunes era. The choice to experiment with digital distribution, however, ends up creating further commercial problems, while Ellen von Unwerth's video, with its robotic sex doll, gets censored. After the provocation comes "Out of My Mind", and here the record's temperature changes completely. It's one of the most convincing demonstrations of how Medazzaland manages to preserve Duran Duran's great speciality, namely the ability to turn a ballad into a landscape. "Who Do You Think You Are?" returns instead to a more classic setup, but with much heavier rock weight. It's an aggressive ballad, carried by more prominent guitars and a particularly forceful Le Bon. Then comes "Silva Halo", and the record loses itself again. It's short, electronic, almost a sonic miniature. It doesn't chase a chorus and doesn't seem interested in explaining itself. Le Bon's voice, spoken and dark, becomes part of the environment rather than its centre. It's one of the episodes that explain why Medazzaland can still divide opinion today: for every moment where the band nails the fusion of experimentation and song, there's another where it deliberately chooses to abandon the song altogether.

“Be My Icon”, on the other hand, is one of the tracks where the record's nervy rock side comes through most clearly. It's one of the last songs John Taylor was involved in, and it retains some of the physical tension of his final period in the band. The track seems to almost thrive on an internal friction: electronics, guitar and rhythm keep pushing against each other, creating a feverish, restless form of synthetic rock.

But it's with “Buried in the Sand” that the band's private story enters the music directly. Nick Rhodes has explained that the song represents his farewell to John Taylor: the image of the bassist “buried in the sand” comes from the feeling of someone who has made a final decision and no longer wants to listen to those trying to hold him back. Around it, Eastern touches take on a particular meaning. The percussion, the exotic elements, the almost ritualistic atmosphere and the structure, devoid of a traditional chorus, make the song something quite different from a simple breakup ballad. It's one of the points where Medazzaland feels closest to that cosmopolitan vocation which had always been a key part of Duran Duran's identity.

From “Michael You've Got A Lot To Answer For” onward, the record enters its deepest territory. The song was written by Simon Le Bon for Michael Hutchence, whom he knew and spent a lot of time with during the Thank You years. It's not simply an accusation levelled at a self-destructive singer: it is, above all, a song of affection, almost a letter to a friend. Nick Rhodes has called it a kind of love song for Hutchence, and has pointed out the almost folk-like simplicity of the composition, comparing it in spirit to the tradition of Simon & Garfunkel.

The track's near-acoustic elegance allows Le Bon a hushed vocal, almost a lullaby. Rhodes steps in with discretion, and the whole song feels suspended in air. Cuccurullo skilfully dominates the wall of arpeggios and closes with chords deliberately designed to evoke the sound of Tibetan bells. Michael Hutchence would die in November 1997, barely a month after the releases of Medazzaland. From that moment on, the song inevitably takes on a different meaning and becomes one of the album's most painful documents. Duran Duran would never perform it again.

“Midnight Sun” pushes that melancholy even further. It's probably the point where the album reaches its most fully realised form. The song carries something of early Duran Duran, but filtered through fifteen years of experience: the romanticism is still there, but it no longer has any of the innocence of “Save A Prayer” — it sounds almost spectral. Rhodes's keyboards take on an orchestral function, Cuccurullo's guitars become part of the atmosphere, and Simon sings as if arriving from very far away. The Eastern element, once again, isn't decorative: it serves to estrange a feeling that would otherwise be instantly recognisable. The result is a ballad that feels simultaneously ancient and futuristic. It's as if the album were balanced between urban madness and bucolic calm: Medazzaland can move from digital noise to quiet contemplation without losing its identity.

The presence of death runs through the entire album. “Buried in the Sand” is about the loss of John Taylor within the band; “Michael You've Got A Lot To Answer For” retrospectively takes on the meaning of the loss of Hutchence; “So Long Suicide” instead looks at the death of Kurt Cobain. Nick Rhodes has recalled how deeply that tragic event affected Simon, who saw him as one of the few contemporary songwriters truly capable of changing the language of rock. “So Long Suicide” responds to that death in a completely different register: it's a brash, nervy, almost punk song, in which the band seems to want to fight off melancholy through rock's physical energy. Here too Cuccurullo is essential: his guitars give the track a violence that doesn't belong to the more traditional Duran Duran. And then, suddenly, the track settles down. As if, after venting all that rage, nothing were left but silence.

The closing track, “Undergoing Treatment”, is perhaps the most emblematic of the whole project. It sounds like a small trip-hop experiment, built on acoustic guitars, electronics and a deliberately lopsided structure. Simon recites what seems like an ironic nursery rhyme, but beneath the humour lies the awareness of a band afraid it has become irrelevant. Classic Pop magazine compared the track to Beck's Odelay, but Rhodes has also pointed to another, far less obvious influence: George Martin's orchestral arrangements for the Beatles.

It's the perfect ending, because Medazzaland finishes exactly where it began: with the question of identity. Who are Duran Duran now? What's left when one of the Taylors leaves, when Simon can no longer write, when pop no longer seems to be waiting for you, and when even your own record label doesn't quite know what to do with you? The great contradiction of Medazzaland is that musically it sounds freer precisely at the moment when the band is at its most fragile. The group no longer has John Taylor's bass as a constant presence, and it shows: the sound is less warm, less physical, more reliant on electronics and on the layering of Cuccurullo and Rhodes. The production, handled partly by the TV Mania camp and by Anthony J. Resta, helps create that particular surface, sometimes fascinating, sometimes opaque. The production can come across as murky, lacking definition. Its eccentricity also arrives at the worst possible moment. 1997 is the year of Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, rapidly evolving electronic music and an increasingly dominant alternative culture. Duran Duran have absolutely no intention of competing on Britpop's turf. Rhodes says so plainly: that scene doesn't interest him; the influences he's paying closer attention to are more along the lines of Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, the Beatles, Sparks, as well as hip-hop and R&B.

The problem is that the late-'90s market isn't necessarily ready for a record like this. The label situation makes everything worse: Medazzaland doesn't get a normal UK or European releases. The relationship with EMI deteriorates, and the band finds itself in a confused commercial position right as it's trying to experiment with digital distribution. As if the group were trying to speak to the future at a moment when the future doesn't seem to have any need for Duran Duran. 

The three of them believe in it wholeheartedly and promote the work with an American tour, the most experimental run of shows Duran Duran ever put on: it opens with a fragment taken from the avant-garde instrumental project Tv Mania, born from the mind of Cuccurullo-Rhodes and developed mainly between 1995 and 1996, whose heart is Bored with Prozac and the Internet?, a visionary concept album imagining a family willing to sacrifice its own freedom to gain fame, technology and visibility through a kind of reality show ahead of its time. Musically, Rhodes and Cuccurullo build a fragmented, alienating electronic sound made of loops, TV samples, digital rhythms and dialogue, a sort of soundtrack for the imminent society of image and connection. A project that remained unreleased for years, so much so that the master tapes were thought lost, before being rediscovered by Rhodes and released in 2013. Among the tracks of the new setlist, the classics mingle with songs always considered minor, like the b-sides "Sekret October", extensively reworked and extended.

They make their debut in Los Angeles, taking the stage alongside a series of North American bands who had simultaneously become the stars of a tribute album spanning punk, rock, ska and dark. Among them are also the celebrated Deftones. But the album fails to take off, and Emi decides not to promote it, pushing back its releases in the rest of the world until ultimately cancelling it altogether. The trio, offended, breaks the contract and carries on performing without the backing of a label. 

 

Throughout 1998 too, the band alternates between periods of stasis and shows across American stages. Meanwhile, interest in the Duran name seems to have been reignited all around them, not so much among listeners as among colleagues of the new generation: the belated wave begins of britpoppers Mansun, who proclaim themselves the new Duran; the nu metal scene puts itself forward as a bulwark for restoring the band's important influence Duran-esque on today's rock scene, with Jonathan Davis of Korn shouting his love for the Fabulous Five, or Thor, as it were, from the rooftops, Moby who extols the therapeutic qualities of "Save A Prayer", while Simon Le Bon takes the stage with the Smashing Pumpkins in "Adore"-style outfits paying tribute to him revisiting “Nightboat” together.

 

Towards the end of the year, Emi releases Greatest, also bringing the single "Electric Barbarella" to European shops. The album does well and will return to the charts several times over the following seasons. The three celebrate its success by playing in England at the vast Earl's Court theatre in London. In 1999, talk begins of a new record and of a label able to releases it. The best offer appears to come from Disney and its record label, Hollywood Records. And across endless concerts, the trio, backed by a new rhythm section, begins to showcase unreleased material. At the dawn of the new century, the countdownbegins, amid general indifference, it must be said. In May, the first single is released, "Somebody Else Not Me". It's a ballad, stripped of the electronic verve of the recent past, entirely in Cuccurullo's hands. It's also the opening track of the album, Pop Trash, released through Edel distribution the following month.

 

 

Pop Trash, released on June 19, 2000, is one of the strangest and most misunderstood albums in the Duran Duran catalogue. It comes after the earthquake of Medazzaland, but instead of further pursuing its digital, industrial aesthetic, it almost seems to move in the opposite direction, returning to the roots of the music that had shaped Nick Rhodes, above all the glam and sophisticated rock of the mid-Seventies. Bowie, Sparks, Cockney Rebel are the references cited by the keyboardist; and the project is entrusted, not by chance, to Ken Scott, the engineer-producer who had worked with Bowie and Elton John, with the aim of achieving an organic, warm, physical sound, built around vintage amplifiers and guitars, and period microphones. The early versions are so deeply immersed in that sonic quest that, according to Rhodes, they no longer simply sounded influenced by the Seventies: "They sounded as if they'd been recorded in the Seventies". The band therefore decides to modernize them and hands over much of the mixing to Chris Lord-Alge. And so, from the very first listen, the record creates conflicting impressions: it isn't a true retro album, yet it contains no shortage of elements recalling a sound that could date back to 1974-75. Cuccurullo's guitars gain weight and presence, the drums have a more organic feel, and the string and piano arrangements hark back to orchestral pop and rock glam, while Rhodes' analog synthesizers are no longer tools for building an electronic future, as they might have appeared at other points in the band's history, but become part of a deliberately vintage palette.

Is Pop Trash, then, a counter-response to Medazzaland? Without a doubt, the album seems to look backward to recover the physicality of the song, the band and the recording studio. It's a kind of “imaginary Seventies”. Nick Rhodes has explicitly confirmed that direction: the initial idea was to build the sound around mid-Seventies glam, but without deliberately writing songs “in the style” of that period. The nostalgia, then, was meant to come through above all in the tone, the recording and the production, not through simple imitation of Bowie's songs or the other reference points. Confirmation comes especially from certain tracks that seem to contain genuine glam ghosts. “The Sun Doesn't Shine Forever”, in particular, has that melancholy theatricality, that interplay of guitar, voice and arrangement that can evoke the world of Bowie and Mick Ronson.

The album is also run through by a second spirit, the one Rhodes describes as more ‘crazy, pop, psychedelic’. “Lava Lamp” carries psychedelic overtones but tries to update them, “Hallucinating Elvis” is almost indefinable in its sheer oddness and surreality, “Mars Meets Venus” sounds like an Happy Mondays track, except it's as if Shaun Ryder & co. stayed sharply focused on a clear goal. “Pop Trash Movie”, originally written for the Blondie reunion, has a showy, epic, orchestral glam sweep, and pairs well with “Lady Xanax” and its triumphant crescendo. The beautiful “Starting to Remember” sounds more subdued, a largely acoustic moment that uses rhythmic irregularities to avoid falling into the overly classic. Pop Trash sets out to depict the point where the two eras meet best: old-school glamour and the new culture of celebrity, a universe in which “pop” and “trash” coexist daily in the media. Hence, too, the kitsch-glam aesthetic of the whole project.

Pop Trash, however, is also the product of a band in the throes of an identity crisis. It's Duran Duran's first and only album without John Taylor, and Simon Le Bon is going through a serious period of creative block. Rhodes and Cuccurullo therefore end up taking on a much greater share of the writing. An internal fragility that also helps explain the album's uneven nature. The record doesn't have the near-programmatic unity of Medazzaland: it's more a collection of different worlds, alternating melancholy ballads, glam-rock, psychedelia, orchestral pop, electronics and even hard rock (the coda of “Last Day on Earth”, which nonetheless offers a chorus fit for a film soundtrack, maybe a James Bond one…). A record somehow suspended in time: retro enough to feel out of step with its era, contemporary enough not to be a true Seventies record. What if it's their Britpop album (as Simon sings, dragging out his words on “Playing With The Uranium”…)? Duran Duran certainly never sounded as English as they did that summer of 2000. The commercial results, however, are disastrous. The tour, on the other hand, works, and keeps the band busy until spring 2001. By the time that run ends, with a string of shows in Japan, the pop world is already aware of rumours that have begun circulating online for some days: the original Duran Duran line-up is ready to reunite. 

Towards the end of 2000, the band terminates its contract with Hollywood Records. A few weeks later, in Los Angeles, Le Bon runs into John Taylor. The singer isn't having fun anymore, doesn't feel involved in the brand any longer, and perhaps is looking for reassurance from the old friend who had fled almost five years earlier. It doesn't take long for the idea of a reunion to take off, but here we're talking about doing things seriously, about putting back together the band that vanished in 1985, not the day before yesterday — something that perhaps nobody expects anymore, after rumors and a few hints dropped by imaginative media years before. But Duran Duran are the kind of guys who love going against the grain, fans of the surprise effect. Let's see if Nick feels the same way (Rhodes didn't take his childhood friend's departure well at all; some say he considered it a betrayal; in short, he's offended). Nick decides a dinner won't hurt anyone. By the second course, word has it the three agreed to reunite the band. Three problems: convincing Roger and Andy, who no one has seen in years, and figuring out what to do about Cuccurullo. Cuccurullo who?!

 

 

John takes care of making the necessary calls to the other two Taylors, Simon writes the resignation letter for Warren. Roger Taylor takes a day to think it over but then accepts; Andy, who had in the meantime lent his guitar and his verve to, among others, Rod Stewart, to Then Jerico, to Love & Money, but also to the hard rock of Thunder and the heavy sound of Scottish band Almighty, embraces the idea. Zappa's former guitarist, incredulous and rather angry, gets axed via letter. The three Taylor 'brothers', back at base, shut themselves away in the studio to rediscover their lost instrumental chemistry. In spring they're joined by Le Bon and Rhodes, and they all go to stay in a house in Ibiza: the scent of the sea, the taste of salt, hints of club music, camaraderie wanted. Theaffair works, and they start writing something new, full of optimism that nevertheless crashes against 9/11; they start again, but with a melancholy that somehow shapes the new material. There's a problem, though: there's no record label backing them. Let's be honest: nostalgia is all well and good, but who's going to be interested in a name tied to the glories of an almost distant past? While waiting for something to move, the reformed Duran Duran keep busy, but without showing themselves much; perhaps not even they are sure, in case someone feels like raising their voice too loudly… So what do they do over the course of 2002? They rehearse and write. One thing is clear, or rather it will become clear a few months later, when the first truths are gathered by the media: they don't want to be the protagonists of a mere nostalgia operation; if they're going to comeback, they have to do it with new material (it will later emerge that John had no intention whatsoever of writing unreleased material, he wanted to go straight on tour, but that he met the firm opposition of Andy and Nick, the devil and holy water combined, but there you go…). Meanwhile, Rhodes has decided that the start of the new millennium should be marked by surprise reunions, and so he ends up with Stephen Duffy too, picking back up the first songs written back when Duran Duran weren't yet Duran Duran, but were about to be. The two of them re-record them, with strictly 1978-era instrumentation, and releases the album "Dark Circles" credited to The Devils. Oh?! So, people wonder around, were Duran Duran new wave?!?! Crazy and sensational revelations at the start of this century, and of this millennium too. The power of astral alignments. In 2003, Nick Rhodes definitively turns into the ubiquitous man and produces the new album by the Dandy Warhols, “Welcome To The Monkey House", a declared tribute to the romantic-era Duran Duran. He gets his hands on it together with Tony Visconti and even throws in some mini Moog sequences. But since we're still talking about Duran Duran, the record, which has some good numbers and is even fun and occasionally charming, doesn't win over critics, doesn't hook the public, and even gets rejected by the Dandys themselves, who had in the meantime convinced themselves they were giants of pop-rock history.

In June, surprisingly, the five of them go on tour: about ten dates in Japan, with tickets selling out in a flash. Sold out everywhere. They move on to the States, another string of shows, among which the gig at the Roxy in Los Angeles stands out, the famous venue invaded by stars curious about the unexpected comeback: you can spot Nicholas Cage, Beck, Gwen Stefani and his wife, Moby, Trent Reznor…

In the fall, appearances at American festivals follow one after another. Trophies and career awards on live TV come too. In short, the promotional machine has kicked into gear. At the end of the year they announce an actual English tour to be held the following spring. They put the first three or four shows on sale and get a positive response. In the end the tour expands into 17 dates, five of them at Wembley Arena in London, for a total of 250,000 tickets sold. The run opens in early April and wraps up in the first days of the following month. European audiences find themselves face to face with the "real" Duran Duran 20 years on, tackling their classic repertoire alongside new songs that sound promising. The shows are flawless, enthusiasm is through the roof, the only thing missing is a record label. That arrives once the album is ready, and it's Sony.

 

The record contains 12 tracks, is titled Astronaut and is frankly disappointing, a classic missed opportunity. What could you expect from the return of the legendary, if controversial, quintet? At the very least the refresh of a sound that, in the end, had defined an era and spawned countless imitators (it was fairly obvious that out of the endless legions of fans would come artists, performers, solo acts and bands, and not just hairdressers or belt and jeans salesmen).

The album, which gets off to a bad start right from itsartwork, is released in an era that has decisively rediscovered and embraced synthetic sounds, danceable rhythms, the chorus irresistible, the swagger fashion, the heroic, flirtatious poses (just think of the Killers, instantly adored too for the quiff and the pouting of Brandon Flowers, American yet so British, the media and commercial peak of a new post-punk movement). Instead, the resurrected Duran Duran decide to rely on a sound that gets labeled urban, a mix of pop, r&b, new electro dance, with the addition of a few ballads and maybe even a sprinkle of alternative rock, but without overdoing it, all handled together with a slew of producer and sound engineers, among whom Don Gilmore stands out, who became famous for producing the Linkin Park, in particular Hybrid Theory (2000) and Meteora (2003), two of the albums that had redefined mainstream rock, mainstream, but also Good Charlotte and Avril Lavigne, and Dallas Austin, coming from American r&b/pop, whose breakthrough had arrived with Boyz II Men and above all with TLC, for whom he had produced much of their early work and the huge hit Creep; he had then worked with Madonna, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Usher, Santana, Macy Gray, Shakira, as well as the evergreen Nile Rodgers, brought on board right away but just as quickly let go. What comes out of it is an album with no identity, a hodgepodge of genres in which the Duran-esque flavours surface only now and then, a mixed bag of songs ranging from decent to honestly awful, pure exercises in style put together by protagonists who move like extras, perhaps undecided, maybe underprepared for the task despite decades of experience, afraid of not pulling it off, even too careful not to tread on the wishes of their fellow travellers and of the market. Speaking of which: what market? That of the nostalgics, whom they nevertheless try to win over with an album that wants to ride new trends without really digging into them, staying on the surface, like fashion followers who are nonetheless well into their forties. They make their opening move with the ugliest single of their career, titled "Sunrise" ('we needed an anthem,' Andy Taylor states...), accompanied by a video that makes things even worse; and yet they're right: it's a hit, at least in Europe, becoming the soundtrack to some ad campaigns, a fitting fate after all. It must be said that they don't do any worse afterwards, and indeed, here and there they manage to pull out some pleasant moments, like the two dynamically shaped ballads "Chains" and "Finest Hour", as well as the melancholy melody of "Point Of No Return" (which hides a super funky bassline underneath). And even the title track sounds bizarre within an otherwise seemingly straightforward track list. The second single, "What Happens Tommorrow", an alternative pop number with a guitar that wants to be incisive, is well put together and could even become a hit, perhaps it has what it takes, but in the end it sounds repetitive and over the years will slip into oblivion. The two summery funk-dance numbers, "Nice" and "Taste The Summer", are predictable and even a bit crass. Finally comes "Still Breathing", a track that tries to create a dramatic, anguished atmosphere, but it's inconclusive, boring and poorly developed; the classic forced song. Astronaut is the least successful album of Duran Duran's career, and could even be the worst if it weren't for Liberty. A real shame, given the opportunity handed to them by fate (few bands get to find themselves still alive and well after almost two decades). The OndaRock review of the time was affectionate, today the verdict is calmly a failing grade (a very affectionate 5...)

 

The public, however, responds well: it doesn't flock to it en masse, but the album immediately hits number three in England, stalls just short of the top 15 in America, but overall ranks among the top ten when you factor in charts from around the world. A good run that lasts about a month. Then the album gets shelved. It will go on to sell a little over a million copies in total, not bad given the more recent successes, but far from the glories of the golden age. People preferred Greatest, which became a million-selling chart-topper seven years after its releases. The following tour, which kicked off at the start of 2005, was instead a massive success. Half a million tickets sold right away for the American arena dates, with a similar outcome during the European leg. Then came the US again, South America, Japan, and the year closed back home, with multiple shows including the NEC in Birmingham, the Manchester Arena and London's Earl's Court, while record shops received the DVD with accompanying album chronicling the spring 2004 UK tour.

 

 

2006 opened with the band performing as musical guests at the Turin Winter Olympics, already focused on the new album. To work out their first ideas, the band packed their bags and moved into the home of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf! Yes indeed, specifically to the couple's Round Hill Estate in Tiburon, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The early signs seemed encouraging: word was that Duran Duran had taken note of the considerable buzz building around post-punk and had decided to update their own history, not someone else's. So said Roger Taylor, who spoke of greater self-awareness, of a record that this time would genuinely honour its own influences — decadent pop, disco-funk and Kraftwerk — without sounding dated. Things moved so quickly that the new material, already titled Reportage, was presented to the record label, which however didn't seem to like it. Something had to be fixed. John Taylor, who had taken it upon himself to produce the record, thought about bringing in Youth, none other than the Killing Joke bassist, who agreed, joined them and was impressed by the material, but also witnessed the unexpected crisis that erupted within the band: in short, Andy Taylor was at loggerheads with his bandmates, unhappy with John Taylor's role (and he would say so in no uncertain terms in his autobiography two years later: "John thinks he's a good producer, but he isn't"). Youth invited them to relocate to his recording studio in Spain for the autumn season. Duran Duran still manage to play a charity event in Monte Carlo and that would be Andy's last appearance, as he was kicked out (it's the same guitarist who revealed this, and rumour has it he had discovered the band's intention to collaborate with Justin Timberlake, which he didn't approve of). The Reportage project was scrapped, and so was the collaboration with Youth. With Sony's eager backing, they got Timberlake's number from Timbaland and, without quite realising it, gave birth to one of the most controversial projects in their history, among the most reviled by their own fans: Red Carpet Massacre, the forbidden dream of Timbaland, the dance-hip-hop innovator not averse to a pop hook; something of a Nile Rodgers for the 2000s (but the Duran Duran audience — not just the fans, but the wider circle of sympathisers too — didn't know him, believed that anything bordering on rap was garbage, put two and two together and decided to reject the partnership). As it happens, Timbaland mostly supervised, while production was actually handled by his right-hand man Danja. And those hip-hop flavours? They could be seen and judged as a convenient excuse to return to the realm of club, thehigh energy revamped, well aware that the roots of modern R&B owe no small debt toelectro-synth of Moroder-esque memory. Timberlake-Timbaland as the 21st-century depiction of Jackson-Jones (between 2003 and 2007 it really did seem that way). Red Carpet Massacre, which ironically lashes out at the futile life of the starlette media, moves along production lines that push toward a magmatic yet lucid mix, a flow of cold lava where the bass feels like a synthline, the drums are filtered and swirl from a sound reminiscent of tin cans to muffled, atmospheric percussion. Non-classically Rhodes-ian keyboards dominate, keeping the rhythms urgent even when the individual track wouldn't necessarily push toward it dancefloor.

There's a risk, always calculator in hand, trying to make the numbers add up with a catchy but forgettable single (the mild and predictable "Falling Down"). It's the only concession.

Twelve tracks, twelve of them, masked yet Duran-esque to the core, new romantic Europeanist scarred with sweetness and balance by the noises of the new metropolis. It's as if John and Nick had gone back to their bedroom plastered with posters: there are the Buggles more cartoon than ever ("Tricked Out", "Zoom In"), the Ultravox (theopening of the closing "Last Man Standing", with the moog romantically peeking through), the Bowie electro-white-soul (“Dirty Great Monster” with its sickly, piercing sax), updated euro-disco (“Skin Divers”, “Tempted”, the breaks sleepwalking track that enriches “Nite-Runner”), there are the semi-acoustic echoes of “Rio” (“Box Full O' Honey”, “She's Too Much”) and the drive of “Careless Memories” (“Red Carpet Massacre”), there's old-school art-pop dance that turns epic and surging (theopening “The Valley” with a stunning bass solo slap track).

In short, it's Duran Duran, with all their baggage of memories, but without nostalgia. Riding a sound that's finally cohesive, leaning dark, coloring a songwriting straightforward album. Commercially the album does very poorly, while the tour sees the band take risks for the last time in their career: an adventurous setlist, opening the first part with the new album, then launching into a completely electro, with Duran Duran positioned in Kraftwerk style, and finally a third part with a best of (from that point on, or rather from the following tour onward, every show will just become a best of). At the start of summer 2008 they meet Mark Ronson, the 'old' Duran heart, as well as producer riding high, especially thanks to the work he's doing for Amy Winehouse; they decide to start a collaboration, and the first step è a surprising performance at Le Cigale in Paris, on the evening of July 2nd, with a setlist made up of medley interwoven tracks that aren't limited to the band's own songs, but also include compositions by Blur, The Smiths, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Prince and a fine orchestral mix of James Bond soundtracks. The event goes so well that it's repeated at a couple of festivals, eventually leading to the production of the new album, released right before Christmas 2010.

 

 

All You Need Is Now arrives in stores about six years behind schedule: it's effectively the album the reunited five should have released before getting lost in space… The strategy behind it is simple: 'let's make a record that's not by Duran Duran but in the style of Duran Duran' – the classic ones, the 1981-85 vintage, as Ronson the fan would have advised. Said and done. The ex-Fab Five, by then Four, quote themselves for the first time, repeatedly glance in the rearview mirror and try to close yet another circle that seemed endless. Originally released on the self-run label Tape Modern in a digital-only format, All You Need Is Now is a practically perfect product, an almost calligraphic copy of the most beloved, most dreamed-of, and ultimately most respected Duran Duran. Everything built just right, everything played with an almost exaggerated youthful spirit. Backing it all is a trendy, pretentious, very shrewd producer, as well as an extremely skilled builder of perfectly oiled machines. It's he who pushes the return to old shores, the embrace of instrumentation and performance techniques vintage made up of synth analog synths, rubbery basses, dry snares and toms round, well-tuned toms. Plus a touch of guitar, funky and allusive, seasoning and embellishing everything. 

La title track a distorted, almost angry part, with dirty, dominant keyboards, almost a propitiatory verse for a classic choral chorus, the kind that gets stamped on your forehead and never lets go. But it's just a taste, because then comes the charge of electro "Blame The Machines", with an ultra-classic nasal vocal, heroic choirs lifted from Blitz Night, decadent rhymes citing the deeds of ancient heroes; a dancing swagger in the foreground that reaches its peak in "Being Followed", the apotheosis of the dance song 1979-1983, with a pulsing bass, mysterious vocals, guitar halfway between a Bond theme and the forest curiana, a full-throated chorus that rewrites the Blondie most atomic. A moment to catch your breath with the soft semi-ballad "Leave A Light On", with opening Visage-style keyboard pattern and you realize the rhythmic structure never lets go of the bone, even when the dance steps become more cadenced. John and Roger rediscover the ancient funk-punk fire, and here they are enjoying the catwalk of "Safe (In The Heat Of The Moment)", with scissor sister Anna Matronic holding forth perfectly in time, in the best imitation of the super-classic “Rapture”. And then again, "Girl Panic!", with frenzied bass slap and kick-drum interplay, panic-inducing indeed, while Le Bon screams "with all the voices in my head the clever words I never said of all the things to happen…". "The Man Who Stole The Leopard" and the atmosphere turns glacial yet sensual, with the synth hissing Rolands of Mr. Rhodes, blatant echoes of "The Chauffeur" and "Tel Aviv", sung distant, hazy, misty, the countermelody of Kelis in robotic-leopard mode, sharp, insinuating, always on the leash, strings in abundance arranged and conducted by Owen Pallett, sinister passages broken up by the celebrated John&Roger duo, bass and drums rounded in the style of "The Seventh Stranger", ending with a vinyl crackle, a spoken voice and sample captured straight out of Nino Rota's score for "Rocco and the suoi fratelli".

For fans, an unexpected treat. The ending hedges its bets, thanks to another pop dance number, "Runway Runaway", with the welcome guitar flourishes of Dom Brown, stand-in for the ever-missed Andy Taylor, and the Tarzan boy -style screams with Le Bon muted in the manner of new romantic, and the almost Prokofiev-like “Before The Rain”, a spectral, nostalgia-laden closer. The physical version was released on the first day of spring 2011 (exactly ten years after the reunion) and contains two other excellent songs high-energy namely “Too Bad You’re So Beautiful” and “Other People’s Lives”, agitated, adrenaline-fuelled pop with the band’s trademark rhythm section front and centre, and on a decent ballad, “Mediterranea”, with a retro flavour. The public responds well, and Duran reward them with yet another world tour, among whose dates there also crops up “Unstaged”, the partnership close with the director David Lynch for a memorable evening staged in a Los Angeles theatre: a concert broadcast live worldwide via the internet, sponsored by American Express, which shows the band in dazzling form in a performance enriched by live visual contributions from the director of “Wild At Heart”.

 

What remains of an album so desperately awaited, made with all the right credentials, celebrated with even unexpected and highly prestigious events? Little, in the minds of its protagonists, who over the following fifteen years have practically forgotten it. One suspects they don't particularly love it, that they treat it not quite as a debt paid off, but certainly with a degree of detachment. All You Need Is Now, highly praised at the time on these very pages, remains a fine toy with no real weak points in terms of songwriting and production, but it is in fact a copy of the Duran that once were, an updated snapshot of the past, something not especially stimulating for people who have always tried to tread different paths, even making some disastrous missteps along the way, it must be said. Here everything runs smoothly - perhaps too smoothly.

 

 

At the end of the endless round of touring, the band's characteristic restlessness resurfaces. Ronson is confirmed for the new recordings, who, owing to the producer's typically heavy workload à-la pageshe's often absent, and not infrequently. The Duran take advantage and shake things up: they bring in Mr. Hudsona Brit struck by lightning on the road toelectro American-flavored r'n'b (the Kanye West from "808's Heartbreak”). Ronson will still be on board, and with him comes the ever-present Nile Rodgers, fresh off his suddenly multi-million-selling collaboration with Daft PunkSome legitimate doubts about how genuine this change of pace really is also stem from the signing of the new contract with Warner Bros, which calls for some chart-friendly suggestions — and those indeed arrive courtesy of the Chic mastermind: at the start of summer 2015, radio and the web begin spreading the notes of the first single, “Pressure Off”. The track is a tasty, unleashed and spotless funky pop number, enriched by the voice of Janélle Monae.

 

After four further summer previews, the new releases hits stores toward the end of the second week of September: it's titled Paper Gods, and it's a record with which the four try to engage with contemporary pop without giving up their own identity. The result is hybrid: funk, disco, synth-pop, electronica, art-pop and... quite a lot of EDM, the latter element being something that goes down badly with the large legion of fans. The central theme is the fragility of fame and image: the “paper gods” are celebrities, money, success and the idols built by pop culture. It's a record that alternates lightness and darkness, dancefloor and introspection, so it essentially moves along the coordinates typical of Duran Duran. But it's also a messy, chaotic work, one that piles up a few too many elements and risks not developing them properly; some might call it superficial. John Taylor lets slip a small truth during the promo days: “I'm interested in the music dominating the charts today, and every time I find myself thinking there's a lack of an effective bassline”; it's not an accusation against the 2015 record industry, but rather an acknowledgment. Suggestive is theopening title track, with an guitar Eno-esque recited by Mr. Hudson, an ambitious construction, marked by sounds too inclined toward the contemporary (and therefore quick to date) and a coda that skillfully conceals the first EDM temptations; which reveals itself right away in the carnivalesque ballroom stomp of “Last Night In The City”, four-on-the-floor beat and a piercing duet between Le Bon and KieszaSimon's voice appears extremely out front, almost exaggerated and even disconnected, to the point that it feels like listening to a solo album by a singer complete with supporting bandan example, perhaps the most glaring one in this case, can be found within the score of a ballad a really badly written "What Are The Chances", developed even worse once it lands on a chorus effective, but the ultimate pulpit for Le Bon's vocals, even on the occasions when the song will be performed live. There's plenty of filler, like the umpteenth funk workout "Butterfly Girl", the blatantly brash dance number "Dancephobia", complete with an inexplicable cameo from Lindsay Lohan, the wishy-washy "Change The Skyline" with Jonas Bjerre of Mew, a pop song that's a bit dance, a bit quirky, a bit... you can't quite tell where it's going, the swaggering air sixties of "Sunset Garage". The album picks itself back up thanks to a few gems, like "Face For Today", convincing in its lyrics and in a sonic delivery that isn't held back by the aforementioned production choices, a track with a rhythmic-melodic crescendo, a successful tribute to the band's own history, which finds worthy company also in "Planet Roaring" and "Valentine Stones", with fairly vivid post-punk echoes, galvanizing rides, ambiguously successful dance moves, but also in the more contemporary "Northern Lights", electro art pop arranged with real clarity. Also evocative, though weighed down by the usual sonic issues, are "Only In Dreams", with a spot-on, aggressive chorus, and "Universe Alone", built by Nick Rhodes and Mr. Hudson as a kind of journey toward the end of the universe. The stated inspiration is Frank Sinatra's "My Way": the reckoning of a life is taken from the individual dimension to the cosmic one. Everywhere you hear the guitar of John Frusciante, mutant-like, often far removed from its classic patterns. Nick Rhodes reveals the common thread with Red Carpet Massacre, but Paper Gods  it lacks the consistency, the poise and the quality of the songs that characterized that much-discussed 2007 album. What it doesn't lack, however, is success, well managed by Warner Bros.' promotional strategy. A more than decent result, given the times, one that stretches out over the years and leads Duran Duran to play within an endless tour that would effectively fizzle out in 2019. A confused record (even with the benefit of hindsight, the verdict isn't clear-cut), in which a certain degree of cunning is obvious, with a sound aged, leaving few traces in the Duran Duran story, without any great regrets felt by their crowd of fans.

 

 

In 2019 Duran Duran go into the studio perhaps without a clear strategy, with Simon Le Bon even thinking about an EP, a few songs and little more. Then along comes Erol Alkan, a go-getting DJ from the early '90s, a unifier of scenes considered opposites and thus one of the architects of ever-bolder handshakes between indie rock, garage, punk, electro and dance, and therefore one of the promoters of the movement electroclash, creator of mash-ups that become institutional in the blink of an eye, remixesr, operator for Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, Justice, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip, Tame Impala, producer, the head and heart behind seminal projects such as Late of the Pier. Are they starting again from the conservative, celebratory vision of All You Need Is Now? Not exactly: the point isn't to redo 1980s Duran Duran, but to understand what had made them original in the first place: the way punk, funk, disco, electronics, rock, Bowie, Roxy Music and pop could all coexist within the same song. Where Mark Ronson had steered the band back toward their classic sound, Alkan instead tries to recapture Duran Duran's method, curiosity and physicality; he knows perfectly well the value of the old extended mix, he wants to rediscover that feeling of a band playing for dancefloor.

Then Covid hits. Work grinds to a halt, the studio shuts down, and for months the songs sit untouched. When the band picks things back up, about nine months later, it's as if they're hearing it all with different ears. The world has changed in the meantime, and the words, the atmospheres, the cadences take on a different meaning. Theopening track “Invisible”, born as the story of a person who goes unheard, unintentionally becomes a song about the collective need to become visible again. The album taking shape thus also starts to become a record about time, isolation, relationships, fear. Right away there's a drum part up front, a sudden syncopation, loud, like a shove from behind, something physical yet extremely hazy, anxious, which inaugurates a dichotomy that will run throughout the album — in fact its subliminal stylistic signature — namely a constant, agile, utterly natural movement between major and minor, between enthusiasm and sudden melancholic retreats. Fifteen tracks that also turn into a curious and evocative treasure hunt of melodic-sonic fragments pulled from the band's earlier work or from cult records, reinterpreted, replayed, artfully woven into the fabric of individual songs, as happens in the title track, the remarkable, seriously neo-romantic ballad, heroic, Mitteleuropean, aching and epic, in which Moroder's “Take My Breath Away”, written for Berlin in 1986, makes an appearance, or Kraftwerk, openly quoted and paid tribute to in the pre-final-coda bridge of “Wing”, the flanger of “Planet Earth” in the liquid “Give It All Up”, one of the clearest manifestos of the constant clash of styles animating every single track, “Relax” and “Wild Boys” colliding and colliding again in “Anniversary”, “More Joy!”, featuring Japan's CHAI, which becomes one of the musical definitions of Future Past, a videogame sound, the Far East as imagined in the Eighties, between punk, dance and electro, a future that back then seemed like science fiction and that by 2021 had become the past, but which Duran Duran try to turn back into the future, “Ashes to Ashes” slipping into the fabric of “Laughing Boy”, whose lyrics recall Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs, the sad clown, and so Bowie's Pierrot of 1980, an unsettling mask and one of the key images of the new romantic movement that was, the man who fell to Earth, “Falling” with Mike Garson's piano and the sound of synth which opened the dance on the first single back in February 1981 and which now closes the final track... Future Past is a substantial summary, but it leaves out the carbon copy; it drags Giorgio Moroder properly into the picture — the man through whom the young Rhodes had dreamed up his electronic scenarios — and pushes Graham Coxon (on guitar duties throughout the album) down synthetic paths, between treated aggression and atmospheric openings. A record about time, but also about method. The past is no longer a place to return to, it's material to be used to try to imagine a future. Future Past is the band's best-constructed album since the days of Notorious, for its sonic research, for the consistent quality of the songs on offer, for the ease with which it moves and evolves, without any kind of forcing. 

 

The album is promoted right away with a North American tour (one of the highest-grossing of the 22-23 period), and in 2022 the band is also inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. Riding that wave of enthusiasm, Duran Duran also try to surprise their fans and launch a kind of format tied to Halloween: it happens in Las Vegas, on a night of over-the-top costumes and radically reshuffled setlists, between covers of other people's treasures and reworkings of their own, all handled with a gothic flair.

A year after that evening, the experience turns into an album, with four new songs added. An almost impromptu releases, announced toward the end of spring, which springs from the intention of paying tribute to Andy Taylor, seriously ill and unable to attend the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. 

It is released Danse Macabre, album for fun, the press offices hasten to write. But the old foxes of art pop never leave anything to chance, so even a divertissement doesn't betray the spirit of the original project, which always moves between light and shade, between smiles and melancholic poses, often successfully blending contradictory moods within the span of just a few minutes. For the occasion, the group recruits a reinvigorated Andy, a resurrected Warren Cuccurullo, the usual Nile Rodgers and the foremost target of Italian social-media hatred over the past three years, Victoria of Maneskin. Inside, an atmosphere hangs that smells of gothic — a game, a tribute, but certainly not a mockery. The romanticism inherent in the Duran Duran nature naturally cannot do without darker moments, as can be gathered from the reworking of the old warhorse "Nightboat", a supremely goth manifesto from 1981, as well as from the harmonically enriched, orchestral melancholy of the old synth-pop minuet "Secret Oktober", from the exotic, anxious eroticism of "Love Voodoo", from the muted epic quality of "Lonely Your Nightmare" suddenly scarred by that “Superfreak” by Rick James (whose famous bassline was already present in the classic 1982 ballad…). And between a kicking, vigorous "Supernature" and the lascivious, pulsing dance-rock stride of “Paint It Black”, up pops Billie Eilish: the feelings of urgency and absence typical of a teenager are reinterpreted with disenchantment by a mature man in full command of his faculties; the result is a wildly transformed "Bury a Friend", almost a new song. But the final twist comes with “Psycho Killer”, revisited in Roxy Music funky style, though with a melodic interpretation close to Ferry of the '80s; as if to say: three different paths meeting on the road of eternal art rock. The shows continue through the first five years of the decade and beyond, with the pumpkin-themed night becoming a recurring tradition, landing at Madison New York's, for a momentous evening, complete with the 'resurrection' of Arcadia (featuring David Van Thiegen's percussion front and centre). Ever freer to do as they please, even just to celebrate themselves on stage, while awaiting a new long-form studio record, the four update their dance steps with the single “Free To Love”, which beneath its ironic moves conceals yet another cheat sheet of art pop, and try to wish the best, given the grim times, to Him, Planet Earth.

 

(heartfelt thanks for their decisive contribution to Gaia Pavolo and Giancarlo Punzi)