Duran Duran
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
To misquote a recent article about this band "After a nuclear war there would be Cockroaches, bindweed and Duran Duran. When the Cockroaches have finished eating the bindweed they'll probably go home and listen to Duran Duran."
You may not realise that a) these guys are still about and b) they have been around (in one form or another) since 1978. That's a long time to have been roundly criticised by quite a few music critics, slept with many women and go to exotic countries for lavish music videos.
Ok, a bit of history behind this bunch......
The Early Years
Duran Duran were first based in the Rumrunner Nightclub in Birmingham and after a bit of juggling about with the lineup they came up with a five piece arrangement consisting of:
Simon Le Bon : Vocals
Nick Rhodes: Keyboards
Roger Taylor: Drums
John Taylor: Bass Guitar
Andy Taylor: Lead Guitar
In 1981 they released their first single "Planet Earth" with a fairly lavish video for the time that consisted of people wearing frilly shirts and having hair that seems to have been sprayed with 20 cans of hair spray (needless to say this lot could be credited with creating the hole in the ozone layer on their own). After that came "Girls on Film" with the controversial video associated with it (the famous girls mud wrestling scene) from which their success for the next 3 years were based.
Success in itself was meteoric and they were dubbed "The Fab Five" by the US press in obvious comparison with the Beatles. Tours became teenage scream fests and they mobbed wherever they went. Inevitably such a life style took it's toll with band members taking drugs and young women in seemingly equal and large proportions. By 1985, after 4 years of success the band members took a break after their recording of the Bond theme to "View to a Kill" and their subsequent appearance on Live Aid. It was the last time that they were all together......
The Break Up and Lean Years
John Taylor and Andy Taylor split off into a side project known as The Power Station along with Robert Palmer. This band had an altogether harder, guitar edge to their music, especially with the cover version of T-Rex's Get it On (Bang a gong). Meanwhile the rest of Duran Duran split off into their own side project known as Arcadia that moved towards electronic style music. This project had such illustrious guests as Sting, Grace Jones and Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd on the released album.
Although these projects were relative successes it did confuse fans who thought that Duran Duran might well be on the verge of breaking up. As they found out, it was a close run thing.....
The first to go was Roger Taylor blaming the stress of the celebrity life style as his reason for leaving. Duran Duran met up in 1986 after a year long break to sort out writing their next album "Notorious" and it was then, after repeated requests to join up that Andy Taylor decided to leave.
This left the rest of the band to finish the album and release it in December 1987. The album was produced by ex-chic member Nile Rogers and you can definitely hear his influence in what was a more funk based sound. This was also the first time that the new guitarist, Warren Cuccurollo, was heard and he was to eventually become a full time band member.
But, although well received by the critics “Notorious” was not as well received by the fans and this downward slide continued with the release of “Big Thing” in 1988 and “Liberty” in 1990. Despite Duran Duran’s image change to a more hard edge rock style it looked as if the band may dissapear into the annals of pop history.
Revival?
After the depressing sales and criticism of Liberty the band took a long sabbatical and started writing songs for the next album. Sales of their records had been continually dropping and the heady days of the early 80s now seemed to be a distant memory.
In early 1993 the first single in nearly 3 years was released. Called “Ordinary World” the song was a ballad written by Simon le Bon after the death of a close friend. The ballad was a worldwide hit, going to number 1 in many countries, and is considered by many critics to be one of the best Duran Duran songs written.
You may not realise that a) these guys are still about and b) they have been around (in one form or another) since 1978. That's a long time to have been roundly criticised by quite a few music critics, slept with many women and go to exotic countries for lavish music videos.
Ok, a bit of history behind this bunch......
The Early Years
Duran Duran were first based in the Rumrunner Nightclub in Birmingham and after a bit of juggling about with the lineup they came up with a five piece arrangement consisting of:
Simon Le Bon : Vocals
Nick Rhodes: Keyboards
Roger Taylor: Drums
John Taylor: Bass Guitar
Andy Taylor: Lead Guitar
In 1981 they released their first single "Planet Earth" with a fairly lavish video for the time that consisted of people wearing frilly shirts and having hair that seems to have been sprayed with 20 cans of hair spray (needless to say this lot could be credited with creating the hole in the ozone layer on their own). After that came "Girls on Film" with the controversial video associated with it (the famous girls mud wrestling scene) from which their success for the next 3 years were based.
Success in itself was meteoric and they were dubbed "The Fab Five" by the US press in obvious comparison with the Beatles. Tours became teenage scream fests and they mobbed wherever they went. Inevitably such a life style took it's toll with band members taking drugs and young women in seemingly equal and large proportions. By 1985, after 4 years of success the band members took a break after their recording of the Bond theme to "View to a Kill" and their subsequent appearance on Live Aid. It was the last time that they were all together......
The Break Up and Lean Years
John Taylor and Andy Taylor split off into a side project known as The Power Station along with Robert Palmer. This band had an altogether harder, guitar edge to their music, especially with the cover version of T-Rex's Get it On (Bang a gong). Meanwhile the rest of Duran Duran split off into their own side project known as Arcadia that moved towards electronic style music. This project had such illustrious guests as Sting, Grace Jones and Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd on the released album.
Although these projects were relative successes it did confuse fans who thought that Duran Duran might well be on the verge of breaking up. As they found out, it was a close run thing.....
The first to go was Roger Taylor blaming the stress of the celebrity life style as his reason for leaving. Duran Duran met up in 1986 after a year long break to sort out writing their next album "Notorious" and it was then, after repeated requests to join up that Andy Taylor decided to leave.
This left the rest of the band to finish the album and release it in December 1987. The album was produced by ex-chic member Nile Rogers and you can definitely hear his influence in what was a more funk based sound. This was also the first time that the new guitarist, Warren Cuccurollo, was heard and he was to eventually become a full time band member.
But, although well received by the critics “Notorious” was not as well received by the fans and this downward slide continued with the release of “Big Thing” in 1988 and “Liberty” in 1990. Despite Duran Duran’s image change to a more hard edge rock style it looked as if the band may dissapear into the annals of pop history.
Revival?
After the depressing sales and criticism of Liberty the band took a long sabbatical and started writing songs for the next album. Sales of their records had been continually dropping and the heady days of the early 80s now seemed to be a distant memory.
In early 1993 the first single in nearly 3 years was released. Called “Ordinary World” the song was a ballad written by Simon le Bon after the death of a close friend. The ballad was a worldwide hit, going to number 1 in many countries, and is considered by many critics to be one of the best Duran Duran songs written.
