This album is irrelevant to anyone over the age of fifteen.ĭuran Duran spent the next two years split into two camps.
Still, the album proved extremely successful among the audience who cheered the video monitors, not the band, during the tour that followed it.Īrena, the audio documentary of a mammoth coast-to-coast American trek, features surprisingly good playing (but extremely bad singing) on nine hits additionally, the package includes a studio cut, “The Wild Boys,” produced by Nile Rodgers, which resembles a possible theme song for Lord of the Flies. The only truly noteworthy song, “New Moon on Monday,” actually sounds like an outtake from Rio. And even a passable item like “The Reflex” gets twisted with exaggerated, comical vocals “Union of the Snake” sounds only half-written. Unfortunately, this led to Seven and the Ragged Tiger, a sorry collection of half-baked melodies, meaningless lyrics (their earlier work, while not poetry, at least sounded clever) and over-active studio foolishness. Parting ways with producer Thurston, Duran attempted to expand their musical horizons beyond the lush ambience of Rio and developed a herky-jerky rhythmic style aimed at creating catchy singles in a variety of modes. Quick to recognize Duran’s essential role as a dance band with rising commercial appeal, the group’s US label released a package of four remixes (“Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Girls on Film,” “Hold Back the Rain” and “My Own Way”) as Carnival. Thanks to a remix that features prominent female moaning (and an exotic video), “Hungry Like the Wolf” caught American radio programmers’ attention, and lofted the band high into the charts, where they long remained a well-appointed fixture. There isn’t anything less than good, and “Rio,” “Last Chance on the Stairway” and “New Religion” are startling in their melodic excellence. Singer Simon Le Bon handles tantalizing melodies and obtuse lyrics with confidence (if not profound ability), while honestly proficient musicianship by the other four defines each song’s character differently. The music’s clearly danceable, but brilliantly listenable as well. Rio fulfills the band’s potential and its pinnacle, displaying stronger songwriting and far more intricate arrangements.
The elongated strains of synthesizer and syncopated tempos cover a multitude of creative shortcomings, but it’s still an extraordinary album filled with now-classic songs. Tracks like “Planet Earth,” “Girls on Film” and “Is There Anyone Out There” meld the basic attributes of ’70s disco - preeminent beat, repetition and studio gimmickry - to a variant on post-Ultravox rock to create something that was, at the time, fairly original. Taking cues (sound and image) from early Roxy Music and using simple electronics to flavor the lush but powerful rock sound, Duran Duran crossbred pop craft with a strong visual consciousness (using videos as a major strategic tool) to create records that are at once high-sheen disco and semi-inventive rock, even if that’s not how the band and their followers view it.ĭuran Duran introduced the dance attack in a remarkable sonic setting produced by Colin Thurston. Although formally conceived as a mix of the Sex Pistols and Chic, Birmingham’s Duran Duran was in fact launched as another pretty-boy-new-romantic-haircut-clothes-synth-pop- dance ensemble and became an unimaginably popular teen sensation, drawing young fans into the world of techno-dance music.
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