With its exciting Raiders of the Lost Ark-style video shot on location in Sri Lanka, it was one of the songs that helped break the band in the US, via the new video channel MTV. It even resonated with the grunge generation, with Hole releasing a cover as the B-side of Doll Parts in 1994: “This is the best song ever written that you all pretend not to know,” drawled Courtney Love at the outset of the live recording. If Duran Duran were essentially an electronic band with a heavy rock guitarist bolted on, then Hungry Like the Wolf was the sound of the rockier elements within the camp winning (the battle rather than the war). That didn’t stop him getting his teeth into some mucky scenarios, like on Hungry Like the Wolf, a straightforward simile alluding to sexual appetite, taken from the second album, Rio. Le Bon similarly wanted to emulate Jim Morrison the problem was, that with his sailing, he was less Doorsy, more outdoorsy. “I want to be David Bowie or Iggy Pop,” complained Robbie Williams once upon a time, before conceding he was more Norman Wisdom than anything else. And how they’d love to find a song of this quality down the back of the couch now. It’s fair to say his vocal, and the band’s squelchy, angular attempts to emulate Chic, were works in progress, but the raw goods were all there from the beginning. Lyrically, it deals with nothing much deeper than all-night parties in hotel rooms, but the tune is magnificent and draws you in, with Le Bon’s voice going from a deep insouciant croon to a deranged “la la la” in the chorus. What they had in spades though – aside from delectable cheekbones – were great songs, and tellingly Late Bar was tossed off as Planet Earth’s B-side, not even making the final cut of the band’s debut album. At 6ft 2ins, Hertfordshire-born lead singer Simon Le Bon was an imposing figure, but styled in foppish collars and cuffs, he looked “more like a scrum-half who’d blundered into his mum’s washing line” according to one reviewer. These days, boybands, for want of a better word, are normally militarily slick from the off, so it is a joy to behold the amateurishness of an inchoate Duran Duran. They’d set their sights on the very thing they were singing about on their debut single. The single peaked at No 12 in 1981, though Duran Duran were thinking bigger than a trendy club scene dominated by Spandau Ballet. Dropping the words “new romantic” into the song earned the derision of their cooler Blitz-kid contemporaries in London, and bass player John Taylor admitted it was an “opportunistic” attempt to get their foot in the door (even if Rhodes later claimed it was sarcastic). The first signs of life came when Planet Earth was released in 1981, a gloriously catchy sci-fi adventure that owed a debt of gratitude to Japan’s Quiet Life, right down to the sequenced opening it was the kind of homage that could have been brazened out had keyboard player Nick Rhodes not turned himself into a bleached clone of Japan’s David Sylvian. Their faith would be repaid handsomely as a bidding war broke out, with EMI emerging victorious. They were managed by the entrepreneurial Berrow brothers, owners of the Rum Runner nightclub in Birmingham, whose conviction that the five-piece would eventually hit the big time was such that Michael Berrow mortgaged his house to finance a tour with Hazel O’Connor. The band is slated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2022, which also includes Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, Eminem, Eurythmics, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie and Carly Simon.Duran Duran emerged out of the state-funded art-school free-for-all of the 1970s, though their naked ambition and subsequent years of success would coincide with those of Margaret Thatcher it’s difficult to imagine they could have existed at any other time. A rooftop performance in LA with the Capitol Records building across the street and the Hollywood sign looming in the distance sounded perfect and turned out to be an extraordinary night for all of us.”ĭD released their 15th studio album, Future Past, in October 2021, with production from Erol Alkan and assists from the likes of Blur’s Graham Coxon, Tove Lo, CHAI, Ivorian Doll, and David Bowie’s former pianist Mike Garson. “Duran Duran have had an enduring relationship with the city of Los Angeles since the first time we came to America,” added bassist John Taylor. “We were determined to do something unique to celebrate our four decades together. The footage was shot from the roof of The Aster in the heart of Hollywood - overlooking the Capitol Records building in a nod to the band’s original label home - and mixed and mastered with Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, for an immersive audio and visual experience.
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