About
Duran Duran is an English new wave and synth-pop band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by John Taylor and Nick Rhodes. Duran Duran personified new wave for much of the mainstream audience. Duran Duran’s reputation was built through music videos, which accentuated their fashion-model looks and glamorous sense of style. Without music videos, it’s likely that their pop-funk — described by the group as the Sex Pistols-meet-Chic — would never have made them international pop stars.
While Duran Duran did have sharper pop sensibilities than their new romantic contemporaries like Spandau Ballet and Ultravox, none of their peers exploited MTV and music videos like the Birmingham-based quintet. Each video the group made was distinctive, incorporating a number of cinematic styles to showcase the band as either part of the jet-setting elite (“Rio”) or as worldly adventurers (“Hungry Like the Wolf”). While early videos like “Girls on Film” and “The Chauffeur” sparked controversy in England over their sexual content, their best-known clips were often based on hit contemporary movies. “Hungry Like the Wolf” uncannily recalled Raiders of the Lost Ark, while “Union of the Snake” and “The Wild Boys” brought to mind The Road Warrior. The clever videos helped make Duran Duran’s rise to popularity remarkably swift. Between 1982 and 1984, they rocketed from underground British post-punk sensations to teen idols. But their fall from grace was equally fast. By the late ’80s, the group’s lineup had fragmented, and the remaining members had trouble landing hit singles. Nevertheless, the group pulled off a surprising comeback in the early ’90s as a sophisticated soft rock quartet.
The band had 14 singles in the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart and 21 in the Billboard Hot 100, and sold more than 100 million records around the world. Duran Duran achieved a lot of success and awards, like Grammy Award for best video album, Recording Academy, Brit Award for best British video for “Wild Boys,” and a MTV Video Music Award for Lifetime Achievement.
