Duran Duran are an English new wave and synthpop band formed in Birmingham in 1978. The band grew from alternative sensations in 1982 to mainstream pop stars by 1984. By the end of the decade, membership and music style changes challenged the band before a resurgence in the early 1990s. The group were a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the US. The band achieved 14 singles in the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart and 21 in the Billboard Hot 100, and have sold over 100 million records worldwide.
When the band first emerged, they were generally considered part of the New Romantic scene, along with bands such as Spandau Ballet. Duran Duran however would soon shed this image, by using fashion and marketing to build a more refined and elegant presentation. The band has won a number of awards throughout their career: two Brit Awards including the 2004 award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, two Grammy Awards, an MTV Video Music Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a Video Visionary Award from the MTV Europe Music Awards. They were also awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
That thing you should know about Duran Duran: what is it?
On first impressions — and these blousy exhibitionists from Birmingham are nothing if not first-impressionists — the most obvious thing is the way they have matured.
They no longer resemble glam-rock stockbrokers living the dream in which easy wealth is conflated with the sub-prime conquests of heterosexist fantasy.
Today, Duran Duran look like Hugh Grant in Paddington 2, or retired tennis players, these two categories containing roughly the same proportions of middle-class ambition and melted mascara.
That said, there is a hint of David Brent about singer Simon Le Bon as he tries to explain the philosophical nuances which underpinned the group’s seminal album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, which they wrote while sheltering from the UK taxman in a French château. “The ragged tiger is the kind of … dirty ... but incredible charismatic animal that is success,” Le Bon explains. So that’s good.
There are two new films in this evening of futurist nostalgia, plus a rare chance to see Duran Duran: Unstaged, the concert movie in which director David Lynch illustrated one of their most delicate songs with a cutaway image of sausages frying in a pan. Charismatic sausages, admittedly.
First is a self-deprecating documentary in which the Durans — minus the one who got lost along the way — cram into an old Citroën DS like they used to. They listen to an old-fashioned demo cassette and pad around Hollywood. That’s Hollywood, Birmingham, but it amounts to the same thing. Boy George appears, wearing a punk-rock bowler hat.
“They were Birmingham’s peacocks,” he says. And the tailor Antony Price, who created the space-age weirdo look of Roxy Music and repeated the trick with Duran Duran, rifles through some of their old panto schmutter while dressed as a fluorescent gangster. Pricer finds a frilly blouse with low armholes. “That’s what New Romantic was,” he says, “wearing that on the number 50 bus.”
Supermodel Cindy Crawford does not say anything about buses. She materialises to explain that Duran Duran’s success was linked to the rise of MTV. Then, in actual Hollywood, producer Mark Ronson diagnoses the group’s musical formula. “Funky rhythm section, Moroder-esque synths … but also that chunky rock guitar.”
The second film is a New Romantic Gogglebox, in which the Durans share their excellent taste. There are clips of the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Roxy Music. Patti Smith is described looking “like Mick and Keith had a baby”. They watch Tomorrow’s World, and the Smash advert with the laughing aliens. Nick Rhodes recalls his friendship with a silver-wigged superstar. “My address book at the time had Uncle George, Auntie Linda, Auntie Sheila, John and Andy Warhol.”
Le Bon remembers the animation of Roobarb and Custard, and finally, the group as a collective is forced into a painful admission, as they inhale a clip from a cop show starring Don Johnson.
They like the boats, obviously, but the clothes? Miami Vice took fashion advice from Duran Duran, Le Bon suggests. “I’m not certain I’m proud of that,” says Rhodes, with ironic disdain.
London Live
What to Watch - Sunday, London Live, 5pm
Post-pub TV has been a long-neglected genre but Friday night sees the debut of The Big Narstie Show, where grime star Big Narstie and comedian Mo Gilligan invite some big names (including Ed Sheeran this week) over for unpredictable scrapes.
Big Narstie pops up on What to Watch this weekend, as he reveals his comedy heroes, and other guests on Sunday include Ackley Bridge’s Amy-Leigh Hickman and Joivan Wade, star of The First Purge, who discusses the prequel to the dystopian horror series.
Undercover Hooligan - Sunday, London Live, 10pm
When you’re blessed with a special talent, employers should do what they can to maximise that ability and draw the best from you — which is problematic when your speciality is hyper-violence and you’re a copper.
Michael Clarke (Kris Johnson) isn’t the sort of bobby the Met would promote as its public face — his employment record reads more like the form of a backstreet boxer. Finally suspended, Clarke’s dodgy behaviour is prized by an undercover unit which recruits him to edge into a London mob run by Terence Turner, who has been as untouchable as a German World Cup campaign…
If you watched the BBC Four Duran Duran special and want to keep the party going (or you didn't and want to cheer yourself up), check out the new DD tracks added to this week's Room 7609 Spotify playlist!
