Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
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Wider, baby, smile.
Youre finally getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
If youre Duran Duran, that is.
Its nice of them, Rhodes recently told me about the Rock Hall induction.
I mean, I should be careful what I say about it, shouldnt I?
I think its probably much more of a big deal in America, where I know its very significant.
Over here in England, only so many people are aware of it.
But it doesnt make it any less interesting.
Still, its a celebratory time for the band divisive institutionsor otherwise.
(Dont worry, theyll attend and perform at the induction ceremony in November.)
The heartthrob andTiger Beatfactor was an added bonus for the eyes.
We have zero complaints.
Best song
Rhodes:Thats always a difficult question.
Its a song of hope that seems to touch a nerve and means different things to different people.
Its a complete success as a song for us.
We were onTop of the Popsfor the first time because of it.
That was the most important song to us in many ways.
It was like,thatis who we are.
Rhodes:It was proof of concept.
And then with Planet Earth, the next song we wrote.
Rhodes:It was defining our musical personalities.
Somehow weve managed to cram them all together into the Duran Duran sound.
Theres much more tension than a lot of other similar bands.
Taylor:Simon is a very romantic lyricist.
Hes all about melodies and lyrics.
I dont think I even registered that at the time, but hed been singing all of his life.
Hed been a choirboy and was very experienced.
Nick and I grew up at a time when instrumentalists were the best bands.
Everybody was interesting, and everybody had a personality.
Its hard to believe now.
We were devotees of the British music press.
So for us, it was second nature when we started to make our own band.
You didnt want any passengers.
Everybody had to be interesting.
And ideally, they had to have interesting haircuts and wear interesting clothes.
And if they didnt, wed make them, right, Nick?
Inventiveness is at the core of what we venture to do.
Sometimes as a musician, you hit the jackpot.
Other times, youre trying to find your way toward it.
But with us, were excited by things that sound more unusual and unique.
Thats where the challenge is.
Thats what keeps it fresh and exciting.
Sound has always been important to us.
We agreed that it was a track called Skin Trade.
We thought we would save that for our second single and lead with Notorious, which we all love.
So we put that out, and it became a pretty substantial hit worldwide.
We got it wrong.
But you’re free to never guess what the public likes.
Whatever you think is the right choice often isnt.
Taylor:The gem that I think went by was Someone Else Not Me fromPop Trash.
Its up there with Ordinary World for me.
Its an absolute beauty, but it was just one of those times.
It really didnt matter.
If you have a long career, youre going to have times when nobody cares.
It doesnt matter what you do.
Theyre off and theyre into something else.
Song youre most critical of
Rhodes:My Own Way.
Its a perfectly decent piece of music, but I never liked Simons chorus lyrics.
It didnt work for me at the time at all.
I dont mind it as much now as I did then.
I mean, everybody likes to have their own way, thats for sure.
Taylor:The songs that Im not satisfied with I dont even think about.
Theyre persona non grata in my life.
They dont hang around me going, You could have done me so much better.
It may sound pretentious, but I understand why we did everything we did.
you’re able to only use the tools youve got at the time both intellectually and emotionally.
For the most part, Nick and I are very sincere in our endeavors.
We never dial it in.
Thats not what this band is about.
What made Roxy Music so immediately appealing to Nick and me was the way they looked.
Youve got thissynthesizer playerturning knobs with gloves on.
When Virginia Plain came out, there was nothing like it.
It was this incredible melange of futuristic, sci-fi, doo-wop, and rock.
People could easily listen to any of our songs and say, It sounds nothing like the Sex Pistols.
Of course it doesnt.
What we learned from them and Roxy Music was that you could make a killer first album.
Taylor:Roxy Music dared to credit the model on the cover.
Most ambitious album
Rhodes:When we didNotorious, it was a complete risk.
We both laughed and said, Its ridiculous.
Weve made a great record together.
But the label wanted another album like our third or second.
It didnt wantNotorious,becauseNotoriouswas radically different.
It was us getting back to dance music and discovering funk more.
An influence on that album was Sly and the Family Stone.
But I think that was pretty radical, really, for a bunch of kids.
Taylor:I would sayFuture Past,because its defiant.
In the last ten years, weve tried a few different outfits on.
We worked with Timbaland, and we worked with Justin Timberlake.
But I feel thatFuture Pastis the most true to our original ethos.
Its a very romantic album in the same way as the first few albums.
It has the same spirit of experimentation.
We rarely set out with any kind of master plan.
God forbid we would ever sit down and go, Lets write something likeThe Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
Its just not going to happen.
Thats not what were about.
We dont like top-down authority.
We dont like it when theres a set of rules.
Every song that we write individually, its like our own little sandbox.
Rhodes:Its about instinct, isnt it?
And we always think about the future.
Were talking about doing a film.
Its a format we like.
We like the new TV formats, the series formats.
There are interesting things for artists there.
Video, for us, was a tool.
We instinctively felt we knew what to do with it.
Simon was from an acting background.
Hed been studying drama, so he was comfortable acting out the part of the lead singer.
But those budgets went a long way.
Im talking about the early ones.
We did get up to a very big budget by the time we got to The Wild Boys.
John and I were particularly big fans of indie movies.
We all know that, and we wanted to use it.
It was the advent of MTV.
They needed content, and we could provide it.
Nobody had done the travelogue video.
Nobody had done the slightly X-rated video for nightclubs in America, which became Girls on Film.
Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel, and Prince came later.
Taylor:The word that comes to mind isambiguity.
By the third album, it was like the die was cast.
You saw people like David Bowie and Rod Stewart all these guys trying to be in music videos.
They clearly werent that comfortable with it.
We were very, very comfortable with it.
Taylor:He loved us.
So our record company said, Well, why dont you make a video?
Rhodes:It opened Pandoras box.
We dont want this.
I think they were frightened at the time, because it was something new.
If you look at the history of video, the Beatles made a lot of great films.
The Strawberry Fields Forever video is fantastic.
Queen made an amazing video for Bohemian Rhapsody.
People had tried to make films before.
Then, of course, MTV launched.
There was an actual place to put the videos.
You had to prove you were out of the country filming.
Everybody knew what the Beatles looked and sounded like.
But for a lot of people, the first time they saw Duran Duran was in our videos.
That was a very strong image for a group of young musicians to have.
We had video technology supporting us in our presentation.
Particularly in America, in Middle America, oh my God.
We were part of a vanguard that really changed peoples lives.
Those videos went to places where we would never have gone.
Its bigger than the album cover.
That image of the girl smiling, the Patrick Nagel painting featured on the cover, represents the 80s.
Everybody speaks about it.
Its been appropriated more than any other album cover that Ive ever seen.
It was the time of the colored suits and the boat.
We got the palette right overall sort of by accident.
It had an energy that captured the moment.
Fortunately, wed written half the songs already before we went into the studio.
Thats why we never suffered from second-album syndrome.
A lot of bands panic after they become a hit.Now what do we do?
How are we going to follow it?
What are we going to write?They freeze.
Taylor:Id have to go forFuture Past.
Theres a certain conception that were always going to have about what our music has to be.
Theres this ideal that we have, and no amount of 21st-century music is going to shape that.
Our ideals were shaped by our experiences as kids.
I know it sounds crazy.
You could say, Well, thats what you guys do.
No, it takes a lot of work to sew that together.
I can talk like this for another three hours if youve got time.
Biggest misconception about Duran Duran
Rhodes:So many people have different misconceptions.
Probably the videos we made, which took about a day each of our lives to exist.
These formats where people can look at new and old videos all the time.
Videos are very powerful.
You take something like theRiovideo, where were all on a yacht wearing nice colored suits.
It was quite a tricky video to make.
Taylor:Thank you for that.
We almost lost it all.
Its time for them to get off the stage.
I couldnt believe it.
Rhodes:We never lost the plot again after that.
Taylor:We had to really fucking work hard to stay in the game.
Its not that we didnt have fun.
I mean, thats a given.
We have a very precarious democracy.
We are a group of equals.
There arent many groups like that, and we have protected that fiercely.
Its one of the most important core elements of what keeps the band breathing.
We take our audiences seriously.
We take our gigs seriously.
And we still think that our best gigs and songs lie ahead.
We still believe in the future of ourselves as a unit.
