The songs "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio" featured cinematic music videos directed by Australian film maker Russell Mulcahy and became two of their biggest hits.
[20] The owners of the club, brothers Paul and Michael Berrow, became the band's management, paying them to work as doormen, disc jockeys (DJs) and barmen when they were not rehearsing, and also formed the Tritec Music company.
[22] Touring as an opening act for Hazel O'Connor, the band attracted critical attention, resulting in a bidding war between the record companies EMI and Phonogram.
[26] The video, featuring topless women mud wrestling, pillow fighting and stylised depictions of other sexual fetishes, was made with directing duo Godley & Creme in August.
[37][38] The band began 1983 at the Palladium in New York playing the MTV New Year's Eve Rock n' Roll Ball[39] with "Hungry Like the Wolf" still climbing the charts in the US, and the American reissue of the "Rio" single to follow in March.
Their next single "The Reflex", taken from Seven and the Ragged Tiger and given a significant remix overhaul by Nile Rodgers of Chic fame, became their first number one hit in the United States.
After the tour, Roger Taylor was married in Naples, Italy, and Rhodes wed in London, wearing a pink velvet tuxedo and top hat.
In the three years between the release of Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Notorious, many of their teenage fans had grown up and the music was funkier, more mature, and less "pop", given the added experience of their work on Arcadia and Power Station and with other musicians.
There was no announcement of the reasons for the decision, but disagreements over money, and the brothers' involvement in Le Bon's yachting adventures (they were co-owners of Drum) were thought to have played a part.
The record was experimental, mixing influences from house music and raves with Duran's atmospheric synth-pop and the creative guitar work of Cuccurullo (now a full band member), as well as more mature lyrics.
By the end of 1989 and at the start of the 1990s, the popularity of synth-pop was fading and losing fans to other momentum-gaining music genres at the time, such as hip hop, techno and alternative rock.
Finally, after struggling for months to record the next album, Medazzaland, in January 1997, John Taylor announced at the DuranCon fan convention that he was leaving the band "for good".
Freed from some internal writing conflicts, the band returned to the studio to rewrite and re-record many of the songs on Medazzaland (John Taylor's work remains on only four tracks).
[63] The music video for this single, featuring a sexy robot purchased and played with by band members, had to be censored before airing on MTV, but there was little of the controversy that had surrounded "Girls on Film".
The band then signed what was intended to be a three-album contract with Disney Music Group's Hollywood Records, but it lasted only through the poorly received 2000 album Pop Trash.
The band played a full concert at a private tailgate party at Super Bowl XXXVIII, their performance of "The Wild Boys" broadcast to millions during the pre-game show.
After a couple of weeks of songwriting in Northern California, the band began working with producer Michael Patterson in London, and continued intermittently for the next several months.
It was noted by Andy Taylor in his book Wild Boy that tensions had arisen between the group's management and himself, and he was also diagnosed with clinical depression connected with the death of his father.
On 25 September, the Timberlake collaboration "Falling Down" was released as a download single on iTunes, and the band announced that they would play nine shows at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway to launch the Red Carpet Massacre album.
In 2016, the artist MNDR stood in for Rhodes during part of the third leg of the Paper Gods tour in the United States, while he returned to the UK in order to attend to an urgent family matter.
Rhodes commented, "We signed a publishing agreement as unsuspecting teenagers, over three decades ago, when just starting out and when we knew no better... if left untested, this judgment sets a very bad precedent for all songwriters of our era.
During the acceptance speech, Simon Le Bon read from a letter written by Andy Taylor, who was absent from the ceremony, that revealed he has been privately fighting stage IV metastatic prostate cancer for the past four years and was "massively disappointed" he couldn't attend.
[112] Although they began their career as "a group of art school, experimental, post punk rockers,"[23] the band's quick rise to stardom, polished good looks and embrace of the teen press almost guaranteed disfavour from music critics.
'"[113] Influences on Duran Duran included David Bowie, Roxy Music, the Beatles and the Doors;[114] the electronic music of John Foxx's Ultravox, Kraftwerk,[115] the Yellow Magic Orchestra[116] and Giorgio Moroder; glam rock and American rock such as T. Rex, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and Sparks; British punk and post-punk bands such as the Clash, Sex Pistols and Siouxsie and the Banshees;[117] and the disco/funk band Chic.
Second, rather than simply playing their instruments, the band participated in mini-storylines (often taking inspiration from contemporary movies: "Hungry Like the Wolf" riffs on 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, "The Wild Boys" on 1981's Mad Max 2), etc.
In addition to Mulcahy, they have had videos filmed by influential photographers Dean Chamberlain and Ellen von Unwerth, Chinese director Chen Kaige, documentary filmmaker Julien Temple, and the Polish Brothers, among others.
It features some of the world's most famous supermodels, such as Yasmin Le Bon, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigová and Helena Christensen, playing the band.
They worked with stylist Perry Haines and fashion designers such as Kahn & Bell and Antony Price to build a sharp and elegant image, soon outgrowing the ruffles and sashes of the pirate-flavoured early New Romantic look that had been popularised by Adam Ant during 1980–81.
The band retained creative control of their visual presentation having worked closely with graphic designer Malcolm Garrett and many others over the years to create album covers, tour programs and other materials.
In an interview with Rock Fever Superstars magazine in early 1988, John Taylor stated: We used to be a very chi-chi name to drop in '79, but then the Fab Five hype started and something went wrong.