Duran Duran

This quintet from Birmingham, England capitalized on their fashion model looks to capture the audiences of the hot new American medium known as the music video and the fledgling MTV network. Duran Duran has often been given credit for their success in the early eighties due to their exploiting of this new market. but it could just as easily be said that due to the cinematic style music videos from the band also helped to make MTV a big success.

Duran Duran made music videos using movie techniques and the band would frequently copy a hit movie to make their videos. Band member's good looks also helped to keep fans watching the videos that found a place in the music rotation for this new television network aimed at the music fan.

Duran Duran began in 1978 when friends Nick Rhodes and John Taylor formed a duo. They took the name Duran Duran from a character named Durand Durand in the science fiction movie "Barbarella". Stephen Duffy and Simon Culley joined the duo but only lasted about a year before departing.

Duran Duran's first gigs were in a club called Barbarella.

After the departure of Culley and Duffy Roger Taylor and Andy Wickett joined the band. John Curtis joined the band as well but he stayed for only a few months. An advertisement got the third Taylor Andy to the group. Band members continued to revolve with the departure of Andy Wickett. In 1980 Simon LeBon finally joined the band and completed the quintet that took the music video world by storm.

Duran Duran became a British success with the release of their debut single "Planet Earth". They followed this up with the somewhat racey video "Girls on Film" which brought the band their first number one hit single in the United Kingdom. Duran Duran followed up their two hit singles with their debut album which was a self titled affair. The album may have reached only number three on the charts but the album spent more than two years on the music charts at 118 weeks.

The band's second album "Rio" reached number two on the charts. It wasn't until the release of "Is There Something I Should Know" that the band hit number one on the album chart in the United Kingdom. "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" was the first time that Duran Duran hit number one of the album music charts in the United States. It was the second number one album for the group in the United Kingdom. The first number one single in the United States did not come until the release of "The Reflex".

While a number

of albums were released between 1985 and 2000 that achieved some success Duran Duran members had turned to side projects and eventually drifted apart.

Along with their success on the music charts Duran Duran saw their music and dominance on the MTV video rotation; as well as, quite a number of television shows and movies featured the band's music including the title song for the James Bond movie "A View to a Kill".

In 2001 the three Taylors got together in Wales and despite squelching rumours of a reunion by Rhodes and LeBon a reunion did indeed happen. Over the next three years the re-united Duran Duran recorded what would become their first album in many years; "Astronaut" was released in 2004. This was followed up with "Red Carpet Massacre" in 2007.

While sold out concerts and numerous album and hit songs are benchmarks of a band's success the musical world marks the success of an artist or band by album sales. Over their musical career of the past 25 plus years Duran Duran has been awarded six platinum rewards, one double platinum rewards, and 10 gold rewards by the British record industry, nine double platinum rewards, over one dozen platinum rewards, and over two dozen gold rewards by the American record industry, and the band has received two Grammy Awards for their music videos.

Duran Duran showed the world how important the music video can be to a successful career. Experts speculate as to how successful Duran Duran would have been without the music video but there is no doubt that the band was a big success and entertained music fans on both sides of the Atlantic during the early and mid eighties. And with their return in 2001 the band has not changed so that old fans are eager for new material and a whole new generation are introduced to a group of talented musicians.