I don't suppose they'd seen so many guys in make-up pouting before. We'd go to Alabama or Texas and the girls would be screaming and the guys in cowboy hats would be looking at us with clenched fists. And by the time we got to Australia, we were massive stars. We made the videos in Sri Lanka, which almost arrived in Australia at the same time as we did. “It’s funny to think about, in retrospect, because we went to Sri Lanka as a club band. Le Bon felt the effects of the video across the globe: Simon and I got dropped from a helicopter onto the top of a monument because they couldn’t land the helicopter. It was cheap to work there, but it was like a SWAT team. We pulled every favor we could from the Sri Lankan authorities. Keyboardist Nick Rhodes marveled at the investment versus the payoff, “All three videos were made for something like $30,000. Simon was Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, going up the jungle. As Taylor detailed, “‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ had a vague plot. Of course, their seriousness led to unparalleled unintentional comedy. It would mark a run of sensational success during which the quintet enjoyed two No.1s with three different records on each side of the Atlantic.The video, which today inspires endless hilarity, actually provided the band a springboard to success in America. Keyboard player – and arguably the band’s creative director – Nick Rhodes would describe Duran Duran’s subsequent impact as close to “Beatlemania”, with the group’s tour and personal appearances routinely devolving into scenes of teenage hysteria. No matter that Rio’s title track had also been released stateside, Hungry Like The Wolf slowly started to gain momentum as radio stations picked up on the buzz, with the track eventually berthing at No.3 in March 1983 during a staggering 23-week run. This was PG-13 erotica of the most dynamic kind, and the video’s bewitching blend of sharp editing and high-impact backdrops (also seen on the group’s follow-up Save A Prayer promo) was little short of revolutionary, with one MTV executive calling it “the greatest video” he had ever seen. The band had travelled to Sri Lanka to film the clip, described as a sexualised Indiana Jones epic and designed to mirror the song’s clear lyrical intent. In the US, its fate seemed less secure until MTV picked up on the stunning promo, which was directed by Russell Mulcahy. Released on, Hungry Like The Wolf peaked at No.5 in the UK, where Duran Duran had already secured a sizeable following. For Rio, the band mastered the art of international hit-writing, too. Duran Duran had already proved they could create innovative promo clips, such as the one they had made for Girls On Film, lifted for single release from their debut album. What unified such a strange blend of influences was the group’s instinctive grasp of visuals in the new video age, in which performance and presentation carried at least equal weighting to the music. With its credible rock-guitar anchor, urgent funk-disco hooks and of-the-moment screaming synth top notes, Hungry Like The Wolf served as the strongest possible re-introduction to the band that, notoriously, straddled the polarised genres of punk, rock and disco. Recording with the late Colin Thurston, who reprised his role as producer, had taken place the previous winter at London’s AIR Studios, with a set of fresh demos offering an innovative genesis for the project that would transform the group into global superstars. Listen to the best of Duran Duran here.Įasily one of the best Duran Duran songs, Hungry Like The Wolf is a punchy power-pop composition, written by the band, which evolved during lengthy sessions for their second album, May 1982’s Rio. However, the revolutionary video-music channel would change Duran Duran’s fortunes – and enable the so-called Second British Invasion of the charts, with a clutch of bands such as The Human League, Soft Cell, ABC and Spandau Ballet also set to benefit. Beyond a scattering of interest along the tastemaker East and West Coasts, the British five-piece had yet to break the Billboard Hot 100, and it would take a later reissue for their self-titled debut album to crack the Billboard 200’s Top 10. When the newly launched MTV picked up on Hungry Like The Wolf, Duran Duran were barely known in the US.
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