Essential Duran Duran: Their 30 greatest songs, ranked

Standing starkly apart from the rest of Big Thing, “Do You Believe In Shame?” is a haunting elegy in the guise of a pop song. Written in tribute to three departed friends—producer Alex Sadkin, Andy Warhol, and Simon Le Bon’s childhood friend David Miles, who all died around the time of the album sessions—the song simmers along to a melody indebted to the rockabilly classic “Suzie Q,” yet this hardly swaggers. It’s a bittersweet sigh, the sound of survivors trying to figure out what went wrong.

“Notorious” was the song that showed Duran Duran could still have hits as a trio but its successor, “Skin Trade,” showed that this incarnation of the band might be willing to go in musical directions the original band would not follow. “Skin Trade” glides into a groove that’s almost sultry, a sound that’s nearly as foreign to the band as the falsetto Simon Le Bon adopts for the song’s verses. It’s a vibe that’s closer to R&B than rock, yet the underlying sardonic edge is very much of a piece with Duran Duran’s early work.

The first single from Seven And The Ragged Tiger, “Union Of The Snake” refines the big beat clamor of “Is There Something I Should Know?” Here, the rhythms feel slinky, not assaultive, a sentiment that’s also true of the melody, qualities that are magnified by the sleekness of the production. Lacking the weird art diversions scattered through Rio, “Union Of The Snake” places the emphasis squarely on the stylish swagger of Duran Duran’s synths, which wind up burying the funk of the rhythm sections in a way that’s quintessentially 1980s: this isn’t disco, this is dance-pop.

Roughly 10 years after their big comeback of the early 1990s, Duran Duran rejuvenated itself by mounting a reunion of their original lineup. This particular quintet hadn’t released a song since the band’s Bond anthem “A View To A Kill” in 1985. That meant “(Reach Up for The) Sunrise” was their first new song in nearly 20 years when it was released as the first single from Astronaut in the summer of 2004. Fittingly, “(Reach Up for The) Sunrise” is a jubilant affair, an optimistic anthem celebrating the dawning of a new day. Duran Duran takes the exhortations to heart, choosing not to revive the New Romantic synth-pop of their early years but embrace the moment, decorating a well-honed melody with ebullient electronics that sound very much of the 2000s but also suit Duran Duran quite well.

Tacked onto the time-biding live album Arena, “The Wild Boys” is perched between two different incarnations of Duran Duran: the new romantic synth-pop mavens and the immaculately-tailored trio of the mid-1980s. Nile Rodgers, the Chic guitarist and Duran idol, produces the single, helping to restore a modicum of disco bounce to their beat without neglecting the cacophonic clank of late-period New Pop. The rhythms may be lean but this is a noisy, bustling track, suited for the campy boasts of its chorus.

It’s hard not to interpret that slow-rolling suspense of “Night Boat” as something of a counterpoint to the hedonistic flair that keeps Duran Duran’s eponymous 1981 album humming along. “Night Boat” doesn’t abandon the group’s disco-punk ideals so much as flip them on their head, placing the priority on the spooky synths of Nick Rhodes instead of their muscular rhythm section. The keyboards are as heavy and elusive as mist rolling off a deep, dark lake, setting an atmosphere that the rest of Duran Duran ably exploits with rhythms and melody that favor coiled tension to hedonistic release.

“Hold Back The Rain” arrives in an almost impossible position on Rio: it follows “Hungry Like The Wolf,” the song that gave Duran Duran their international breakthrough and remains, in many ways, their definitive moment. Remarkably, “Hold Back The Rain” builds upon the momentum provided by “Hungry Like The Wolf.” While it may not be as dense as its Rio companion, “Hold Back The Rain” retains a similar sense of nocturnal exuberance, its racing rhythms providing a sense of glorious escape.

As Duran Duran continued to fray in the wake of their massive success, they were enlisted by the producers of the James Bond film franchise to write the theme song for A View To A Kill, the 1985 installment of the ongoing series. Working with Bernard Edwards—Nile Rodgers’ partner in Chic—as a co-producer and legendary film composer John Barry as co-writer, Duran Duran came up with a single that managed to fulfill the needs of the pop charts and the film producers. With its stabs of synth strings and cantankerous rhythms, it’s overflowing, yet the clean melody and Simon Le Bon’s committed delivery keeps “A View To A Kill” on track.

Simon Le Bon adopts his best Bowie murmur during the opening sections of “New Moon On Monday,” a decision that feels a bit of a tip of the hat to “Let’s Dance,” which was wrapping up its run on the charts when this single was picked out from Seven And The Ragged Tiger. Arriving after the claustrophobic “Is There Something I Should Know?” and “The Union Of The Snake,” the comparatively stripped-back funk of the verse on “New Moon On Monday” is a welcome curveball only accentuated by the big guitar jangle that leads into a chorus that was about the purest pop Duran Duran attempted to date. When combined, the two sections amount to one of the most exquisitely crafted new wave singles: it’s tuneful, clever and indelible.

A debut single that seemed to encompass an entire worldview upon its initial release, “Planet Earth” retroactively bears the tell-tale signs of a first missive: it gets by on style and verve, a record that’s enamored with itself. To an American audience this galloping blend of disco and synth-punk could seem like a transmission from another solar system, but Simon Le Bon gives away that this isn’t just a sound, it’s a scene, by singing about “some New Romantic looking for the TV sound.” “Planet Earth” embodies much of the futuristic thrill of Britain’s short-lived and massively influential New Romantic era but this neon-lit nocturnal thrill ride belongs distinctly to Duran Duran: no other New Romantic had such a louche appeal.

Arriving partway between Rio and Seven And The Ragged Tiger, “Is There Something I Should Know?” is the moment where Duran Duran fully embraces their teen idol phase. Bigger and brighter than the stylized seductions of Rio, “Is There Something I Should Know?” is nearly cacophonic in how it places equal weight on its clanging rhythms and big melodic hooks, a combination that feels like the apotheosis of the U.K.’s New Pop: this is where weird synth-poppers start to infiltrate the mainstream.

Arriving quickly on the heels of their game-changing adult contemporary ballad “Ordinary World,” “Come Undone” shares some of the same soothing qualities as its companion. It has a gentle touch and smooth surfaces, lacking the big beats and clanging keyboards that Duran Duran relied upon during the second half of the 1980s. Where “Ordinary World” was classicist in its conception, “Come Undone” is built upon a drum loop that’s thoroughly of its moment, a rhythm born out of the dying waves of acid house that allows Duran Duran to construct a single that has the best of both worlds: it plays to a maturing audience while being stylish enough to seem fresh and, from a certain angle, even a little hip.

“The Reflex” might be Duran Duran’s cleverest attempt to meld Chic with the Sex Pistols. Although the Pistols influence might seem rather faint here—there are no overdriven guitars but that doesn’t mean it’s not loud—the Chic influence is front and center, with Andy Taylor’s chicken-scratch guitar being an overt nod to Nile Rodgers, the Chic guitarist who would become a Duran Duran collaborator. That six-string riff morphs into a synth line which in turn melds into the electric rhythms that hint at funk without swinging. Make no mistake, this is steely synth-pop but listen closely, it’s not hard to hear the song’s soulful roots, particularly in how Simon Le Bon mimics horn lines on the pre-chorus vocal hooks.

Duran Duran’s first genuine attempt at a ballad resulted in one of their most haunting numbers, a song that discovers a sense of beauty, even transcendence, within a one night stand. Simon Le Bon’s story of a seduction never suggests he finds the connection fleeting: he dwells upon the details of their brief romance, suggesting there’s something that will linger once the morning after has dissipated. The music conveys that sense of melancholy memory, slowly building upon a minor-key synth-loop until the entire song shimmers with a sense of bruised beauty.

“The Chauffeur” is simultaneously the culmination of Rio and a complete anomaly on Duran Duran’s second album. Containing no other musicians than Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon, “The Chauffeur” is somewhat in the lineage of “Night Boat” and “Save A Prayer”—songs where Rhodes’ atmospheric synths are at the forefront—but this elliptical, open-ended song isn’t a dirge, nor does it have a sharpened hook. Initially, it emerges like twinkling city lights across a desert horizon but the song doesn’t follow an expected path. As Le Bon reflects upon images that flit by in the shadows, Rhodes crafts a remarkably nimble piece of music that doesn’t dwell in darkness: the final passages emphasize agile interlocking keyboard lines that almost seem playful in their spookiness.

Picking up on the sordid strand left dangling from “Planet Earth,” Duran Duran dove headfirst into a nocturnal underworld with “Girls On Film.” Simultaneously a celebration and critique of high fashion’s blurry ties with pornography, “Girls On Film” delivers illicit thrills with its very sound. As drummer Roger Taylor lays down a plastic disco rhythm, John Taylor’s elastic, bouncing bass vies for attention with guitarist Andy Taylor’s sideways strums, leaving Nick Rhodes’ cinematic washes of keyboards functioning as commentary as much as Simon Le Bon’s dry quips. It’s the debut of the quintessential Duran Duran signature, one that’s heard through their own work and elsewhere: Blur’s Britpop anthem “Girls & Boys” knowingly nods at this New Romantic classic.

After Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor left Duran Duran in 1985, Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, and John Taylor carried on, choosing to focus on the funk at the heart of so much of their music. Hiring Nile Rodgers, the Chic guitarist who previously helmed “The Wild Boys,” Duran Duran pushed the rhythms to the forefront—Rodgers himself played guitar—and let the horn sections overwhelm the synthesizers, a combination that was sleek, cool, and successful: it went into the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, helping to usher Duran Duran into their second act as hitmakers.

Duran Duran had been absent from the American and British Top 10 for a mere five years when “Ordinary World” became one of their biggest hits, but it felt like they had been away much, much longer. Maybe that’s because the group struggled through Liberty in 1990, or maybe that’s because the band heard on “Ordinary World” embraces their maturity, not once attempting to reconnect with the synth-pop or dance-funk that became their signatures in the 1980s. A stately ballad, “Ordinary World” avoids seeming stuffy thanks to its lovely melody getting the warm, enveloping production it craves. Underneath those soft surfaces, Simon Le Bon delivers a vocal that’s impassioned yet nuanced; for the first time, he sounds as if he has a long past behind him, and that gives this adult contemporary ballad considerable depth.

Duran Duran cultivated a certain sense of elitism in the early years, their combination of futuristic synth-pop and disco sounding like a passport to a life filled with glamour. That aesthetic reached its pinnacle on “Rio,” a song that happily conflates the escape of the tropics with the bliss offered by a stylish romance. Sounding like a speedboat gliding across the open sea, Roger Taylor and John Taylor provide “Rio” with its steely, relentless engine, a propulsion Nick Rhodes matches with percolating synth loops underpinned by a tantalizing sense of high-stakes danger. Simon Le Bon expounds on that sense of abandon, sketching scenarios that seem as fantastical and alluring as movies of the summer in the thick of a dreary winter.

The first single from Duran Duran’s second album Rio, “Hungry Like The Wolf” found Duran Duran sharpening their attack on all fronts. Placing equal emphasis on disco, glam and synths, “Hungry Like The Wolf” contains a kinetic, kinky energy that suits a song that places an emphasis on carnal pursuits. Simon Le Bon’s mosaic of lust conflates urban and literal jungles, an appropriate approach for a song where grinding glam riffs are stripped of sleaze by gilded disco rhythms that welcome the kind of ornate, claustrophobic decoration keyboardist Nick Rhodes provides. Like so many great pop singles, the track sounds like it’s inventing itself as it goes along, a thrill that it manages to generate long after all of its twists have been memorized.