Duran Duran Bounces Back
02-21-1993
BY TONY FLETCHER. Tony Fletcher is a free-lance writer.

BY MOST RIGHTS and all common logic, Duran Duran should not be enjoying the comeback that its hit single "Ordinary World" is bringing the group. A Vanguard member of the British invasion of the early '80s that was largely created by a nascent MTV, for a while Duran Duran was one of the world's biggest groups. With a teen following of Beatle-mania proportions and a collective ego that was best (or worst) represented by its flamboyant videos, Duran Duran indulged itself in side projects and supergroups (Arcadia and The Power Station, respectively), and survived the departure of two founding members to create hits through the end of the decade.

But when 1990's "Liberty" disappeared without a trace, it looked as if the group's audience had grown up and moved on, and that Duran Duran would go the way of now-defunct contemporaries Culture Club and Spandau Ballet. Not so. The excellently crafted ballad "Ordinary World" shows the group to be capable of delivering the goods. And as an added irony for a band that was introduced by MTV when radio wouldn't touch it, this particular song exploded across radio's many formats before a video was even made.

This perhaps justifies the line "Destroyed by MTV, I hate to bite the hand that feeds" which opens their self-titled new album (Capitol). The song f rom which that attack comes, "Too Much Information," is a carefully constructed rock-funk stomper that INXS, as the next supergroup in need of a comeback, would love to have written. And it emphasizes how desperately Duran Duran, whose members have had everything in their careers except critical respect, wishes to be taken seriously.

To that end, vocalist Simon LeBon, keyboard player Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor and relatively new guitarist Warren Cuccurillo further savage their own industry (and pin-up past) with the songs "Drowning Man" and "Mr. Bone." They adequately replicate "Ordinary World" with "Come Undone." They bring in vocalist Milton Nacimento for a Latin-flavored "Breath After Breath" and indulge in some brief Prince-esque funk on "Shotgun.' But does the world really need yet another version of The Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale"? And are we really crying out for well-off pop stars to show their concern for everyday people by singing about the Happyland fire of 1990, as Duran Duran does so heavy-handedly on "Sin Of The City?" (Sample crass lyric: "You're using your people up; stop killing your people now.")

Ultimately, much of "Duran Duran" the album, and Duran Duran the band - even after all these years - remains a victory of style over content. Surviving against the odds, it remains a great pop band. But it has yet to make its first great rock album.

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