BIG-TIME COMEBACK FOR BRITS REVIVED DURAN DURAN WANT TO BE TOUGH GUYS
Thursday, January 19, 1989

By Jonathan Takiff, Daily News Staff Writer

At the start of the decade, Duran Duran was the band I judged most likely to last until lunchtime - and no longer. Which makes their latest return to the charts with the "Big Time" album and their headline status at the Spectrum tonight rather ironic.

Debuting in an era focused on hard-nosed punk rock, when grit and grayness was the musical vogue, Duran Duran came on all glam and sham - whisking us off to never-never land in lavish, lurid videos for "Rio," "The Reflex" and "Hungry Like a Wolf."

MTV's first true video rock stars, Duran Duran celebrated image over content, taking their name from a character in the sci-fi film "Barbarella," and milking their jet-set aura for all it was worth. Only later did we find out that some of the band members had never been out of Birmingham, England, before their act began (as an art school project), didn't even have passports and got nauseous cruising the video seas on those yachts!

Their sound was a reworking of Roxy Music, Queen, Kraftwerk and Chic, fitted to obscure words that even lyricist/singer Simon LeBon couldn't explain.

Still there was no underestimating the value of their pretty faces, and the group's will to survive as pop superstars beyond the craze of New Romantics that they ushered in. Unlike other rock dilettantes, these guys actually worked the concert circuit hard. Even in the lulls when they weren't making music, their glamorous mugs kept popping up in the teen fan magazines.

And when Duran Duran seemed to have run out of steam, they sharpened their chops with sideline projects. LeBon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor put out one guitar-dominated LP as Arcadia that went nowhere fast, while John Taylor and Andy Taylor combined talents with Robert Palmer for a very successful one-time project as Power Station that re-cast them in a funkier, adult mode.

The first comeback album as Duran Duran ("Notorious") continued the funk emphasis, with Nile Rogers (of Chic fame) serving as producer. Judging from its dismal sales, the set left their old fans cold.

"Big Thing" shows a tad more sophistication, and a much harder-nosed attitude. The cutesy boys have become tough men, giving Jerry Lee Lewis' ''Great Balls of Fire" a run for the money in the relentless phallic imagery of the title track; hitting the dance floor hard with "I Don't Want Your Love," making like that "Cool Operator" Sade on the bluenote ballad ''Too Late Marlene."

"We always react against things," said Simon LeBon recently, "and after six years of being a 'toothpaste band' we want to be bad boys, stick our chins out and be bloody minded. We're not grim, just perverse. Look at the charts today - it's like being back in the Bobby Vee era, with all this bubblegum pop and guys like Rick Astley."

LeBon believes Duran's fans have grown with the band, and "appreciate the way we're more real now . . . After a decade you either find a formula and stick with it, like the Rolling Stones, or you change and excite yourself. I'm very proud of the way no two Duran Duran LPs sound the same."

To these ears, LeBon is deluding himself. Yes, the new lyrics are more forthright and bolder. The arrangements are a bit more surreal and trippy - an effect that should be exaggerated in the lighting for tonight's concert. And certainly some of the group's musical reference points have changed. The misty "Palomino" and protesty "Edge of America" make me think they've been listening to old David Crosby and Dire Straits albums, while "Do You Believe in Shame?" is a close variation on "I Put a Spell on You."

Still, LeBon's melancholy vocal register is a focus that remains constant, that keeps him reaching out for the same old tones and musical changes. Hearing a "Big Thing" track for the first time, you're not going to wonder "who's that playing?"

Duran Duran nowadays has shrunk down to the core threesome of Le Bon (lead vocals), Nick Rhodes (keyboards) and John Taylor (bass). Fleshing out the stage presentation are guitarist Warren Cuccurullo (late of Missing Persons) and drummer Sterling Campbell.

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