Biography
Duran Duran was one of the most successful British pop bands of the 1980s, who by 2015 had sold over 100 million records worldwide. Formed in Birmingham, England in 1978, after a number of personnel changes the band formed its most commercially successful lineup in 1981, which consisted of keyboardist Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor, drummer Roger Taylor, guitarist Andy Taylor and lead singer Simon Le Bon. Duran Duran, the band's self-titled debut album, was released in 1981, and became a huge international success largely based on the hit song "Girls on Film." The video for the song received heavy airplay on MTV, which has launched only a few weeks prior in August of 1981, and made the group overnight superstars. Duran Duran started touring the world in support of their debut album, and soon began earning a large following of intensely devoted fans. The band's second album, 1982's Rio, was an even bigger success, and went on to produce three hit singles: "My Own Way," "Save A Prayer," and "Hungry Like the Wolf." By 1983 Duran Duran had become one of the most popular music acts in Britain, as well as in the United States. The group played to sold out crowds in stadiums across the globe, and were mobbed by legions of screaming female fans everywhere they went - the likes of which had not been seen since Beatlemania in the 1960s. This intense popularity lasted until 1986, when Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor decided to leave the group due to the stress of a non-stop touring schedule, as well as mounting tensions between bandmembers. Duran Duran continued putting out successful albums throughout the remainder of the decade but by the early 90s the group's style of pop music was losing favor with a mainstream public that was becoming obsessed by the heavy guitars and brooding lyrics of grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Duran Duran released four albums in the 1990s, but due to the rise of alternative rock and hip hop, as well as a changing music industry, the band failed to re-capture the huge international success of its mid-80s heyday. Then in 2001 the band's classic lineup reunited for an extensive world tour, and went on to release 2004's Astronaut, which produced the commercially successful single "(Reach Up For The) Sunrise." Andy Taylor left the band once again in 2006, but Le Bon, John Taylor, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor continued touring and releasing albums throughout the remainder of the 2000s and well into the 2010s. In September of 2015 Duran Duran released their fourteenth studio album "Paper Gods." The album hit number 10 on the Billboard 200 in early October 2015, thus making it the band's highest charting album since 1993's Duran Duran.
