Duran Duran

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Duran Duran is an English Synth pop/pop/rock band notable for a long series of popular singles and vivid music videos. They were the most commercially successful of the New Romantic bands and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States. During the past three decades they have placed 21 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 and 30 in the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart. Duran Duran have sold more than 85 million records.

The band's hit singles include "Planet Earth", "Girls On Film", "Rio","Hungry Like the Wolf", "Save A Prayer", "Is There Something I Should Know?", "Union of the Snake", "The Reflex", "Wild Boys" and the James Bond theme "A View to a Kill" in the 1980s, "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone" in the early-1990s, and "Sunrise" and "What Happens Tomorrow" in the 2000s. They have won two Grammy Awards for their music videos.

Duran Duran was created by Nick Rhodes (keyboards) and John Taylor (bass), with the later addition of Roger Taylor (drums), Andy Taylor (guitar), and Simon Le Bon (lead vocals); none of the Taylors are related. The group has never disbanded, but the line-up changed to include guitarist Warren Cuccurullo from 1989 to 2001, and drummer Sterling Campbell from 1989 to 1991. The reunion of the original five members in the early 2000s, leading to the release of Astronaut in 2004, created a stir among music media and the band's fans.

The band performed in Wembley Stadium at the Concert for Princess Diana on July 1, 2007, being introduced by Prince William as "one of my mother`s favourite bands". Duran Duran played their hit songs (in order): "Sunrise", "Wild Boys", and "Rio". The following Saturday, July 7, 2007, they performed at the London Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium. Here they performed Planet Earth, Notorious, Ordinary World and Girls on Film.

John Taylor and Nick Rhodes formed Duran Duran in Birmingham, England in 1978, naming the band after the villain "Dr. Durand Durand", played by Milo O'Shea in Roger Vadim's cult science-fiction film Barbarella. Their first singer was Stephen Duffy. Several drummers and guitarists were subsequently tried, as well as a handful of vocalists, after Duffy left Duran Duran early in 1979.

Finally, drummer Roger Taylor fell in with them at a party (after which John Taylor, originally on lead guitar, switched to bass). Guitarist Andy Taylor came south from Newcastle to audition after responding to a magazine advertisement, and London vocalist Simon Le Bon was recommended to the band by an ex-girlfriend who worked at the Rum Runner nightclub where the band rehearsed. The owners of the club, brothers Paul and Michael Berrow, became the band's management, paying them to work as doormen, disc jockeys and glass collectors when they weren't rehearsing.

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