Are Duran Duran an overrated or underrated band?
Getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame isn’t necessarily the sort of career validation that turns a much derided pop band into a critical darling. Still, Duran Duran didn’t do themselves any favours at the 2022 induction ceremony in Los Angeles.
Yes, they’d somehow managed to parachute into an institution that has happily thumbed its nose at many of the biggest British bands of the 1980s and ‘90s – The Smiths and Oasis included – but while other artists at the same ceremony were inducted by their peers (Eurythmics by The Edge, Judas Priest by Alice Cooper, Eminem by Dr Dre), Duran Duran’s career was celebrated on stage by Robert Downey, Jr, a talented actor who nonetheless became more famous in the ’80s and ’90s for his own bad judgment and pursuits of excess. He was, to put it another way, the hungry wolf in human form.
Downey’s words didn’t have any of the emotional heft or personal connection that these sorts of induction speeches usually require – those elements were provided later in the form of a letter read aloud to the audience from Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor, who couldn’t attend the event due to a prostate cancer diagnosis. What Downey did do, however, is lay out a very surface-level case for Duran Duran as an underrated, underappreciated, and Hall of Fame worthy band—almost framing it like an argument against the ever-present haters of New Romanticism and yacht-based music videos.
“What makes for longevity in arguably the most cutthroat business on Earth?” Downey asked. “I say, consistent quality over time… plus headbands [small chuckle from crowd]. By which I mean, iconic era-defining fashion, high-level musicianship, plus hits, right? Dozens of them. Albums sold—hundreds of millions of them, if you can. But more important than all of those elements, you need a sense of what I like to call the CSF: cool, sophisticated fun. You know who’s got that in spades? Duran Duran.”
The real question should be, does this sort of description actually help the “cause”, for lack of a better term, of putting Duran Duran in their proper place in history? The big hits, the headbands, and the “CSF” factor are basically the things everybody already knows about this band. The same ingredients, in fact, have routinely been used to de-legitimise Duran Duran’s art and undercut their musical significance. The sheen and self-importance, essentially, proved that their chart-topping songs didn’t have real substance; that this was an overrated boy band rather than a noteworthy New Wave band.
During their first big run of hits in the early 1980s (‘Girls on Film’, ‘Rio’, ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’, etc.), the members of Duran Duran outwardly appeared to embrace the sort of unashamedly privileged, champagne-popping attitudes of the era’s easily despised Studio 54 / Gordon Gekko types, even though they were, in fact, hard-working musicians from working-class Birmingham. Were they, like Robert Downey, forgivably caught up in the glow of youthful celebrity, or were they willfully betraying their roots and aligning themselves with the ivory tower establishment in Thatcher’s Britain? A shiny river twisting through a dusty land?
If young listeners were drawn to The Smiths and the Cure, or even Depeche Mode, as something “authentic” and artistically minded in the mid-80s, many also framed those bands as an antidote to the supposed vapidity of hitmakers like Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, and Wham! (and it seems like Robert Smith agreed). But was this actually fair? Should the way Simon Le Bon and his bandmates looked or behaved in videos or nightclubs really decide whether they were a great band with great songs? And hadn’t we learned from the glam and punk of the ‘70s that fashion was part of the package—that reflecting the trends of the day, even an aspirational Dynasty lifestyle, could have its own kind of authenticity?
Despite the “boy band” and “MTV product” putdowns, Duran Duran were not manufactured. They were self-formed, self-directed, and deeply involved in their musical output from the start. The musicianship, as Downey briefly noted, was legitimate, and Le Bon’s voice, while not technically on the level of someone like Boy George or George Michael, was distinctive and well suited to the role he played. Even the lyrics sometimes veer into the amusingly cryptic or kitschy: “Every little thing the reflex does / Leaves you answered with a question mark.” Profundity took a back seat to atmosphere, but clichés were used sparingly.
Artists from subsequent generations have taken note, as well, maybe not in the droves that name-drop the sacred cows of indie, but everyone from the Killers to Mark Ronson to Charli XCX has tipped their cap to Duran Duran as an influence.
Obviously, the debate over whether Duran Duran is underrated or overrated is a subjective paradox where the maths instantly changes depending on whose system of merit is in use. The ‘Girls on Film’ video might have you voting one way; then the ‘Save a Prayer’ harmonies might shoot you right back the other way. We can only agree that there’s an equation in there somewhere, probably starting with “consistent quality + headbands”.
