the latter becoming Mute labelmates in 1983
The 1983 single ” Confusion ” firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years.
Now promoted as a dance album, Rio was re-released in the US in November and began to climb the American charts six months after its European success. MTV placed “Hungry Like the Wolf” and several other Duran Duran videos into heavy rotation, pushing the single and album into the US…
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The band began 1983 at the Palladium in New York playing the MTV New Year’s Eve Rock n’ Roll Ball with “Hungry Like the Wolf” still climbing the charts in the US, and the American reissue of the “Rio” single to follow in March. To satisfy America’s appetite for their…
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The new album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983), included the late 1983 hit ” Union of the Snake ” (with the soprano saxophone solo by Andy Hamilton ). With “Hungry Like the Wolf”, “Rio”, “Save a Prayer” and “Is There Something I Should Know?”, Duran Duran now had five…
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The members of the Sugarcubes had formerly been in a variety of Icelandic bands. Björk Guðmundsdóttir had the longest career out of any of the members; she had recorded an album when she was 11 . In her late teens, she joined the Icelandic post-punk band Tappi Tíkarrass , who…
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At the end of recording, Derosier and Fossen were fired from the band. They were replaced by Denny Carmassi on drums and Mark Andes on bass for Passionworks (1983), while at the record company’s insistence, the band turned to established producer Keith Olsen . Both Private Audition and Passionworks had…
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and the following month the band began their 1982 tour.
A Broken Frame was released that September
At first, the Rio album did not do well in the United States. EMI in the UK had promoted Duran Duran as a New Romantic band, but the New Romantic movement was barely known in the US, and EMI’s American subsidiary Capitol Records was at a loss about how to…
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