Duran Duran

Duran Duran represents a turning point in the sexual history of new wave: Girls pulled their hair and screamed, while boys complained that they were fascist pop puppets taking up valuable airtime that rightfully belonged to Black Flag. But the girls were right, as they always are. The Fab Five combined New Romantic synths, disco bass lines, flash guitar, wedge haircuts, and a host of art-glam pretensions into some of the '80s' juiciest pop trash.

Duran Duran's first three albums are butter: Simon Le Bon sings of love and fashion, his mouth alive with juices like wine, while Nick Rhodes presses brightly colored keyboard buttons and all three Tay-lors boogie down. The debut has the insanely catchy "Planet Earth," the lecherous "Girls on Film," and the nuclear-war-pondering "Is There Something I Should Know?" Seven has "Union of the Snake" and "New Moon on Monday." But Rio is definitely the one to get -- even filler like "Hold Back the Rain" has lipstick cherry all over the lens. The title tune evokes a mysterious femme fatale with a fetish for dancing on the sand, and when she shines she really shows you all she can (huh?). "Save a Prayer" is a drippily suggestive slow jam raising the hermeneutic conceit "Some people call it a one-night stand/But we can call it . . . paradise." "Hungry Like the Wolf" is lycanthropic disco madness, complete with orgasmic moans from some lucky she-wolf or another, culminating as Simon gets all Romulus on your Remus by the moonlight tide. A classic.

Although their imminent demise has been predicted many times, the Durannies have hung around long enough to age into the despot dowagers of the new-wave empire. Indeed, even a devoted fan has to be puzzled by their staying power. After the live Arena, and a lull with the side projects Arcadia and the Power Station, they returned as a trio (minus Roger and Andy) on the Nile Rodgers- produced Notorious -- and yes, that's 16-year-old Christy Turlington posing seductively on the back cover. The later albums are spottier, but the hits kept coming every couple of years or so, and Greatest rounds them up (with a little too much '90s stuff). The earlier best-of Decade has an ugly cover and no "New Moon on Monday." Thank You was a popular, though not very good, 1995 album of covers, including a version of Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines" that became a fluke urban-radio hit. By Medazzaland and Pop Trash, John Taylor had dropped out of the group, surely just a temporary glitch. Not until the last Duran Duran fan passes from the earth shall its name go unhonored. And Duran Duran fans shall never, never pass from the earth, not as long as there is sand somewhere upon which Rio can dance. (ROB SHEFFIELD)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide