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‘Notorious’: The Story Behind Duran Duran’s Classic Funk-Fuelled Album
Warner Records
In Depth

‘Notorious’: The Story Behind Duran Duran’s Classic Funk-Fuelled Album

Joining forces with disco pioneer Nile Rodgers, Duran Duran weathered the storm of personnel changes to create a floor-filling funk album.

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Splintering in 1985 after drummer Roger Taylor quit (and with lead guitarist Andy Taylor soon to follow suit), Duran Duran turned to Chic mainman Nile Rodgers for help creating their most melodic and funkiest album to date. 1986’s Notorious is more dance-oriented than anything else in the group’s discography, and its story is one of a band drawing fresh audiences as they outmanoeuvred a tide of turning musical fortunes…

Listen to ‘Notorious’ here.

Nile Rodgers offered Duran Duran continuity during a turbulent time

Despite the side projects – Arcadia (Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor) and The Power Station (Andy Taylor and John Taylor, in league with Robert Palmer and Chic drummer Tony Thompson) – and a couple of singles, including the James Bond theme A View To A Kill, Duran Duran hadn’t recorded a full album in close to three years when stop-start sessions for what was to become Notorious began in early 1986.

Nile Rodgers had remixed The Reflex in 1984, and it had gone on to be the group’s biggest hit to date, topping both the US and UK charts. It therefore seemed logical to continue working with the disco architect, particularly after the success of the same year’s standalone single The Wild Boys. But a lot had changed for Duran Duran in that time. Roger Taylor had left in 1985, and Andy was proving reluctant to commit to making more music with the group. He did play on some of the Notorious tracks (although he doesn’t appear on any of the album’s singles), but they would mark his last involvement with the group until 2004’s Astronaut.

To compound the sense of change, Duran Duran had even ditched their management, deciding to have a go at doing things by themselves. “They didn’t have a drummer, or a guitarist, no management, and the record company had just fired [its] president. That’s the album in a nutshell,” summarised Rodgers many years later. 1985’s Live Aid had also reshaped the musical landscape around them: the British synth-pop invasion of the US was in full retreat, and a trio of stateside superstars – Madonna, Prince and Bruce Springsteen – were now dominating international charts.

The recording sessions proved challenging

With Andy Taylor contributing to only four of Notorious’ ten songs, the band had to rely more heavily on session musicians – although the use of Missing Persons guitarist Warren Cuccurullo would lead to him becoming a full-time member of Duran Duran at the end of the decade.

Some of the Notorious album was recorded in Paris, but the band have admitted there were plenty of distractions. “I can’t remember all those songs – I was so high in this period,” Nile Rodgers told The Guardian 13 years later. “[Notorious] was produced from the floor of studio.”

John Taylor revealed that the band’s drive to make the album work ultimately saved the day. “We were determined the show would go on,” he said. “There was self-doubt, of course. Sometimes it seemed like the whole world was against us.” Slowly, things started to come right, with later sessions taking place at London’s AIR Studios. As Rodgers continued mixing the album in New York City, there was a palpable sense it might just work in a changing marketplace. “The music we were making with Nile felt like the right music for our time,” John Taylor wrote in his autobiography, In The Pleasure Groove.

The song Notorious was a huge hit

When Notorious’ title track was issued as a single in October 1986, it sailed into the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, but its success was to prove deceptive. Notorious peaked at No.2 in the US, but it follow-up single, Skin Trade, stalled at No.39. In the band’s homeland, Notorious made it to No.7 while Skin Trade, with its far funkier groove, nestled just outside the Top 20. The Latin-flavoured Meet El Presidente was picked as the project’s third and final single, and the album sold more than a million copies worldwide.

Touring ‘Notorious’ became the album’s defining moment

Staged in support of Notorious, the Strange Behaviour Tour started with dates in Japan in March 1987 and would run until early in the following year, with two gigs in Brazil (although August 1987 would see the close of the tour’s main run). Warren Cuccurullo would join the band for the dates, and the setlist would lean heavily into the new record, although there was space for earlier cuts such as The Chauffeur, from the Rio album.

Highlights from the Strange Behaviour Tour were collected for a VHS release called Working For The Skin Trade in 1988 (and reissued on DVD in 2019, as part of a Notorious box set). A photo book by Virginia Liberatore, World, also documented the tour and is now one of the rarest pieces of Duran Duran memorabilia, fiercely prized by fans.

Notorious would have a surprising afterlife

Notorious remains a fan favourite, but its stock rose in the eyes of the wider public in 1999, when The Notorious B.I.G. sampled the album’s title track for his posthumous hit Notorious B.I.G., which charted across the globe – in no small part thanks to contributions from Puff Daddy and Lil’ Kim. Cemented in the group’s legacy as one of the best Duran Duran songs, Notorious would also resurface a little over a decade later, in the cult movie Donnie Darko.

Find out where Duran Duran rank among the best 80s bands.

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