Greatest

Performer: Duran Duran
Engineer: Daniel Abraham; Jason Corsaro
Producer: Chris Kimsey; Colin Thurston; Daniel Abraham; Ian Little; Duran Duran; Jonathan Elias; Alex Sadkin; Nile Rodgers; Shep Pettibone; TV Mania; Bernard Edwards; Nigel Reeve (Compilation)
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Duran Duran: Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, Andy Taylor, Roger Taylor, John Taylor. Additional personnel: Andy Hamilton, Raphael Dejesus, B.J. Nelson, Charmaine Burch. Recorded live on tour in Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and the United States in 1984. Personnel includes: Duran Duran; Jonathan Elias (samples). Producers include: Duran Duran, Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards, Chris Kimsey, Daniel Abraham. Compilation producer: Nigel Reeve. Audio Mixers: Daniel Abraham; Ian Little; David Richards ; Jason Corsaro; Alex Sadkin; Nile Rodgers; Anthony J. Resta; Shep Pettibone; Steve Peck; Bob Rosa; Bob St. John . Seeing Duran Duran in concert in 1984 was like seeing a video come to life. The group put on a spectacular show filled with impressive light shows and videos. Since the concerts featured so many visuals, the band could not vary the tempos greatly, resulting in music that nearly replicated the studio versions of the songs. Arena accurately reproduces the sound and feeling of these concerts. Duran Duran sound tight and professional (probably due to studio overdubbing), yet Simon Lebon sounds a little winded, possibly because of all the dancing he had to do during the course of the show. The new Nile Rodgers-produced single "The Wild Boys" was added to the album as bait and the strategy worked: peaking at number four, Arena was Duran Duran's highest-charting album and it sold over two million copies. Nevertheless, it's the most inconsequential album in their entire catalog, even if it's fun. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Twenty years since their pop music debut, Duran Duran issued another greatest-hits collection. As if 1989's Decade wasn't stellar enough, this select package was much more solid. Greatest showcased the band's early days of glam rock d�cor and new romanticism to the alluring sophistication Duran Duran exuded throughout the '90s. The typical synth-powered pop hits are included -- "Girls on Film," "Rio," "A View to a Kill" -- as well as the signature ballads -- "Save a Prayer" -- but it might also receive criticism due to its chronological disarray. Still, that gives no reason to fret, for other goodies can be found throughout. The much-neglected "New Moon on Monday" is featured, as well as the band's mature eclecticism of such songs from the self-titled Wedding Album -- "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone." The band's experimentation with new millennium electronica found on "Electric Barbarella" again refocuses on Simon LeBon as the center of the band. A continuity blatantly obvious on Greatest and the strong commercialism that progressed throughout the band's healthy evolvement is not denied. Those chart-smashing singles from the 1980s made them a force to be reckoned with and an arena favorite. The songs are nearly ageless and they get their due here. It's a cheeky production and a definitive depiction of one of rock's biggest pop bands. ~ MacKenzie Wilson ARENA's high point is its one studio cut, the Nile Rodgers-produced single "The Wild Boys," a minimalist art-funk song that takes its title from William Burroughs, its found sound/cut-up production from Trevor Horn's Art of Noise, and its Spartan funk-pop groove from Prince. A musical Frankenstein creation, it's also an oddly effective single that was perhaps just slightly too weird for the band's teenybopper following; it was a lesser hit than the band's status would have otherwise signified. It's that high public standing which created this live document, a recording made at various dates on the band's 1983-84 tour in support of its third album, SEVEN AND THE RAGGED TIGER. Drawing material from all three albums and focusing on hit singles such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio," ARENA presents the songs in pristine versions that differ only slightly from the studio cuts. Though '80s nostalgia was an inevitability, the truth is that some of the most influential voices of that era never went away. The members of Duran Duran had their mortgages paid off long before GREATEST was conceived, so their sincerity in releasing a best of album is not to be doubted. One listen is enough to convince the most forgetful fan that every once in a while, the musical taste of teenage girls is right on the mark. GREATEST follows the teen heartthrobs from their inspiring early days (the quintessential new wave anthem "Planet Earth," the stylish, more-than-suggestive "Girls On Film") straight through to their later work ("Electric Barbarella," a whirring, modern dance cut). In between, the classic "Hungry Like The Wolf" and the mournful "Save A Prayer" give evidence of the band's mastery of the pop form, while the Bond theme "View To A Kill" and "Notorious" trace their development during the decade with which they are inextricably linked.

At the dawn of the 1980s, Duran Duran was part of Britain's "futurist" or "new romantic" scene, which merged glam-rock attitude with disco beats and synthesizers to form an intensely fashion-conscious variant on new wave. With their good looks and pop hooks, the group ruled the music world for the first half of the decade. After that, there were numerous side projects (Arcadia, Power Station) and personnel changes, but the original band reunited to much ado in 2003.

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