IAN RAVENDALE
A decade of change on the way: Warren Cuccurullo, Sterling Campbell, John Taylor, Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon
Michel Linssen/Redferns
For Duran Duran, the Nineties didn’t start well. Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over), the initial single from 1990’s Liberty album, struggled into the No.20 position on the UK charts even after appearances on Top Of The Pops and Wogan. Serious, the follow-up, only scraped into the Top 50, peaking at No.48, and neither single did well in the US. The Liberty LP fared slightly better, entering the chart at No.8 before making a sharp exit. Faced with the potential embarrassment of playing to half-empty concert venues and receiving less-thanecstatic reviews, Duran chose not to tour in support of Liberty and instead embarked on a promotional tour of radio and television stations in Australia and New Zealand, where they were pretty well guaranteed blanket media exposure.