MARK LINDORES
Following Duran Duran’s mid-Eighties hiatus during which they indulged their musical infidelities in the form of The Power Station, Arcadia and solo experiments, the group’s planned reunion in 1986 was not what any of them had expected. As well as being down to a threepiece following the departures of Andy and Roger Taylor, the band had split from long-term managers Paul and Michael Berrow, the Birmingham brothers that had guided them to global stardom.
It wasn’t just the band itself that had changed – the pop world had undergone a seismic shift post-Live Aid, developing a social conscience that rendered the vulgarity of globe-trotting playboys flaunting their wealth and excesses in everyone’s faces null and void. Meanwhile, in the land of the teen mags that Duran Duran once ruled, Norwegian trio A-ha had stolen the hearts of Britain’s teenage girls with their impossibly catchy hits and heartthrob lead singer Morten Harket, causing many to question what the future held for Le Bon and Co.