Notorious (Duran Duran album)

Following the success of their previous album Seven and the Ragged Tiger and its subsequent world tour, Duran Duran planned to take a break for a year but all the band members ended up working on two side projects: the Power Station and Arcadia which were both moderate successes. The band would regroup in 1985 to record the song "A View to a Kill" for the James Bond film of the same name and performed at the Live Aid charity concert in July of the same year, which proved to be the last time all original members played together. By the time it came to record the new album at the beginning of 1986, drummer Roger Taylor had quit the group, citing exhaustion and overwhelmed with the band's success. The remaining three members would continue to work on the album, with producer Nile Rodgers of Chic also contributing to guitar and drummer Steve Ferrone who worked with the Average White Band, Chaka Khan and Scritti Politti. Andy Taylor's departure and Warren Cuccurullo Guitarist Andy Taylor was expected to record with the band in early stages of the album. He did not show up when the sessions began and tensions arose when the band realized the guitarist was in Los Angeles planning his own solo career and was not satisfied with the musical direction the band members were going for. The recording sessions would be interrupted by a legal battle between both parties. After several months however, the band agreed to let him go but Taylor would play on several tracks before his departure. Andy would write in his autobiography, Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran about his final studio session. "I plugged in my guitar, played a few tracks with the engineer in order to honour my contractual obligations and then left to phone my lawyer. It was over." In a 1986 interview, Andy Taylor stated, "When I got to the studio, they had already started. It didn't matter. I just didn't want to be in the band anymore. They were playing this dance and R&B style of music and I wanted to play rock 'n' roll. I left on good terms with them. I don't feel any hostility." Keyboardist Nick Rhodes reflected on the circumstances saying, "When John went on the Power Station tour with him, he felt they were growing up. I went over to Los Angeles in January to see Andy to talk about the new album and try out new ideas. It was very uneasy. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I think the fact was we came to do the album the three of us really wanted to do and he didn't. He wanted to make a solo record. I just wish he told us a bit earlier. During the sessions, Taylor began hanging out with members of American rock band Missing Persons which had broken up. Guitarist Warren Cuccurullo would eventually contact the band several times, being initially rebuffed. When the album reached the mixing stage, the band would invite Warren over and was hired as a replacement, in which he contributed on several tracks on the album. Cuccurullo would eventually become a full-time member of the band in 1989 after their tour supporting their follow-up album Big Thing. == Composition ==

Music Given the experience the band members had on their side projects, there was a massive change in the musical style of Duran Duran. The sound of Notorious was an obvious direction, especially due to the fact that the band's last two hit singles "The Wild Boys" and the James Bond theme "A View to a Kill" were "edgier" but were worldwide successes nevertheless. The band wanted to distance themselves away from their synth-pop approach and explore a "funkier urban" sound. Rhodes mentioned that the band wanted to focus more on their music and less on their image. "On the last tour, the audience was too loud in some places," Rhodes said. "The screaming little girls tend to make their way to the front of the stage and make a lot of noise. We like the young fans. But it would be nice if they were a little quieter." Lyrics Similar to their previous works, the lyrical content on Notorious focused on certain topics. Due to the band's determination to move to a more sophisticated style, the results were more mature such as the negative aspects of the press ("Notorious"), work exploitation ("Skin Trade"), band tensions ("Vertigo (Do the Demolition)", manipulation ("So Misled"), and political intrigue ("Meet El Presidente"). The band named several tracks after Alfred Hitchcock films, such as Notorious, Vertigo and Rope (the original title for "Hold Me"). Rhodes and Le Bon said that the writing for the album was easier in comparison to the tension and hysteria-filled sessions of Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Nile Rodgers said of composing the title track, "[...] 'Notorious' is basically James Brown soul-power. That's when I started to groove and started playing along with it. And Nick Rhodes went, 'Wow! A D-minor 6th. That's such a great chord. We got to write that into a song." == Release and promotion ==

The evolving sound and mature direction of Duran Duran was seen as a major turning point in the band's commercial prospects. Several other factors regarding the lackluster performance of Notorious included the band members dismissing their managers, the Berrow brothers and acting as their own management. In June 1986, EMI fired its president and went through a reconstruction with the label losing interest in the band in favor of new artists. This, combined with the hiatus the band took would alienate much of the band's core fanbase as the mature approach would leave behind the light synth-pop of their earlier releases. Notorious was released on 24 November 1986. The album would peak at number 16 in the UK Albums Chart and number 12 on the Billboard 200. It would be certified platinum in the US on January 20, 1987, and has sold over 1,000,000 copies there. Despite this, Notorious was seen as a commercial failure because it did not replicate the same success as their previous albums. The lead single, "Notorious", was a commercial success, reaching number 7 in the UK Singles Chart and number 2 in the Billboard Hot 100 and saw heavy rotation on MTV. "Skin Trade", the album's second single, stalled at number 22 in the UK and at number 39 on the American Top 40, a first for the band since their early releases. The third single, "Meet El Presidente", was remixed to capitalise on the growing "Miami dance" scene, but it only reached number 24 in the UK and number 70 in the US. "A Matter of Feeling" was considered as another potential single, before being released as a promotional single in Brazil. The commercial underperformance of both the album and its subsequent singles would ultimately shadow Duran Duran for years to come until the success of 1993's "Ordinary World". == Critical reception ==

Contemporary reviews Notorious received mixed reviews from critics. Of those that were positive, critics praised the band's newfound maturity and improved songwriting. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote, "Duran Duran's newfound disillusionment may mark a step toward maturity...they managed to catch a trend on the upswing, perhaps Notorious suggests that for late 1980s grit and pessimism is coming into style." Chris Williams of Los Angeles Times said of the production, "Nile Rodgers, is no miracle worker—he doesn't leave a stamp on his production efforts with meager artists so much as the veneer of an airbrush—but his studio prowess is punchy enough to make the usual ponderous material a tad easier to swallow. Nick Rhodes' omnipresent layers of synthesizers have more character and variety this time around." Notorious was ranked the sixth best album of 1986 in the seventh annual Smash Hits poll, votes for which were held before the album's release, something which Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys (who were in fifth place) credited to Duran Duran's fanatical fanbase. John Taylor quipped that "if anyone had actually heard the album, we'd have come first." Retrospective reviews Retrospective reviews remain similarly mixed. Mike DeGagne of AllMusic criticised the songwriting, "Beneath Duran Duran's attempts at trying to sound musically devious, mysterious, and slightly seductive, the tracks fail to bear enough weight in order to be effective all the way through," and concludes "the provocative, nightclub brand of martini-sipping pop that does surface is meritorious to a certain extent, felt mostly in the album's two biggest tracks." == Track listing ==

2010 digital-only releases ==Personnel==

Duran Duran • Simon Le Bon: lead vocals • Nick Rhodes: keyboards • John Taylor: bass guitar, background vocals and guitar on track 11 Technical • Nile Rodgers – production • Duran Duran – production • Daniel Abraham – engineering, mixing • Bob Ludwig – mastering Artwork • John Swannell – photography • Christy Turlington – cover model • Frank Olinsky – design Additional musicians • Steve Ferrone - drums on all tracks • Andy Taylor - guitar on tracks 2, 4–6 • Nile Rodgers - guitar on tracks 1-4 & 7–10 • Warren Cuccurullo - guitar on tracks 2, 3, 5, 6 & 9 • Mac Gollehon • Jimmy Maelen • The Borneo Horns • Curtis King Jr. – additional vocals • Brenda White-King – additional vocals • Tessa Niles – additional vocals • Cindy Mizelle – additional vocals ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==