In May 1982 Duran Duran released their second album Rio. Its lead single, “Rio”, reached #9 in the UK (modest) and only #14 Billboard Hot 100 in the US. The album's commercial success came later, and it came through the visual image: the “Rio” video, shot in Antigua for $250,000, became the most influential MTV pop clip of 1982. The image of “five British lads on a yacht in the tropics” became the symbol of the New Romantic era and set the visual language of pop music for the next five years.
Duran Duran: from Birmingham to global pop
Duran Duran - Simon Le Bon (vocals), Nick Rhodes (keys), Andy Taylor (guitar), John Taylor (bass), Roger Taylor (drums; the three Taylors aren't related) - formed in Birmingham in 1978. Named after a character from Roger Vadim's 1968 film Barbarella starring Jane Fonda. Based at the Rum Runner club, where Nick Rhodes was DJ.
By 1981 the band had put out the debut Duran Duran, featuring the hit “Planet Earth” (#12 UK). By the end of 1981 they had a £1 million deal with EMI. The second album was tracked in January-February 1982 at AIR Studios in London.
How Nick Rhodes and John Taylor wrote “Rio”
“Rio” was written by Nick Rhodes (keys) and John Taylor (bass) - the band's core writing duo. Rhodes told Smash Hits in 1982: “I sat at the Oberheim OB-X and started playing that gliding synth pad. John jumped in on bass. Two hours later we had the chorus - melody and harmony, no lyric yet”.
The lyric was Simon Le Bon's - and it was the most abstract writing of his career. “Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand, just like that river twistin' through a dusty land”. Le Bon explained to NME in 1982: “Rio is a woman. Rio is a river. Rio is a city. I don't know which one. I wanted to write a song where all three meanings ring at once”.
In 2015 Le Bon clarified for Uncut: “We hadn't been to Rio de Janeiro when I wrote it. I didn't go there until 1988. „Rio" was, for me, a word meaning „exotic place you want to reach". The same for Toto's „Africa". We in England dream of these places”.
The Antigua video: a visual revolution
The “Rio” video was directed by Russell Mulcahy (future director of Highlander 1986 and Razorback 1984). Budget - $250,000, a colossal sum for a 1982 pop clip. It was shot in March 1982 on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean, seven days of filming.
Mulcahy's concept: the band lives on a yacht - the 1938 schooner Eilean - cruises tropical shores, drinks cocktails, takes photographs. No plot. Just beautiful young men in expensive places. This was a revolutionary approach - before 1982 clips were typically either stage (the band playing) or narrative (a mini-film). Mulcahy made a visual commercial for the band itself.
MTV had just locked its rotation in 1982, and “Rio” became one of the first clips in heavy rotation. It was broadcast 8-12 times a day for three months. It became Duran Duran's visual identity for their entire career: “five beautiful lads in the tropics”.
“We wanted every frame to look like a tourism commercial. Bright colours, sunshine, the yacht, palm trees. We weren't shooting a „music video" - we were shooting „a dream of a life".”
- Russell Mulcahy, Cinefex interview, 1995
Sound anatomy
- Key: A major, modulating to C major on the bridge
- BPM: 130 - fast tempo, typical for new wave
- Length: 5:34 (album), 4:42 (single edit)
- Keys: Nick Rhodes on an Oberheim OB-X (main pad) and Yamaha CS-80 (solo)
- Bass: John Taylor on a Fender Jazz Bass through an Ampeg SVT
- Guitar: Andy Taylor on a Fender Stratocaster through a Marshall JCM800
- Drums: Roger Taylor on a Yamaha Recording Custom kit
- Saxophone: Andy Hamilton - the closing alto-sax solo
- Producer: Colin Thurston (the same producer who cut David Bowie's Heroes 1977)
- Album: Rio (10 May 1982, EMI)
The bassline as calling card
The main instrumental element of “Rio” is John Taylor's bassline. Running eighths, with a melodic line that occasionally climbs into the mid-range - it bears little resemblance to the standard 80s rock bass (eighths on the root and fifth). Taylor was drawing from Bernard Edwards of Chic.
Taylor told Bass Player Magazine in 2005: “I always wanted to play like Edwards. I listened to Chic's „Good Times" 1979 and thought - bass should be a second melodic voice. Rhodes would write a melody on the synth, I'd pick it up on bass. Our work was a conversation”.
The “Rio” bass became the template for the entire new wave era. In 1983-86 dozens of bands copied it: Culture Club “I'll Tumble 4 Ya”, Tears for Fears “Mad World”, Simple Minds “Alive and Kicking”. All of them are variations on the same “bass as second melodic voice” approach.
The album as a whole
Rio is not just a compilation of singles, it's a concept album. Nine tracks united by a tropical aesthetic: “Rio”, “Hungry Like the Wolf”, “Save a Prayer”, “The Chauffeur”, “Lonely in Your Nightmare” - all about travel, the exotic, the tropics. The cover was painted by Patrick Nagel - a California illustrator known for 80s pop art (his style: flat female portraits with bright colours).
Nagel's cover became the most famous visual icon of the 80s. Madonna, Prince, George Michael all copied its aesthetic for their own covers. In 2016 MoMA included it in the exhibition “Making Music Modern”.
The album sold 7 million US copies and 12 million worldwide. #6 Billboard 200, #2 UK Albums Chart.
“Rio”'s longevity
By 2024 “Rio” had become the benchmark single of the New Romantic era. In 2003 Rolling Stone included it in their 500 Greatest Songs. In 2011 it opened the Lollapalooza festival. In 2007 Jay-Z sampled the bassline for “Blue Magic” from American Gangster.
Duran Duran are still active. By 2024 they had released 15 studio albums. “Rio” remains the main song of their live shows - they've played it every concert for the last 42 years.
What to listen to next
For the British new wave 1982-83 context: Duran Duran “Rio” → Culture Club “Karma Chameleon” (1983) → Spandau Ballet “True” (1983). Three different ways to wrap soul melodies in the New Romantic aesthetic.
For the “clip that changed the idea of pop music” parallel, listen to and watch a-ha's “Take On Me” (1985). Two bands, two songs, the same move - “music video as commercial for the band” - but a-ha did it through animation, Duran Duran through real footage in the tropics.