Notorious

(1986) Directors: Peter Kagen and Paula Grief

Premise: The now-threesome performs the song in a warehouse with white curtains surrounding the area they're performing in. Lots of girls dancing with trumpets. Occasional outside scenes of the band next to the tree on the cover of the "Notorious" album.

Notes: The clothes worn in the video look modern enough that this video could have been made in 1991. Paula Abdul choreographed the dancers in this clip. Nick's keyboards look like they are floating in mid-air (I'm guessing they were suspended by fishing wire). Nile Rodgers is on guitar and Steve Ferrone plays drums in the background. Much tinted or grainy cinematography. Future supermodel Christy Turlington makes a quick appearance. Plenty more info on VH1's Pop-Up Video if you can catch it.

Skin Trade

(1987) Directors: Peter Kagen and Paula Grief

Premise: Another performance clip, here you almost never see 2 people in the same shot (though they may be mixed together - see the image above). Lots of models, lots of silhouettes, lots of grainy shots and altered colors, albeit many more than in the "Notorious" clip.

Notes: For session players, we have an occasional view of Steve Ferrone on drums, as well as some unidentified horn players. Also we see Warren Cuccurullo for the first time in a DD video - even though his face is kind of obscured by the cinematography, you can tell it's him by the guitar he's playing - it looks a lot like the one he used in Missing Persons (see the "Words" video). Kinda neat is when Nick raises his shoulders in time with the guitar towards the end.

"Meet El Presidente"

(1987) Director:

Notes: Haven't seen this one, though I understand Warren also appears in this one. Could be wrong, though.

I Don't Want Your Love

(1988) Directors: The Molotov Brothers

Premise: A dark, fashionably-lit chaotic courtroom scene (the "Court Of Funk"), where Duranduran (now one word) is on trial for something scandalous. Simon, John & Nick all sing in front of a fake microphone stand (maybe in the courtroom?). Eventually, the jury & press start playing saxophones, sining & dancing to the song. Midway through, Warren makes his exit from the courtroom during the guitar solo, followed by Simon, John & Nick. This leads to a man and woman doing a dance scene in an empty room, then performance footage in a similar dark, empty room of the band.

Notes: As earlier stated, Warren makes another video appearance while he was still officially not in the band (along with an unidentified drummer). LOTS of quick-paced edits, not a lot of cohesiveness to the video (though that seems to have been the intention: an overall state of chaos). Also many of the words in the song flash up while being sung, similar to Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" video that came out shortly thereafter (must have been a late-80's video trend). We see, once again, old Duran Duran videos pop-up in the background, this time "Is There Something I Should Know" on monitors behind the band members singing shots (and also behind a lawyer "prosecuting" the band).

All She Wants Is

(1989) Director: Dean Chamberlain

Premise: The video opens with Simon, John & Nick eating, very stiffly, at a table (during the "all she wants is" chant), then a woman sleeping across the table from them wakes up. The woman goes around her house, and through some passage-ways, being watched over by the guys (and sometimes, by what looks like mannaquins of Simon, John & Nick), and unable to go outside. The three spend the video doing things like juggling, reading the newspaper, playing bongos, passing beams of electricity through Simon's head, and spooking the woman by a refrigerator. Midway through, the woman becomes a silouhette, then emerges as some sort of a sex symbol, posing on her bed, before returning to her regular self. By the end, we see a while outline of her reading the paper (this white line of "energy" seems to be a recurring theme -- maybe what transforms her into that sex symbol.

Notes: This is similar to Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", in that there is very little regular film motion -- it's a sequence of still images connected together, somewhat blurred & blended for effect. It looks more like a "stop-action" filming (where they extracted frames from the film) instead of using all still pictures like in "Sledgehammer"). A few more of the lyrics (and the "cawing" of a bird) appear written on the screen. Many vivid, neon-esque colors, and lighting changes as well throughout the video.

Do You Believe In Shame?

(1989) Director:

Notes: Haven't seen this, either.

Burning The Ground

(1989) Director:

Premise:

Violence Of Summer (Love's Taking Over)

(1990) Director:

Premise: "Chyna" (as referred to in the song) and her fellow model girlfriends preening and posing for the camera, decked out in spandex & leather, while their biker gang (& model) boyfriends battle in a forest, arm-wrestle in a bar and otherwise fly around on their motorcycles. Meanwhile the band is safely protected from all this summer violence, performing on a darkly-lit soundstage.

Notes: The first music video to fully feature the "new" fab five, this time with Warren (already a DD video vet) joined by drummer Sterling Campbell. A very 1990-styled video, with lots of dark, rich colors, the models with pageboy-length haircuts (or wigs -- do you really think the African-American model has platinum blond hair?), smooth camera filters & jerky cinematography (tough to describe, but when you see it, you know it's typical of the era). This was the first new DD video I saw after getting cable earlier the same year (having not seen a new one since about 1984), & just after I became a DD fan myself. Even though DD was slipping pretty fast in popularity by 1990, MTV still decided to include them in their "Video World Series" that year (that's where I saw the video), along with mostly mega-popular acts of the time. Of course, DD was ousted in the first round, getting trounced by Phil Collins (remember when he was still an MTV superstar?)

Serious

(1990) Director:

Notes:

Ordinary World

(1993) Director: Nick Egan

Premise: A small wedding is taking place in a huge walking garden (this was probably a take on the sub-title for the album). The bride, decked out in a novel, somewhat 1920's-era gown and hat, walks through the garden, every so often encountering a member of the band. Otherwise, she is watching a huge outdoor projection screen with shots of the band's performance, interspersed towards the end with a few shots of assorted societal ills like homelessness, as well as fast-cut images of flowers. Meanwhile, other couples pass in front of the screen. The band is performing against a white back-drop, usually shadowy-lit with lots of strobe-lighting

Notes: The video that marked the "comeback" of the band. We see Simon debuting his "moptop" haircut that he'd have for most of the rest of the 90's. Also, we see the return of the anonymous drummer from their late-80's videos, this time always conveniently blocked by Simon or viewed in profile only by a shadow. An interesting scene for Nick's encounter with the bride, showing his interest in style & photography where he adjusts the bow on her dress and then takes a photo of her. The concept of the multiple photos of the band from the album's packaging art comes to life with several "pictures-in-motion" sequences.

Come Undone

(1993) Director: Julien Temple

Premise: Various scenes of people coming undone: A couple making love with their young daughter watching and crawling under the bed; an old couple making out in a bench surrounded by a flooded street; a boxer segued with shots of a hammer smashing, among other things, a Barbie doll and a plastic football; a woman making a protein drink & mixing it with vodka; a business man coming home, taking of his clothes to reveal lingerie and then getting dressed up in women's clothes (& doing a poor job of applying lipstick); and a firebreather terrorizing motorists in a downtown. All the while the band is surrounded by an aquarium for their performance shot, and the female "back-up singer" undoes chains and a silver suit while underwater

Notes: A video that proves that even in the 90's, Duran could still be somewhat risque & disturbing with their videos. Characteristic of the alternative era of videos: dark cinematography, some bizarre things going on, almost more a work of art than just a music video. For some reason, Nick switches from the band's "uniform" of the era -- black jacket and alternative-influenced shirt -- to a wetsuit by the end of the video. Also, we have the return of the anonymous drummer. This time, we see him playing the snare drum & hi-hat, but never get a headshot.

Too Much Information

(1993) Director:

Femme Fatale

(1993) Director:

Notes: Haven't seen this or the next one. Though they weren't released in the U.S., so that's probably why.

Breath After Breath

(1994) Director:

White Lines

(1995) Director:

Perfect Day

(1995) Director:

Notes: You don't really see a lot of Roger in the clip, but enough that for a moment you can imagine that the classic line-up is still intact.

Out Of My Mind

(1997) Director:

Premise: This video is set in an ancient setting of sorts, kind of like 18th century Europe. Lots of bizarre effects and colors, to be expected from the same director behind videos by Marilyn Manson.

Notes: This marks the first ever video to not feature a Taylor. Coincidentally, Simon sports a hair style that looks like his Arcadia days (whose videos also didn't have any Taylors - Roger quit before the videos were shot).

Electric Barbarella

(1997) Director:

Premise: Interspersed with clips of the three performing the song, we have the boys playing in a room with a female robot of sorts, almost like a sexual toy. Hence the controversy that came out and the cleaned-up version with pink graphics over parts of her body. While they apparently enjoy her throughout, she finally ends up blowing a fuse by the end.

Notes:

Someone Else Not Me

(2000) Director:

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