Duran Duran personified new wave for much of the mainstream audience. And for good reason. Duran Duran's reputation was built through music videos, which accentuated their fashion-model looks and glamorous sense of style. Without music videos, it's likely that their pop-funk – described by the group as the Sex Pistols-meet-Chic – would never have made them international pop stars…
Duran Duran's eponymous debut artfully coalesced the sonic and stylistic elements of the burgeoning new romantic movement they were soon to spearhead: pumping synths, glossy production, and seemingly impossible haircuts. Ultra-smart singles like "Girls on Film" and "Planet Earth" became instant smash hits both in the U.K. and America, and other fine pop gems such as "Anyone Out There" and "Careless Memories" rounded out the album's stellar first side…
With the cover art for Paper Gods, Duran Duran cheekily revisit icons of their past: the smile of Rio, the cap of the "Chauffeur," girls on film, and a prowling tiger. Thirty years in, Duran Duran are comfortable enough to play with their past, comfortable enough to draw an explicit connection to their back pages by hiring Nile Rodgers – who helmed Notorious back in the day – to do a bit of production alongside Mark Ronson, the hitmaker who gave the group a refurbishment on 2010's All You Need Is Now…
The video is a recording of Duran Duran's performance for the SkyArts Songbook, a TV programme broadcast. The show was an intimate live event, that showcased the band's musical catalogue and included a rare live performance of "Late Bar".
It was filmed during the course of the last two of five sold-out nights at Wembley Arena in April 2004, during the band's first global tour after the reunion of the band's original five members.