‘Notorious’ Turns 30: How Nile Rodgers Conducted Duran Duran’s Reinvention

After losing two key members, the band discovered a new groove

By the time 1986 rolled around, Duran Duran was at a major turning point in its career. The year before, the group had splintered into two factions: the hard-rocking supergroup the Power Station, featuring bassist John Taylor and guitarist Andy Taylor; and the art-rock outfit Arcadia, made up of singer Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, and drummer Roger Taylor. Both groups released their own albums (The Power Station’s eponymous debut, Arcadia’s So Red the Rose), which yielded Top 10 hit singles collectively. And if that wasn’t anti-climatic enough, Duran Duran scored its second U.S. №1 song with “A View to a Kill,” which all five members together performed at Live Aid for the last time until almost two decades later.

From 1981 to 1985, Duran Duran achieved huge worldwide success and fame at the dawn of the MTV era that earned the band the moniker of the ‘Fab Five.’ But the media and fan hysteria inevitably led to a feeling of burnout within the band. When Duran Duran eventually regrouped in 1986 to work on its next…