This appeared on the REUTERS news agency on October 25:

Old Rockers Refuse To Fade Away
By Andrea Orr

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Not every rock band that sticks around for decades can remain as big as the Rolling Stones. Just ask Duran Duran.

For years during the post-disco 1980s, Duran Duran was the most popular band in the world. It wrote theme songs for James Bond movies and helped define the young MTV network with sexy videos that provided fantasy material to many teenage girls. But when those old fans hear Duran Duran's catchy new single on the radio today, many are surprised to learn that the band still exists.

Duran Duran, minus three of its five original members, has managed to stay together for 17 years. After early success with such songs as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio", the group often had dry spells, which got longer as the years went on. Longer still were the gaps between its bona fide hits.

The group's newly released 11th album, Medazzaland, follows a particularly uninspired period. Its last record two years ago consisted entirely of covers of other artists' work, like Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" and Lou Reed's "Perfect Day". The electronicized versions of these classics reportedly riled some of the original singers.

"We've had very fluid periods and then very stagnant periods," keyboard player and songwriter Nick Rhodes said during a recent interview. "We have a very high standard as Duran Duran and a lot of pride about that, and we weren't going to put something out that didn't really meet the necessary criteria."

Some critics have suggested this criteria was part of the problem: the band that still describes itself as encapsulating everything the 1980s were about had little to offer younger generations of listeners. Its music was the antitheses of the grunge sound that became popular in the early 1990s. Others have argued the band was never all that good in the first place and owed most of its early success to the looks of lead singer Simon LeBon, and to slick packaging, such as the videos shot aboard yachts sailing the tropics.

As far as packaging factors, the band is unapologetic.

"The whole thing about Duran Duran was to be the first multimedia band," says LeBon. "We wanted to use art and fashion and music and technology and jam it all together, suck it in and then regurgitate it as Duran Duran."

"I was never interested in getting up there in a pair of jeans and playing rock," adds guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, who joined the band in 1990. "It didn't even enter my mind. We liked disco."

As band members started pushing middle age, they were sometimes ridiculed for their getups of fluorescent pink stretch glitter. Today they prefer basic black. Never mind that it is black leather pants, and satin jackets complete with spiked hair and heavy makeup. The look is comparatively subdued. Not so for Duran Duran's latest record. It contains a few light, pop tunes but is mostly made up of heavily remixed songs for the serious disco dancer.

"I think we've got this magic in the band," LeBon says . "It's very delicate and very fragile, and it is easy to lose it, and when you lose that you really lose your relevance." If creating music is still a thrill, the rest of the package seems more like a chore to LeBon. His face bears a world-weary expression and seems detached from his body as he gyrates on stage. It is not until he begins talking about the British band Oasis that he becomes truly animated. Asked what the biggest group of the 1980s thinks of the band that claims that title today, LeBon and fellow band members are bursting with opinions. None is particularly flattering.

"I think they only wrote like five really good songs," LeBon says. "I think 50 percent of the appeal is the looks of (Oasis lead singer) Liam Gallagher."

"They're not spending enough attention to songwriting," Cuccurullo adds.

"It's not unique. Nothing they do sounds original to me," Rhodes says, referring to the common criticism that Oasis' music is a little too similar to the Beatles. "They'll have to experiment a bit more."

"Yeah," adds Cuccurullo. "Otherwise they'll be making Sergeant Pepper soon and the 'Magical Mystery Tour'. I hear their beige album is coming out soon."