Duran Duran’s ‘Notorious’ recently clocked up its 30th anniversary.
Nile Rodgers, who produced the song, has revealed for the first time some of his production techniques.
“One of my favourite things is to do something at the top of a song to grab the listener’s ear so that you are hooked right away,” he said in a video posted to Facebook. “We started the song that went “no, no, notorious”. We were still in the days of making analogue two-tracks. We measured the tape from one beat to the next and by having that exact length we cut the tape down the centreline and we flipped the tape backwards and the other half forwards. It was a scary trick but somehow it worked”.
Rodgers told Noise11 that he was introduced to Duran Duran via Michael Hutchence. Duran Duran were at a party at Countdown host Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum’s house in Melbourne when INXS ‘The Original Sin’ was played. Duran Duran were knocked out by the sound. Molly told them Nile Rodgers produced the song. Molly rang Michael Hutchence, Hutchence put Nile and Duran Duran and the rest is …. ‘Notorious’.
