Rio

The quintessential Duran Duran statement — glossy, aspirational, almost absurdly beautiful in its production values. The synthesizer line that opens the song is one of the great pop hooks of the era: effortless, memorable, slightly melancholy beneath the sheen. Nick Rhodes' keyboard work here is genuinely extraordinary, the tones warm and slightly exotic, suggesting somewhere expensive and sun-drenched. Le Bon's vocals are at their most controlled and confident, the lyrics a series of glamorous images rather than a narrative — a woman, a yacht, a name, the sea — that accumulate into a mood rather than a meaning. The production has an almost physical lusciousness to it, the kind of track that makes expensive headphones feel worth it. As a cultural object it defines a particular 80s fantasy of wealth and beauty and escape. As a song it remains genuinely seductive thirty years later.