1982 · Behind the Songs
A video, a chase, a pop landmark.
“Hungry Like the Wolf” (1982), from Rio, is a fast synth-pop song whose video, shot like an adventure film, became a symbol of the early MTV era. The music is urgent and rhythmic, the vocal is hungry in the sense of the title — chasing, wanting, moving — and the whole record feels like a chase through a landscape. It helped Duran Duran break through in America, because the video gave American viewers a story to follow as well as a song to hear.
The song’s lasting image is that chase. It is not only a pop hit; it is a piece of early video history, when a music video could be as cinematic as a film trailer. Heard today, the song still moves quickly, and the video still explains why Duran Duran became a visual band as much as a musical one.