Duran Duran – Evil Woman Review

Settling into their seat on the covers train, Duran Duran exposes their interests with covers of Psycho Killer and Evil Woman. The latter serves as either a tribute or torture device for Electric Light Orchestra fans. To make a successful cover is to change enough parts to make your mark, but leave enough to entice fans of the original. Evil Woman is outrageously bold from Duran Duran. Their version may not have the punch of a Jeff Lynne-led song but the instrumental fury, the darker, stormier sense of those holes in the head and the stormy weather, is great fun. It could never compete with the original but Duran Duran moves Evil Woman along so much it does not need to.  Synth-heavy is the aim here and while Simon Le Bon does not hit on the intricacies of the Lynne-penned original, he does enough. 

Absent are the emotional swings and in comes a tireless electronica appeal. That charm loosens the more Evil Woman goes on and has expired all avenues of interest by the end of its first playthrough. But that is not to say it is no fun. Entertaining while it lasts but returning to it is out of the question. All of it sounds quite fun, but then you return to Electric Light Orchestra’s original, and what made it such a punchy, brilliant piece of work. That slick bassline is one of the more memorable tones from the 1970s, let alone the band. There is a sense of tribute to ELO from Le Bon here, which makes his decision to cover Evil Woman all the more heartwarming. But the result is a relatively tame and boneless vocal representation of the song’s usual charms.  

But therein lies the major problem with this cover of Evil Woman. Le Bon plants a sense of despair and the rest of Duran Duran, replacing what is, at its core, a feel-good thrill ride of arriving from some other land and picking up the pieces of a life cracked into by poor influences. Duran Duran misses that and goes for broke in covering just the lyrical perspective, rather than the heartfelt admission held up by those slick bass grooves and the crashing orchestral additions, which always add so much to those Electric Light Orchestra classics. At least B-Side New Moon is a decent bit of fun. Forgettable but a freeing, upbeat occasion to counter the darker scope of Danse Macabre.

An unambiguous cover of Evil Woman is never going to match the boom and bass-led blur of charming instrumentals heard on the ELO original. All Duran Duran can do here is pay tribute to a great song, one which is better than the bulk of their back catalogue. At least they can tie their name to it that little bit closer now, though at what cost? Evil Woman is a song embedded into British culture and, at this point, any artist trying to make good on a cover of the ELO classic is putting themselves in dangerous territory. The purpose of a cover is usually to pay tribute and, while it is certainly a nod to Lynne and the rest of the band behind that rock powerhouse, Duran Duran cannot go the extra mile in their interpretation of the lyrics, nor in their instrumental adaptations.