Duran Duran-"Hungry Like The Wolf"

Pat, the full story of this song's long road to becoming a national Top 40 hit is almost exactly the same as its follow-up hit, "Rio." First released around the last week of July 1982, as Harvest 5134, is the listed (3:23), non-hit version of "Hungry Like The Wolf". The other side of this Harvest 5134 45 is, "Careless Memories (Live Version)". We received no promo 45 for this issue, just commercial 45s into the station, and it quickly disappeared without a trace. Now, move ahead 4 1/2 to 5 months, to December of 1982. By the way, between July and December of '82, the initial release of the "Rio" 45 has also been put out, as Harvest 5175, and also totally flopped. But the group was a big fave on MTV, and the label was selling records on them. So the record company tried again with "Hungry...", this time with (4:11) and (5:14) remixes appearing as both sides of this newly-issued 45, released as Harvest 5195. FYI, we received only stock copies as well for this 45 issue, which was rather unusual for the times. This is the 45 issue that hit #3 on Billboard, in March of 1983. Pat, my main point here is that the (4:11) "hit" version was the only one we ever played at our station. I would suspect the (5:14) flip probably also got some good radio airplay at the time. But I do not believe that the initial, mid-1982, (3:23) version deserves any database credit as a "hit" version. In my opinion, it was nothing but an early, non-hit release of a later-remixed Top 40 hit, and any and all (3:23) database CD appearances should be notated as such, for accuracy's sake.

Yeah probably a case of don't know or don't care at EMI. I was surprised to EVER see that 3:23 edit make it to CD. I would think the 5:14 versions would make it to more CDs, or at least be a bonus track. EMI may have simply gone back to "British" versions, which might be 3:23 for the single and 4:11 for the LP.

Now, you guys know I don't trust label timings, so i'll say this:

The greatest hits version is the single mix that appeared on the B side of the commercial 45s - I have it - but it is faded early to exclude those cries of passion at the fadeout. The 45 has a very long fadeout.

The correct, full-length 45 version is on a long OOP Sandstone/DCC CD called "Rock The First", and was mastered by Steve Hoffman.

Radio around here played the B side remix.

Not only are there at least three lengths of this song, there are two mixes.

Edited by The Hits Man

Pat:

The 3:23 non-hit version of "Hungry Like the Wolf" has appeared on a number of database CDs with the comment: (this is one of the dj edits of the 45). Since it's been established that this non-hit version was also issued as a commercial 45, I'm thinking it would be more accurate to re-work the comment to read something like: (this is the non-hit version).

John:

Can't say I've ever seen grease pencil marks on a 45 before in the years I carted music up.

What was the purpose of the mark?