“The Chauffeur” by Duran Duran

Rio signs off with its strangest ghost: "The Chauffeur", the closing track on Duran Duran's 1982 album, and one the rest of the band essentially sat out. It began as a poem Simon Le Bon wrote before he ever joined, and at AIR Studios in London he and Nick Rhodes turned it into something cold and electronic, with Colin Thurston producing.

Forget the energy of the rest of the record: this is drum machines and synthesizers breathing in the dark, found sounds drifting through, an ocarina solo where a guitar break might go, and lyrics that read like a string of snapshots or a tale of obsession, depending on who's listening. Critics sneered at first; later ones came around, some ranking it among the band's best, and fans built a cult around it. Ian Emes shot a video whose content kept it off most screens.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.