Listen to Duran Duran’s Cover of ELO Classic ‘Evil Woman’
· Ultimate Classic RockDuran Duran has released a cover of the Electric Light Orchestra hit “Evil Woman.”
The song comes from the band's Danse Macabre - De Luxe set, which arrives Friday. The album is an expansion of the band's 2023 record, Danse Macabre, in which it covered other artists' songs and remade a few of its own to reflect the Halloween season.
The updated version of the album features three tracks not included in the 2023 edition, including the ELO cover and a redo of Duran Duran's 1984 hit "New Moon on Monday" called "New Moon (Dark Phase)."
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The rendition of "Evil Woman" arrives weeks before Duran Duran’s Halloween concert at Madison Square Garden in New York. The annual event, The Danse Macabre Halloween Party, sees the ‘80s legends mixing new music, covers and “darkly reimagined versions” of their classic material.
You can hear it below.
How ‘Evil Woman’ Became an ELO Classic
Originally released in 1975, “Evil Woman” became one of ELO’s signature hits. The track, penned by frontman Jeff Lynne, was one of the last songs written for their fifth album, Face the Music.
“I wrote this in a matter of minutes,” Lynne admitted to Rolling Stone in 2016. “The rest of the album was done. I listened to it and thought, 'There’s not a good single.' So I sent the band out to a game of football and made up 'Evil Woman' on the spot. The first three chords came right to me. It was the quickest thing I’d ever done. We kept it slick and cool, kind of like an R&B song. It was kind of a posh one for me, with all the big piano solos and the string arrangement. It was inspired by a certain woman, but I can’t say who. She’s appeared a few times in my songs.”
“Evil Woman” has remained a mainstay in ELO’s set lists, regularly appearing early in their concerts. Jeff Lynne’s ELO – as the band has been called since 2014 – is currently out on a farewell tour, with a final show scheduled for Oct. 26 in Los Angeles.
16. 'Long Wave' (Jeff Lynne, 2012)
Jeff Lynne's scab-picking tendency to overthink things basically dooms Long Wave, which focused on older music that inspired him as a youth. It's all done with a bit too much earnestness, and his many-hats approach often left everything feeling hermetically sealed. Then there were Lynne's song selections, which veered from the curious to the unremembered to the utterly confounding. It's one thing to belatedly barge into a crowded room of grandpa rockers trying to breathe new life into pre-rock relics, but Lynne couldn't have selected a worse item to dust off than Etta James' "At Last." Songs like that have become so inextricably linked to their singer that it is impossible to hear someone else's version without a jarring sense of reverse deja vu: The feeling that you're hearing something which you should never hear again. Wait, would that actually be "Vu jade"?
15. 'The Electric Light Orchestra / No Answer' (ELO, 1972)
ELO was founded during the final days of the Move, a more rock-focused group that also featured Bev Bevan, Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood. The idea was to provide an outlet for symphonic-leaning experimentalism, and maybe an entry point into the U.S. market, which had largely ignored the Move. The problem with their debut – called The Electric Light Orchestra in the U.K., and No Answer in the U.S. – and for the band itself was their tricky new amalgam of rock and strings. ELO hadn't achieved any sort of musical balance yet, as Wood and Lynne struggled for creative control. Frankly, it was worse out on the road, as they encountered money problems, sound problems and chemistry problems. Wood, citing the seriousness of it all, soon departed. Lynne was left to start over.
14. 'Secret Messages' (ELO, 1983)
Perhaps stung by criticism of their most recent orchestra-avoiding project, Lynne brought back violinist Mik Kaminski for the first time since 1977's Out of the Blue. Also returning was conductor Louis Clark, who'd worked on six ELO records between Eldorado and the soundtrack for Xanadu. The gambit appeared to have worked: Secret Messages became a worldwide Top 40 hit, and "Rock 'n' Roll Is King" reached the U.K. Top 20. But there was something transparently exploitive – not to mention contemporaneously retrograde – about how quickly Lynne turned his back on the more synth-focused sounds of 1981's Time. The following Balance of Power would find Lynne once again working in a more modern setting, but something had been lost. Electric Light Orchestra never had another Top 20 hit in their home country.
15. 'ELO 2' (ELO, 1973)
Free of collaborative tension with Wood, Lynne let his imagination wander. He emerged with an overstuffed concept called The Lost Planet before taking a considered step back. In the end, ELO 2 wouldn't have an overarching prog-type theme, though Lynne stuck with the genre's penchant for overlong songs: "Kuiama," written in protest of the Vietnam War, clocked in at a career-best 11-plus minutes. The shortest contribution to ELO 2, "In Old England," still stretched to nearly seven minutes – meaning it would be the longest track on any other ELO studio record. Even their souped-up cover of "Roll Over Beethoven" had to be chopped in half in order to get radio play. It worked: Electric Light Orchestra nearly cracked the U.S. Top 40 for the first time while scoring their second consecutive U.K. hit album. After watching as the band nearly splintered after just one album, Bevan would later call the Chuck Berry cover "perhaps the most important single we ever made."
12. 'From Out of Nowhere' (Jeff Lynne's ELO, 2019)
Lynne's second album in less than five years under the jump-started ELO banner felt like a victory lap. It was one he deserved. Since releasing 2015's Alone in the Universe, Lynne had retaken the charts, returned to the road, then was inducted with the rest of ELO into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Still, there's only so much interest to be gleaned from your average victory lap, which is predicated on something good having already happened. Instead, the past was all around: "Time of Our Life" directly referenced "Telephone Line," while focusing on a celebrated Wembley show. The title vaguely recalled Out of the Blue; the old spaceship was front and center on the cover. Lynne even welcomes back another member of ELO for "One More Time," as keyboardist Richard Tandy makes his initial appearance since 2001's Zoom. "You can never change," Lynne sings on "Help Yourself," before adding, "You just keep on being you." He certainly does.
11. 'On the Third Day' (ELO, 1973)
They'd just scored another hit U.K. single with the stand-alone "Showdown," but album buyers there were still staying away in droves. Electric Light Orchestra stuck with the formula anyway, incorporating leftovers from the ELO 2 sessions onto the second side of this follow-up. That followed a sequence of interlocking songs that opened On the Third Day – though it's important to note that none of them was "Showdown." At least not initially. The LP reached gold-selling status in America when a savvy record exec decided to add "Showdown" to the track listing for the U.S. market. But somebody also decided to switch out the U.K. album art with a photograph in which ELO ... exposes their navels? You win some, you lose some.
10. 'Balance of Power' (ELO, 1986)
The pleasingly dark Balance of Power proved to be perfectly named. ELO continued to pare down, losing bassist and key background singer Kelly Groucutt before sessions began. They'd already jettisoned the orchestral guys, leaving only Tandy, Bevan and Lynne. Tandy made some key musical contributions to Balance of Power, but the rest – including songwriting, producing, electric and acoustic guitars, computerized synths, bass, keyboards and even percussion – was the product of Lynne's new one-man-band approach. The balance of power had indeed shifted forever. They attempted a halfhearted tour, playing an odd final show as the opening act for Rod Stewart in July 1986 in Stuttgart, Germany. "Getting to the Point" became the last single released by Electric Light Orchestra for 15 years. Lynne transformed into a studio rat after guiding ELO down.
9. 'Zoom' (ELO, 2001)
Lean and tune-focused, this was the Electric Light Orchestra album that Jeff Lynne should have put out at the turn of the '80s, as he dialed back the "I Am the Walrus"-era Beatles obsessions while retaining all of his trademark hooky songcraft. Unfortunately, by this point, there wasn't exactly a huge demand for what the underrated Zoom had to offer. Even appearances by George Harrison and Ringo Starr couldn't stoke much interest. The first album issued under the ELO banner in forever disappeared so quickly that a planned tour was quickly scrapped. Still, it's much more than a footnote: Zoom is populated with a series of smartly constructed tracks that recall everything that made ELO part of the musical fabric of the '70s but with precious little of what eventually turned them into a caricature of the decade's pretensions.
8. 'Alone in the Universe' (Jeff Lynne's ELO, 2015)
A funny thing happened on the way to completing Lynne's easily forgotten Long Wave: He got excited about songwriting again while exploring those brilliantly constructed old songs. Lynne decided to assemble a real band for an ELO-branded performance at London's Hyde Park. Hopes piled high for a more collaborative return from the group, even though Richard Tandy was the only one onstage with any connection to the glory days. That didn't happen on the subsequent Alone in the Universe, as Lynne once again played the role of control freak – sorry, "master craftsman" – in the studio. Thankfully, plenty of the Hyde Park magic remained: Alone in the Universe became a Top 25 U.S. hit, while soaring to No. 4 platinum sales in the U.K. There are moments that feel like nothing more than fan service (those strings on "When the Night Comes"), but Lynne's touching and delightful "When I Was a Boy" told the story of his early fascination with radio songs better than Long Wave ever could.
7. 'Discovery' (ELO, 1979)
Electric Light Orchestra lost money on their most recent tour, a grandiose jaunt that featured a giant replica of their iconic album-cover spacecraft. They'd also reached the end of a creative road with the outsized construction (and success) of 1977's Out of the Blue. It was time to cut back. Discovery arrived with a streamlined sound, becoming the first ELO project without an orchestral component. Instead, the album's detours into the funk-infused dance music of the day ("Shine a Little Love," "Last Train to London") led Tandy to memorably quip that they should have called it Disco Very. The LP offered far more, beginning with the stomping hit single "Don't Bring Me Down." The symphonic elements, however, would stay gone. Lynne sounded relieved. Early on, he said, "I'd be going, 'Oh great! Strings today!' But after that, it became, 'Oh, strings today. So fed up with these fucking strings.'"
6. 'Time' (ELO, 1981)
Discovery went double platinum but received criticism for trend chasing. ELO followed by helping with Xanadu, and the movie flopped. So, time for a concept album! Complete with an opening "prologue"! Somehow, the unexpected – perhaps even the unwanted: synth-pop, really? – ended up as a kind of masterstroke. Die-hard fans still decried those missing strings, yet in retrospect the deft computerized musical setting was completely in keeping with ELO's time-traveling theme. The public did not agree. "Hold on Tight" was a Top 5 hit but nothing else clicked. Time went "only" gold in the U.S., and Lynne had a theory about why: Rock-radio programmers were "saying, 'We don't want to touch them after that bloody film.' It's because the film is so bad, and it's a failure and we're associated with it." Maybe ... or maybe Lynne's gumption was just misunderstood back then.
5. 'Armchair Theatre' (Jeff Lynne, 1990)
Armchair Theatre traffics in the fizzy idiosyncrasies that defined Lynne's recent work with the Traveling Wilburys – he even invited over bandmate George Harrison – without losing the ELO leader's essential aesthetic. "Lift Me Up" is a particularly well done update that's again part-Beatles, part-Dave Edmunds and part charming Tin Pan Alley hokum, but dressed up for a modern age. "Every Little Thing" takes all of it to the next level – and that's the only real complaint: Armchair Theatre probably would have been better served had it not led with this frankly titanic amalgam. Still, Lynne's rangy solo debut ultimately encapsulates every lovable trick, every tick, every success, every cliche and every unfathomably catchy element of this mixologist's muse.
4. 'Face the Music' (ELO, 1975)
The discography of Jeff Lynne, unabashed Beatles fan, basically reversed his heroes' career arc: ELO began with outlandish and extravagant musical experiments before devolving into a more straightforward tune-first approach. The excitingly transitional Face the Music finds Lynne standing with a foot in each of these worlds. On the one hand, the LP produced the platinum-selling Top 10 international smash "Evil Woman" and its U.S. No. 14 hit follow-up "Strange Magic," two of ELO's most radio-ready gems. On the other hand, Face the Music opens with an otherworldly keyboard passage by Tandy, some weirdo back-masked lyrics ("Fire on High" and "Down Home Town"), and an extended dream-sequence of an ending ("One summer dream, one summer dream ... "). The results gave ELO the first of five consecutive Top 10 hit LPs in the U.S., but Lynne's hometown fans still didn't know what to make of it: Face the Music didn't even chart in the U.K.
3. 'Eldorado' (ELO, 1974)
On the Third Day had become the first ELO record that failed to chart in the U.K. They'd nearly cracked the U.S. Top 40 with "Roll Over Beethoven," only to see the U.K. smash "Showdown" stall at No. 53. So, time for a concept album! Complete with an opening "overture"! The cinematic Eldorado follows a daydreamer who inhabits Walter Mitty-esque fantasies in an effort to liven up his mundane everyday existence – and, somehow, it all works. Call it Pop Prog, long before Yes invited Trevor Rabin into the fold. Come for "Can't Get It Out of My Head," a Beatles-like Top 10 U.S. smash, but stay for an impish moment in "Eldorado Finale" as the increasingly emboldened Lynne includes the sound of hired-hand orchestral sidemen packing up their gear at the end. They apparently refused to play for even one moment past the allotted time.
2. 'Out of the Blue' (ELO, 1977)
With Out of the Blue, everything got more expansive for Electric Light Orchestra. The follow-up to their first platinum release would balloon into a double album, with a tour that found ELO emerging from a full-sized spaceship like the one featured on the cover. The music shared the same maximalist viewpoint, as Lynne threw himself into creating something better – well, certainly bigger – than 1976's A New World Record. But the LP doesn't have the same tightly wound construction. Its high points – the hits "Turn to Stone" and "Sweet Talkin' Woman," in particular – were dizzyingly high, but its excesses were so emblematic of an indulgent era as to be definitive. Example: The only-in-the-'70s "Concerto for a Rainy Day" – home to "Mr. Blue Sky" – included a staccato burst of strings that spelled out Morse code for "ELO."
1. 'A New World Record' (ELO, 1976)
Four albums followed Wood's departure over three years, as ELO searched for the perfect musical mixture of early rock 'n' roll and the Beatles with Lynne's interest in orchestral sounds. They finally found it on A New World Record, home to three Top 20 Billboard hits – including the No. 7 U.S. smash, "Telephone Line." The title ultimately turned out to be anything but hyperbole: Electric Light Orchestra scored their initial platinum-selling U.S. hit LP and (more important to the band's Birmingham-born leader) first-ever U.K. Top 10 million-seller. "Livin' Thing," powered along by one of Lynne's most inventive choruses, also became ELO's highest-charting U.K. single to date. He got there after arriving at a key realization: "It had this grandiose name, the Orchestra," Lynne acknowledged, "and really it was just this group with a cello in it." That breakthrough of simplification, along with the maturation of Lynne's songwriting voice, made all the difference.