POP MUSIC : Duran Duran? Oh No! Oh No! : Yes, yes, it’s true. In one of the most dramatic reversals in history, the onetime rulers of ‘80s pop have returned from eight years in the desert of obscurity to again top the charts

Can the music blasting from the surreal-looking stage that fills one end of a huge airplane hangar in Santa Monica really be what it sounds like?

Is that really Simon Le Bon singing “ Notorious . . . “?

Didn’t Duran Duran, the dreaded spawn of the ‘80s, go away years ago, along with junk bonds and other excesses of that decade? Well, it sure sounds like Duran Duran, and that looks like Le Bon at the mike. And these guys definitely spend money like Duran Duran: Who else in these fiscally tight times would engage a noted opera set designer to build an elaborate stage for their world tour--a stage so big that it wouldn’t fit under the shell of the Hollywood Bowl, where they had planned to play?

Instead, their L.A. show will be at the Forum on Aug. 23. They also play the San Diego Sports Arena on Saturday and Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Aug. 18.

That’s more than 30,000 tickets.

Yes, Duran Duran--as unlikely as it once seemed--is back.

The group’s latest album, “Duran Duran,” went into the Top 10 early this year on its way to selling more than 1 million copies. The first single, “Ordinary World,” reached No. 3, returning Duran Duran to the U.S. Top 10 for the first time in five years. “Come Undone,” another semi-ballad, recently peaked at No. 7, and the up-tempo “Too Much Information” is just out.

It amounts to one of the most dramatic reversals in pop history, ending an extended period of obscurity for the onetime rulers of commercial pop music. The group was all but written off, but its return has proved much more impressive than the comebacks mounted by other members of that original class of MTV-made stars--Cyndi Lauper, the Stray Cats, Boy George, et al.

What brought them back?

“Superior songs is the main thing,” observes Ken Barnes, editor of the L.A.-based trade publication Radio & Records. “They really hit upon a winning formula. They’ve definitely touched a more universal chord.”

While the stigma of being teen idols might work against a band’s credibility, Barnes says, any reputation is better than none.

“If the music has suitably matured, I think radio welcomes a band with a track record back, figuring that a certain proportion of the audience is nostalgic for them and missed them. There are acts that do come back from years out in the desert, but the magnitude of this one really makes it surprising.”

The success is occurring about eight years after the world apparently wearied of the English glamour boys, whose presence in the pop world had gradually diminished to a mere flicker.

“We call them ‘Duran Duran--the lean years,’ ” says Le Bon, finding the period of mediocre sales and minimal impact easier to laugh about now that it’s gone.

“I don’t think any of us were prepared for the length of it, for the duration of the low really,” he continues, sitting in a backstage office during the rehearsal’s dinner break. “We saw it starting to happen way back. The vibe was kind of ‘Oh, Duran Duran, love ‘em, but. . . .’

“You just feel that people have got a bit sick of you. And we got sick of it as well. Although it’s us, you still get sick of being put forward with the same kind of persona. We got sick of our own image.”

I mage.

During Duran Duran’s heyday, roughly 1982-86, a lot of people thought that image was all the group had. The extravagant videos, shot on locations from Sri Lanka to Antigua; the catchy but lightweight blend of new-wave and dance music; the air of rock royalty--it all added up to something overfed, superficial and self-absorbed.

Arm in arm with the awakening giant called MTV, these post-glam peacocks seemed to be out to trivialize pop music with empty spectacle. The screaming teen-age girls who dominated their audience reinforced the impression of a frivolous enterprise, and to rock fans still stoked on punk’s missionary zeal, Duran Duran came to embody all that was decadent and shallow about its times.

“I can see that partially, because it was the ‘80s,” acknowledges group co-founder Nick Rhodes, taking over the interview from Le Bon while the singer grabs some dinner. “But aside from doing the ‘Rio’ video on the boat, I don’t think there’s anything else that could be particularly construed as being decadent.

“Sure, there were some quite expensive videos. Nowhere near as expensive as Madonna’s and Michael Jackson’s. Nobody usually cites them with such an ax that we get. That’s why I say a lot of it was out of perspective.

“I mean, look at the ‘Rio’ video. I laugh sometimes when I speak to people; they say, ‘Oh yeah, you’re the guys that did the thing on the boat.’ I just say, ‘Yeah, I was on that boat for about an hour and a half, and I was green in the face most of the time.’ I can’t bear boats unless they’re tied up.”

Unlike Le Bon, who constantly seemed ready to spring up in the middle of a sentence during his half of the interview, Rhodes emits a placid air as he sits back in his chair. The keyboardist speaks in even, cultured tones as he defends Duran Duran, depicting the band as victims whose biggest mistake was riding a wave that caught them all by surprise. He might be a soothing psychologist, if he didn’t have that purple hair, or maybe a lawyer, if he didn’t despise lawyers so intensely.

Both Le Bon, 34, and Rhodes, 31, look older than their years, showing some of the wear of their experience. But Le Bon, especially, seems revitalized--tall and strapping, full of barely contained energy, free of the pudginess that once gave Duran detractors one more thing to mock.

“We’ve seen what it takes to stick through all that mudslinging,” Rhodes says. “It’s been a rough few years for us, especially after being spoiled with the amount of success we had earlier on.”

Duran Duran, named for a villain in the 1968 pop-art science-fiction film “Barbarella,” was started in 1978 in Birmingham, England, by glam-rock enthusiasts Rhodes and John Taylor. After some personnel shuffling, the first firm lineup--drummer Roger Taylor, guitarist Andy Taylor, John Taylor on bass and Rhodes on keyboards--was completed when Le Bon, a Londoner studying drama at Birmingham University, joined as singer. (None of the Taylors are related.)

“The expressiveness of Bowie with the total fearlessness of punk,” says Le Bon, summarizing the original vision. Another widely circulated equation was Sex Pistols plus Chic.

Signed by EMI, the group released its first single, “Planet Earth,” in 1981, followed by the debut album that June. Duran Duran was headlining in England by the end of the year, and at the end of ’82 a remixed version of “Hungry Like the Wolf” introduced the group to the American charts.

More Top 10 hits followed in the next two years--”Is There Something I Should Know,” “Union of the Snake,” “The Reflex,” “The Wild Boys”--and Duran Duran was suddenly the pinup choice of the ‘80s teen-age audience.

“That was a shock, a complete shock,” Le Bon says. “That was something that none of us had imagined. None of us were really into teen bands. . . . It was strange, but it was a lot of fun.

“People often say, ‘Weren’t you disgusted to be followed by those kind of people?’ And I always felt no, because young people have very good taste in music. They’re the ones who can choose anything. They have no hang-ups, they have no inhibitions, they can take whatever they like. So I felt that it was quite a compliment to be chosen by them.”

Rhodes adds: “It was all a bit puzzling really. It was actually quite fun for a while. But then it became a bit draining, and it took away a lot of things from us, I think.”

To break the constrictions of stardom, the group branched into two separate side projects, Arcadia and Power Station, both of which released albums in 1985. The next year, both Andy and Roger Taylor left Duran, which remained a trio until guitarist Warren Cuccurullo (a Frank Zappa alumnus who had gained some dubious fame as a member of L.A. new-wave quintet Missing Persons) signed on in 1988.

By then “the lean years” were upon them. That year’s “Big Thing” had the Top 10 single “I Don’t Want Your Love,” but it didn’t make the Top 20 itself, and 1990’s “Liberty” peaked at No. 46.

“We quite enjoyed in a way being back to being more of a cult band,” Rhodes says, putting the best possible face on the commercial decline. “From the letters we got and the response we got generally to those albums, we felt we were certainly back in our original tracks in Duran Duran, which was very sort of alternative-based.”

“I think it tested our faith,” Le Bon says. “It put it under great stress. We reached an all-time low as far as morale’s concerned, but it stood up to the whole thing. And also it made us very hungry.”

In the grip of its slump, the group set up all its equipment in the living room of Cuccurullo’s London house and recorded its ninth album, “Duran Duran.” Expectations weren’t high, Le Bon says.

“After the disappointment that we’d had with the last two albums, you kind of resign yourself to no success. Because if you start expecting too much you might end up being very disappointed. So to guard yourself against that you tend to underestimate a thing’s potential.

“But I knew it was a really good album. You know when you’re making good records. We know when it’s mediocre as well.”

As the new single, “Too Much Information,” prepares to test Duran’s ability to reassert its up-tempo prominence, Rhodes looks back with no regrets.

“I wouldn’t take any of the videos away for anything in the world. Because they were right at the time. They were decisions that we made. As regards to what it did, yes, I think it left such a strong image in people’s minds that we got stuck in that time warp for quite a long time. And I think it probably has taken until this album to seriously move us out of that and make people realize that what’s happened in the last 10 years to them has happened to us too.”