Hungry Like the Wolf the door in America for the New Romantic/synth rock crossover." Stewart Mason, also from Allmusic, called "Hungry Like the Wolf" a "spectacular pop single", and "the finest song Duran Duran ever wrote", adding that it was a "much more kinetic and exciting song than earlier flop singles like 'Planet Earth'." In 1982, music video director Russell Mulcahy, who had directed the band's first video "Planet Earth," was brought back to make the music video for "Hungry Like the Wolf" and two other songs for the band's 1983 video album. The band had a vision of jungles and exotic women, and
UK Singles Chart allowed singles to chart on downloads the week before their physical release. The first song to make the Top 40 on downloads alone was "Pump It" by The Black Eyed Peas, which charted at number 16 on 12 March 2006. Three weeks later, "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley became the first song to top the charts on download sales alone. As part of the revised rules, singles would now be removed from the chart two weeks after the deletion of their physical formats; "Crazy" left the chart 11 weeks later from number 5 and a subsequent chart-topper, Nelly Furtado's "Maneater", disappeared