random thoughts:
I'd like to hear the Latin Rascals mix of Election Day...anyone holding any Arcadia remixes in their music folder?
As much as Blue Monday still devestates (the night forever), the Night Version of Girls on Film always packs the dancefloor.
Why wasn't i listening to Low-Life instead? I was 13, old enough to enjoy it...my backpack always had mixtapes made from the radio with Pet Shop Boys, Duran, Run DMC and The Police..newOrder didn't make a mark on me until 87.
― biz, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 01:54 (nineteen years ago) link
(i bought the CD about 2 years ago.used and haven't listened to it or opened it up EVER, which also says something about the emotions connected to this album)
― biz, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 02:02 (nineteen years ago) link
― moody and restless, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 07:37 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/93869/arcadia?pageid=rs.Artistcage&pageregion=triple1
― simon's empty hairspray can (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 09:25 (nineteen years ago) link
compared to Power Station and Duran, I guess. But "Election Day" made the Top 10 and the album went platinum.
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 11:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 11:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 12:51 (nineteen years ago) link
So Arcadia is very powerfully classic to me. The songs, the videos, the fashions involved with Arcadia -- all absolutely 100% CLASSIC. Ooh, the videos.... The one for "Missing" is like the one for "All She Wants Is" but LOTS better. (They were both done by the same vid director, Dean Chamberlain.) My favorite of the France-shot videos was the one for "Goodbye Is Forever", which features lots and lots of whimsy. And -- which one in the "Election Day" video is William S. Burroughs??
― The Kind and Benevolent Oracle of Dee (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:05 (nineteen years ago) link
Was anyone really pining desperately for this stuff? Is this an album that really warrants the big ol' remaster treatement?
That all said, I'd take the Power Station over Arcadia any day of the week.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 27 May 2005 11:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 18 July 2005 02:11 (eighteen years ago) link
Wild kind of look to the day, opening eyes impale neon flickersShe moon, she turning away,The city’s her slave, he’s cheating his mistressShe’s moody and grey, she’s mean and she’s restless(so restless, so restless indeed)All over you as they say,Rumours or rivals yell at the strike force -Hi guys, by the way, are you aware you’re being illegal (ooh)It’s making your saviour behaviour look evil’scuse my timing but say,How d’you fit in with this flim, flam and judyMaximum big suprise your smile is something newI pull my shirt off and pray,We’re sacred and bound to suffer the heatwavePull my shirt off and pray,We’re coming up on re-election dayStretching my love down the wayTo your invitation stretching my bodyUse your intuitive playCause maybe we have more play time than moneyMaximum big suprise she knows something newI pull my shirt off and pray,I’m saving myself to suffer the heatwavePull my shirt off and pray,We’re coming up on re-election dayBy roads and backways a lover’s chance, down a windCurtain murmurs and sounds be calm hands on skinCarry further.. entangled strands.. all sing!Time, saving some time to slip away we could dance ..Oh! shouldn’t be asking..Wild and schemingCould be my election dayMaximum big suprise you know something newI pull my shirt off and pray,We’re sacred and bound to suffer this heatwavePull my shirt off and prayWe’re coming up on re-election dayOwwRe-election dayOwwoooaa
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 15 August 2005 14:27 (eighteen years ago) link
Simon Le Bon, I love you.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 August 2005 14:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 15 August 2005 14:43 (eighteen years ago) link
OK, "Goodbye is Forever" ain't bad.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 22 March 2008 00:29 (sixteen years ago) link
OBSESSED, I tell you you are.
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 22 March 2008 00:42 (sixteen years ago) link
These questions come up often!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 22 March 2008 00:53 (sixteen years ago) link
And we're the only ones talking about the answers!
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 22 March 2008 00:59 (sixteen years ago) link
it's brilliant but no track stands out
Waht? Election Day!
― Daniel, Esq., Sunday, 22 November 2009 00:32 (fourteen years ago) link
en la Tierra del Fuegoten cuidado
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 31 October 2014 16:18 (nine years ago) link
Listening again, inspired by The Quietus and this interview, I'm thinking I actually *prefer* the second side.
― Maximum big surprise! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Monday, 13 April 2015 04:18 (nine years ago) link
That's a solid piece. Extended version of the title track is my favorite thing from the sessions. Also, the instrumental version of "Election Day" is a killer.
― Naive Teen Idol, Wednesday, 15 April 2015 13:17 (nine years ago) link
This album pisses on the majority of Seven and the Ragged Tiger from a great height, particular the latter half of the album from 'Missing' onwards.
― Turrican, Monday, 7 December 2015 16:36 (eight years ago) link
ten cuidado!
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 7 December 2015 16:45 (eight years ago) link
'The Promise' is the best track on the album for me, of course.
― Turrican, Monday, 7 December 2015 16:47 (eight years ago) link
The video for the Flame is always worth watching again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oenc1E4hJsE
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 7 December 2015 19:26 (eight years ago) link
I vastly prefer this to anything The Power Station ever did, too. I think Le Bon and Rhodes shoulda just carried on with Arcadia rather than continuing with Duran Duran.
― Turrican, Monday, 7 December 2015 23:23 (eight years ago) link
I still love the Arcadia album. Probably the first album I ever had any 'deep' listening experience. Headphones on all the time, dissecting every sound. Exploring the names in the credits to understand what they contributed. Probably my 2nd or 3rd favorite Duran related release.
― brotherlovesdub, Monday, 7 December 2015 23:26 (eight years ago) link
Oh yeah, I completely agree that the album is a good headphones experience. For me, there are several things that separate Duran Duran from an obviously lesser act like, say, Spandau Ballet. To begin with, Duran Duran obviously had better musical "chops" (for want of a better term) in comparison to Spandau - while John Taylor was definitely not a Bernard Edwards or a Mick Karn, he had enough about him to come up with some superb playing; most notably the bassline to 'Rio', but something like 'Lonely In Your Nightmare' and 'Tiger Tiger' showed he could at least provide some decent playing on the fretless. The Arcadia stuff (and also some Duran Duran stuff) show that Nick Rhodes and some of the other band members could make a better fist of Japan-like atmospherics than other bands that attempted the same. Andy Taylor, also, was a much better guitarist than most give him credit for. While it's known that the members of Japan weren't as keen on Duran Duran as they were of them, the fact that they struck up a working relationship, friendship and mutual respect from various members of Chic says it all, whereas it would have been hard to imagine Marvin Gaye going for Spandau, who were an incredibly ropey New Romantic band at best and an even worse pop-soul act. Duran Duran had stronger songs, better production and their "artier" experiments at least sounded like they were created by a bunch of people who enjoyed that sort of music. For all their success, the partying and their desire for world domination, I think there's a honesty about what Duran Duran were doing musically - they were genuinely making the music that they wanted to make. With Spandau, there always seemed to be something cynical about pretty much everything they did, 'True' included. Gary Kemp can talk endlessly until he's blue in the face about how Spandau Ballet were a bunch of working class lads trying to make something of themselves, but I always think that with Spandau, it was a case of style over substance and cynically so, whereas Duran Duran seemed to care about their music.
Okay, so Tony Hadley may have been a technically superior vocalist to Simon Le Bon, who has been guilty of some truly awful vocal performances from time to time, but I'd sooner take Le Bon's technically imperfect voice over a guy who oversings everything and hams it up at every opportunity, particularly when those lyrics he's given to sing are some of the most garbled nonsense of the era. That's not to say that Le Bon's lyrics are poetry - fucking hell, god no. But when Hadley is trying to inject faux-soul and passion into some of Kemp's lyrics, particularly pre-Barricades, the combination of the lyric and the way that the lyric is dramatically sung is incredibly laugh-out-loud funny for all the wrong reasons.
At this point, I can find a lot of positive things to say about quite a lot of acts from the synthpop/New Romantic, but Spandau - save one or two tracks - will always eternally remain a woeful band as far as I'm concerned.
― Turrican, Tuesday, 8 December 2015 00:46 (eight years ago) link
That's not to say that Le Bon's lyrics are poetry - fucking hell, god no
I don't think I agree with this appraisal of Le Bon lyrics, which I hear a lot... he is a master of couplets, and in a song like, for example, Election Day, he has transcended his Duran Duran pace of a handful per song and just fires them at you one after the other. The whole song rarely hangs together but it really is top shelf cocaine nonsense. Focus on lines instead of verses!
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 8 December 2015 16:53 (eight years ago) link
Focusing on lines instead of verses is exactly how I suspect Le Bon put a lyric together! :D
― Turrican, Tuesday, 8 December 2015 18:59 (eight years ago) link
https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/interview/35-today-the-making-of-arcadias-so-red-the-rose-in-their-own-words/?fbclid=IwAR0G0AKMVCaReTf33u8YCO68hEUWMdwtcMbOLr8YM9fBgUw9oZql_oNaPeQ
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 25 November 2020 18:02 (three years ago) link
Excellent! Thanks for the link.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 25 November 2020 20:07 (three years ago) link
Yeah that was fun. Not sure I ever realized that the sick rhythm guitar on the instrumental cut of Election Day was Carlos Alomar but it makes sense. I loved them calling him “Mr. Alomar.”
― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, 28 November 2020 00:01 (three years ago) link
Wow! No idea Andy Mackay even remembers playing on it, let alone liking his contributions.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 28 November 2020 00:33 (three years ago) link