Arcadia: So Red The Rose C/D

It's definitely a better Duran album than "Seven & The Ragged Tiger." There's something obscene and gross about all the money spent on arrangements, hiring guest stars (Grace Jones? Sting? Andy Mackay?), costumes, hair, and videos (the video for "The Flame" should have earned Simon Le Bon an Oscar or something); but the tunes, on the first side at any rate, are plush and full o' hooks. The second side after "The Promise" sounds like, I dunno, Talk Talk or bad Roxy Music.

I distinctly remember LeBon and/or Rhodes saying at the time that they thought they'd stumbled on a sound like "the now defunct Japan," and it took me a long time to figure out what the hell that meant (actually, all DD records should have carried advice to go and listen to Japan too). There is some truth to that though, and, yeah, it's as likeable as 7&TRT.

always wanted to hear this, perhaps a cheap copy

ihttp://eil.com/products/japan-music-life---january-1981-169416.html

http://www.duranduran.no/images/arcadia5.jpg

Dude, does it matter?

i'm surprised there's never been a ts: powerstation v. arcadia...

I mean, that is just obvious. Duran Duran were great, but there is no way that they were even remotely as great as Japan.

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.

(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)

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/93869/arcadia?pageid=rs.Artistcage&pageregion=triple1

compared to Power Station and Duran, I guess. But "Election Day" made the Top 10 and the album went platinum.

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??

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.

Wild kind of look to the day, opening eyes impale neon flickers
She moon, she turning away,
The city’s her slave, he’s cheating his mistress
She’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 judy
Maximum big suprise your smile is something new
I pull my shirt off and pray,
We’re sacred and bound to suffer the heatwave
Pull my shirt off and pray,
We’re coming up on re-election day
Stretching my love down the way
To your invitation stretching my body
Use your intuitive play
Cause maybe we have more play time than money
Maximum big suprise she knows something new
I pull my shirt off and pray,
I’m saving myself to suffer the heatwave
Pull my shirt off and pray,
We’re coming up on re-election day
By roads and backways a lover’s chance, down a wind
Curtain murmurs and sounds be calm hands on skin
Carry further.. entangled strands.. all sing!
Time, saving some time to slip away we could dance ..
Oh! shouldn’t be asking..
Wild and scheming
Could be my election day
Maximum big suprise you know something new
I pull my shirt off and pray,
We’re sacred and bound to suffer this heatwave
Pull my shirt off and pray
We’re coming up on re-election day
Oww
Re-election day
Owwoooaa

Simon Le Bon, I love you.

OK, "Goodbye is Forever" ain't bad.

OBSESSED, I tell you you are.

These questions come up often!

And we're the only ones talking about the answers!

it's brilliant but no track stands out

Waht? Election Day!

en la Tierra del Fuego
ten cuidado

Listening again, inspired by The Quietus and this interview, I'm thinking I actually *prefer* the second side.

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.

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.

ten cuidado!

'The Promise' is the best track on the album for me, of course.

The video for the Flame is always worth watching again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oenc1E4hJsE

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.

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.

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.

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!

Focusing on lines instead of verses is exactly how I suspect Le Bon put a lyric together! :D

https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/interview/35-today-the-making-of-arcadias-so-red-the-rose-in-their-own-words/?fbclid=IwAR0G0AKMVCaReTf33u8YCO68hEUWMdwtcMbOLr8YM9fBgUw9oZql_oNaPeQ

Excellent! Thanks for the 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.”

Wow! No idea Andy Mackay even remembers playing on it, let alone liking his contributions.