More side project than supergroup, Arcadia was the band formed by the members of Duran Duran that didn’t run off with Robert Palmer and the Chic rhythm section to briefly become The Power Station. It’s Duran Duran enough, though – enough to warrant inclusion in EMI’s ongoing series of 2-CD/DVD deluxe edition reissues of the Fab 5’s heyday catalogue. Rightly so. Though it only yielded one bona-fide hit in the form of the glammed out synth-funk single “Election Day”, Arcadia’s only album So Red the Rose is a surprisingly enduring collection of slightly over-ambitious pop. The core group of singer Simon LeBon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, and drummer Roger Taylor were joined on the record by a flock of session players, along with numerous high profile guest stars, most famously Grace Jones doing that psycho monologue in “Election Day”. On the epic (and epically underappreciated) ballad “The Promise”, the trio is joined by none other than jazz-great Herbie Hancock on keyboards and (wh-wh-what?) Sting doing back-up vocals on the chorus. In 1986, the video was striking (in 2010 strikingly cheesy) – a black-and-white interplay of forebodingly grainy stock footage and the band performing on what looks like a regurgitation of the set of their previous video “Is There Something I Should Know?” Yeah, I suppose it jumps the shark a bit when Simon whips out those pan-pipes, but the song stands up, regardless.
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The Tuesday Morning Awesome: Electronic “Getting Away With It” (1990)
The James video last night got another great song lodged in my head – this one by the Manchester synth-pop supergroup of New Order’s Bernard Sumner, The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, and (for a time) Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant – collectively known as Electronic. Their debut 1990 single “Getting Away With It” applied classicist songwriting to a house music sound, and even briefly hit the U.S. Top 40. 20 years later, it still sounds sweet.
Electronic – Getting Away With It
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The Monday Night Awesome: James “Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)” (2001)
James – Pleased To Meet You (2001)
In this time of economic uncertainty, high unemployment, pop culture run amok and general mass hysteria, it’s nice to know that there’s always James. Five minutes of James and everything is better. Five minutes of James can balance the national budget, provide jobs and healthcare for all, and inspire Kim Kardashian to go back to school and find the biophysicist within. Don’t believe me? That’s fine. You don’t have to take my word for it. Instead, you can watch the testimonials given by the beneficiaries of James’s healing qualities in this strangely affecting video for their single “Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)”, from the Manchester band’s 2001 album Pleased To Meet You. The cleverness of the video is one thing – getting random folks on the streets of New York City to both “testify” and sing along to a song that I can’t imagine any of them had heard prior to their fateful meeting with a camera crew. But the timing of it – just months before 9/11 – haunts the video; and frankly, everything that’s happened since – the war, the economic collapse, George W. Bush legitimately winning a second term in office – also haunts the video. My personal favorite moment is the old couple on the street at about 0:58 singing happily to each other “We’re insured.” They look so happy! You can’t underestimate the healing power of that moment. I feel frickin’ awesome already. Thank you, James! A thousand times, thank you. All six or seven of you!