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.
Tag: The Power Station
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The Sunday Seven 10/26/08: Streets is Watching
1) Dream on Dreamer by The Brand New Heavies (from Brother Sister, 1994)
After Soul II Soul hit in 1989, there were a bunch of British groups that came out with the same soulful, jazzy vibe.The best among the rest was The Brand New Heavies, who had the benefit of the lovely N’dea Davenport as lead singer. This was probably their biggest pop hit. N’dea made an awesome solo album around 1999 or so, which you should definitely find if you’re an R&B fan, and the Heavies soldiered on for a while with Siedah Garrett (of MJ “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” fame) before welcoming Davenport back into the fold. Also worth checking out is the album “Heavy Rhyme Experience Vol. 1”, which features the band vibing in the studio with a who’s who of early Nineties East Coast hip-hop.
2) Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) by The Offspring
Y’know, on one hand I find this song incredibly funny, but on the other it’s like, geez, The Offspring were kind of a one trick pony, weren’t they? Well, I shouldn’t say were, as they just took a spin at the top of Billboard’s Modern Rock charts with their latest single, but if you’ve heard one Offspring single, wouldn’t it be safe to assume you’ve heard ’em all? C’mon Dexter Holland. You have a degree in microbiology or whatever. You should be smart enough to vary your sound up a little. Then again, it still sells, so maybe he *is* the smart one.