Arcadia, So Red The Rose Special Edition

By Less Lee Moore

One would think that with so many Duran Duran CDs, at least six Duran Duran DVDs, and a box of VHS tapes, I’d have enough to satisfy me. But as Hamlet used to say, it’s “As if increase of appetite had grown/By what it fed on.” And if you think that sounds pretentious, you should listen to Arcadia’s So Red The Rose.

Now now, calm down. I kid. I kid because I love. For those who haven’t been Duranies since the dawn of the ’80s, I’ll fill you in: Arcadia was a side project of Duran Duran members Nick Rhodes, Simon LeBon, and Roger Taylor. The band came to fruition in 1985, after the release of Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger album.

Rumors were flying back then about a potential Duran Duran breakup; the other members of Duran Duran—John Taylor and Andy Taylor—had formed Power Station with Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson (Chic’s drummer). More troublesome was the idea that the next Duran Duran album would sound like Power Station.

Thankfully, Arcadia’s So Red The Rose sounds rather like Duran Duran, although it is simultaneously more grandiose and yet still subtler. At the time of its release, videos for three of the album’s four singles—”Election Day,” “The Flame,” and “Goodbye Is Forever”—received fairly heavy airplay on MTV. So one can imagine my surprise at discovering there were more videos from this album as well as several remixes and B-sides (some appear on the disc with the album proper, while others are on a separate disc).

Granted, at the time of So Red The Rose‘s release, I was veering more towards other bands, such as Japan (who ironically, I started listening to because Duran Duran mentioned them on their MTV Guest VJ appearance). Little did I know how much Japan had influenced this album; I figured this out pretty quickly once I ended up buying the album in the early ’90s.

So Red The Rose is not a Japan ripoff, by far, although the influence is most strongly felt on “Rose Arcana” and the last track, the epic “Lady Ice.” This is due in part to the appearance of guest musicians like Masami Tsuchiya, who had also worked with Japan in the ’80s. And the guests don’t stop there: Sting, Grace Jones, David Gilmour, Herbie Hancock, and even Carlos Alomar all lend their various talents to this effort.

But despite all the help, So Red The Rose remains a Duran Duran-esque experiment, one that still sounds successful after 25 years (wow, I feel really old all of a sudden). Much less claustrophobic and frenetic than Seven and the Ragged Tiger, it presages the jazzier, funkier sounds of the band’s next release, Notorious, particularly on the extra track “Say The Word” (note the fake out intro of Bowie’s “Fame” in the remix). There isn’t a dud on the album, although the pan flute of “El Diablo” veers dangerously close.

I honestly can see all of the songs being singles, especially the dreamy “Keeping Me In The Dark,” which showcases Le Bon’s distinctive and lovely voice. On So Red The Rose, he gets to showcase how flexible his singing is, veering from that patented Le Bon yelp (somewhat toned down here) to a sexy growl and back again to the Croon Of Longing.

“Election Day” is wildly addictive, with weirdo vocalizations from Grace Jones and an equally weirdo video: shirtless guys with papier-mâché chess piece horseheads, Nick Rhodes as an ersatz toreador who looks suspiciously like Liz Taylor, lots of vinyl clothing, and awkward dancing from Simon LeBon.

I always preferred the ingenuity of “Goodbye Is Forever,” its video—full of charming proto-steampunk imagery—a perfect complement to the song. It’s a wistful yet catchy tune that is far better than anything on Seven and the Ragged Tiger. I am thrilled to finally have the video mix of the song available on CD; the extended outro ad lib is a personal favorite.

The amusing “acting” that Duran Duran utilized in their video for “A View To A Kill” comes into the fore during the video for “The Flame,” a kind of homage to Hitchcock, where Nick Rhodes looks more like Japan’s David Sylvian than was probably legal at the time. The cameo by John Taylor still cracks me up, as does Simon Le Bon playing a hapless nerd.

“The Promise” has an artsy black and white video that seems to suit the song’s vaguely political nature (and yes, recalls Japan’s “Visions Of China” video from 1981), while “Missing” is absolutely breathtaking. Filmed in a distinctive and innovative stop motion photography style by Dean Chamberlain (who would go on to use this technique on Duran Duran’s “All She Wants Is” video in 1988), it doesn’t feature any members of the band, but is stunning and makes the song sound even better somehow.

The DVD also includes some “Making Of” bits before each of the five videos which show just how much went into to making them as well as the silly and potentially dangerous things Rhodes and LeBon endured in order to make them (Roger Taylor does not appear in any of the videos).

And as for pretentious, I can’t seem to nail down which reviewer called So Red The Rose “the most pretentious album ever made” or if it was Simon Le Bon himself, but I’d prefer to call it ambitious. . . and absolutely essential for Duran Duran fans.

Also essential is this amazing Arcadia fansite which features a library of articles on the band, interviews, lyrics, heaps of photos, videos of a few rare live performances, and incredibly, the numeric substitution cipher code used in the album artwork.

The So Red The Rose Special Edition was released on April 20 by EMI and is available in both physical and digital download formats from the Amazon, iTunes, and via Duran Duran’s website.