So in 1985, members of Duran Duran had taken a break from touring and recording and managed to create two separate bands, The Power Station (covered in a previous blog) and this band, Arcadia. While The Power Station was a more rock influenced endeavor, Arcadia was much more of an Art Rock project. Moody and arty, glamorous and hypnotic. This was 180 degrees from the hard hitting sound of The Power Station. Arcadia's musical style was much more in line with the sound often
associated with Duran Duran, so much so that the album is often referred
to as the best Duran Duran album they never made. The band consisted of Duran Duran lead singer, Simon Le Bon, keyboardist, Nick Rhodes and drummer Roger Taylor.
This was the first single from the bands only album, So Red The Rose. It reached #6 on the US charts and featured a spoken word passage from model/actress/singer Grace Jones (she played a character in the movie Duran Duran wrote a theme song for.....more on that in the next blog).
The video was inspired by imagery from a 1946 french film, La Belle et la Bete (English translation: Beauty and the Beast.....impress your friends and small children with that knowledge). Its filled with beautiful people and lavish lifestyles and people dressed as animals....ok, well, there's that....it is inspired by a french film, so what do you expect?
Released in April of 1985, this second single from a super group consisting of two members of Duran Duran, one member of 70's funk band Chic and singer Robert Palmer reached #9 on the US charts and was the bands biggest hit.
During the winter of 1984 Duran Duran were on a scheduled break after completing their Seven And The Ragged Tiger album and tour, the break ended up seeing the creation of two bands, Arcadia (I'll cover them next) and The Power Station. Originally created on a whim, The Power Station (named after the studio the album was recorded in) was supposed to just be a backing band to different singers on each song on the album. Singers mentioned during that phase of the project included Mick Jagger, Billy Idol and Richard Butler from the Psychedelic Furs. Robert Palmer was brought in to sing on one of the songs and when he learned that the band had recorded Get It On from 1970's glam rock band T-Rex, he asked if he could have a go at singing the song. By the time they finished recording Robert's version of the song, the plan was changed to just keep the four current members and not bring in other singers.
The original song was recorded in 1971 and is very much the same basic song with The Power Station adding just a bit more crunch to their version. The original version made it to #10 on the US charts so it was always a hit.
The video is one of those memorable videos with lots of classic, iconic images. the dancing girl, Palmer shaking his paper to emphasize a "yeah", the drummer playing so hard his drums literally dance, a models hairdryer bursting into flames while the hyper-solo is playing. It's full of great images.
Released in April of 1984, this single off their debut album, Shout At The Devil, only made it to #90 on the US charts. Its not a bad song.....maybe the video is what killed its chances. Lets take a look at this masterpiece of bad acting.
A young girl is poor and alone on the streets of some Asian town. She is begging and is not receiving any help from the locals. Except for a mysterious man. The little boy that watches him knows something isn't right about this situation. He runs to tell the band what he's seen. They're just standing around singing and posing.....like you do. Mean while, the girl is getting some food but now its time for her to go as the mysterious man pushes her away. She's taken to what is, obviously, a brothel and the man that owns it comes out to welcome her. She goes in reluctantly.
Looks like the band stopped off to play a bit of the song they've been singing (rescue missions always require a performance break). Now we see the girl being cleaned up and the band is finally back on the job. They walk through the kitchen where the girl was eating and one of the band members stops to look at the food she was eating....is it a clue? Nope, just keep moving.
The band enters the brothel and is ready to confront the owner but his ninjas and sword wielding henchmen are ready to attack. The fight that occurs actually made me laugh out loud, its so comical and staged. One punch and down goes a bad guy. A kick and there goes another. Don't even think of swinging those nunchucks at me...and POW! Its like a fight worse than the old Batman tv series. With obvious misses and fake sound effects.
But lets not get distracted by the badness, there's a young girl to rescue. The brothel owner doesn't look scared. He turns his face toward the band showing them the two black lines on his cheek. But what's this? The young girl they've come to rescue is there as well and she's all clean and dressed up nicely. And on her cheek? Two black lines just like the brothel owner. Well, how's that for gratitude?
Nothing left for the band to do but to walk away in disgust.....except for at the very end when the mysterious man tries to attack the last band member walking through the kitchen. He dispatches the mysterious man just as comically as the rest of the henchmen. But what's the punchline for this joke? He takes a bite of the food and it's awful, so he spits it out.......
....and scene!
Now, I'm making fun of this terrible video but it should be noted that I do like this song and Motley Crue but this is just bad. I'm sure even they are embarrassed by this.
Go watch it and try to not laugh.....who am I kidding? Laugh out loud. Its hilarious.
Edit*** I've had to replace the original version of this video with another version that is backwards! I'm guessing the band requested it be taken down....'cause its awful.***
A 60's icon gets a 70's comedian to help him make an 80's song fun.
Released in September of 1986, this was the lead single from his Grammy winning album, Graceland. This song reached the top 5 in seven different countries....but not in the US where it only reached #23. Paul probably didn't get too upset, the album went on to sell nearly 15 million copies and is listed on most "Top Albums of all time" lists.
The song was inspired by an actual moment where Paul and his wife went to a party and someone kept referring to him as Al and his wife as Betty (her name was Peggy). Inspiration comes where ever it comes.
The music video was produced after the original live performance video proved to be not very exciting. Paul was hosting Saturday Night Live and it was suggested that doing something silly would be better. Paul asked his friend (and SNL alum) Chevy Chase to help him out and he came through for him. The idea of Paul Simon singing back up vocals to Chevy Chase on his own song is immediately silly and when you add in the usual silliness that someone like Chevy can come up with in subtle humor (dropping a glass of water and a tin whistle through what is obviously NOT a side table being just a small example), well the video is a classic.
Released in March of 1984, this fun little number reached #7 on the US charts and has MTV to thank for it. The song is what you would expect from The Cars: peppy, upbeat and lots of fun. But once the video was shown on MTV, the song took off up the charts.
Being one of the first videos to feature computer graphics and used as a way to make the band seem fun and silly (they weren't selling a drama, it was rock music). This video made lead singer, Ric Ocasek, into a submarine, King Kong, a dental drill and a bug and all the while, annoying the girl of his dreams. Plenty of classic images from this video: Ric hanging on a hanger, Ric's trademark sunglasses on the submarine periscope, The rest of the band floating on a bar of soap, Ric driving a car out from under her covers and running her down (a good use of the lyrics he's singing at the time), and Ric pulling his face off as the rest of the video pours out of his head.
The video won the very first Video Of The Year on the MTV Video awards in 1984. And rightly so.
Released in June of 1981, the perfect song of summer, it was a huge hit for this all girl group. Reaching #20 on the US charts with their first single solidified them as one of the forerunners of the New Wave scene and darlings of the new MTV generation. But not if you asked them...
Lead singer, Belinda Carlisle, didn't think videos would be popular and the rest of the band thought the whole idea a waste of time and money. The president of the record company, Miles Copeland, (brother of Police drummer, Stewart Copeland) disagreed and insisted, even going so far as to pay for this video with unused money from the Police's video budget.
So the girls rented a convertible from Rent-A-Wreck, drove around the Hollywood area and generally goofed around, stopping at Trashy Lingerie in Hollywood (it still exists on La Cienega) and danced in the Electric Fountain at Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvd. In between shots of them driving up and down random streets, the girls perform the song in a place called Club Central (which later changed its name to the Viper Room).
The song, by the way, was written after Jane Wiedlin had a brief affair with the member of another band that the Go-Go's were touring with (he had a girlfriend). They wrote the song together because their "lips were sealed"......although, if they wrote the song together, they did the exact opposite of keeping it quiet.
I Wanna Be Sedated by Ramones (there's no "the" in their name)
Recorded in 1978 and released in the US in 1980 (1979 in the UK) this song is one of the hallmarks of the punk rock scene, its like a Beatles song for the punk rock world, if you don't know it, you're not punk. In fact, the band is often considered to be the Beatles of punk rock, literally being the reason 99% of all punk bands came into existence.
Joey, Johnny, Mark and Dee Dee Ramone (none of them were related and none of the have the last name Ramone.......trust me, its a punk thing) paved the way for all of punk rock by playing simple three chord songs that were easy to bash around the club (or bedroom) to. This song is no exception, its literally three guitar chords for the entire song. (if you want to be fancy, you can step up a half a note but its basically the same three chords). But for a young kid looking to start a band and play a song that the crowd can identify immediately, this one is easy to learn, play and get the crowd on your side. Plus its not easy to screw up the lyrics.
The video was made in 1988 to help promote their greatest hits album and was about as simple as the song itself. The band sang along (and moved slowly) to the song that was slowed down so that when the video was played at regular speed, everyone around them would look like they were going crazy fast. The background (and occasionally foreground) crowd is full of all kinds of characters: Nuns, nurses, ballerinas, cowboys, acrobats, monsters and a doctor. Also making an appearance are two members of the band The Breakfast Club and somewhere in there is a young Courtney Love (my money is on the bride in the wedding dress).
