#arcadia

Arcadia - The Flame 1986

Arcadia were a British pop group formed in 1985 by Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, and Roger Taylor of Duran Duran as a side project during a break in the band's schedule. The project was active only during 1985 and 1986 and for just one album, So Red the Rose, which was certified Platinum in the US and included the singles "Election Day", "Goodbye Is Forever", "The Flame", and "The Promise" (featuring David Gilmour and Sting). Drummer Roger Taylor appeared in only a few band photographs and one music video ("Election Day"), and stated he was to be involved only in the recording side of the project (he also had minor involvement in the Power Station, the other Duran Duran splinter group, formed by Duran Duran's Andy Taylor and John Taylor alongside Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson of Chic). So Red the Rose's artwork featured painted ink drawings by fashion illustrator Tony Viramontes of fashion model Violeta Sanchez as well as an innovative "light space" photograph of the band by Dean Chamberlain.

"The Flame" was the fourth single released from So Red the Rose. It reached number 58 in the UK Singles Chart. The campy, slapstick video, directed by longtime collaborator Russell Mulcahy, was made in the retro style of an Edwardian-era drawing room murder mystery, à la Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock. The storyline revolved around a series of comic disasters that befall an awkward, nerdish character (played by Simon Le Bon) and his girlfriend while visiting a haunted house. Nick Rhodes plays the debonair host of the dinner party at the house, and he frequently uses Le Bon as his comic stooge for a number of macabre and mildly sadistic visual gags. Various unsavory bits of business ensue with revolving walls, trapdoors and mysterious assassins hidden behind paintings and within exotic taxidermied animals. The slapstick comic interplay between Rhodes and Le Bon is faintly reminiscent of Abbott and Costello.

At one point, John Taylor (at the time a member of the Power Station, the other Duran Duran side project) comes out of the closet with a contract for the band to sign. This is an especially pointed inside joke, as it was around this time that the three remaining Duran Duran members were preparing to write and record their next album, Notorious, while in legal negotiations with their now-estranged guitarist Andy Taylor. The video's treatment is said to have been written by Rhodes and the various near-fatal pratfalls that occur to Le Bon's character was intended as punishment for his decision to enter the Fastnet yachting race that almost cost him his life in August 1985.

"The Flame" received a total of 64,7% yes votes! Previous Duran Duran polls: #21 "The Wild Boys", #133 "The Chauffeur", #257 "Ordinary World", #398 "Danse Macabre", #444 "Do They Know It's Christmas?", #572 "Come Undone", #695 "Girls on Film", #784 "Of Crime and Passion".