Remember When: Duran Duran Split into Two Competing Bands

Duran Duran made a mint for a lot of people in the music industry in the early ’80s, which is why they were pretty much given carte blanche to do what they wanted. Who would have guessed that what they wanted was to split up into two different bands, each of whom released a super-expensive album in 1985?

This is the story of The Power Station and Arcadia, two bands that were essentially used as palette-cleansers by the members of Duran Duran so they could get back to the business of being the most popular band in the world. You guessed it: This could only have happened in the ’80s.

A Band Divided

Fans of Duran Duran who heard the two factions in different bands in 1985 need not have panicked. The split was planned, as was the notion that the members would quickly reunite. Perhaps the main catalysts for the projects were the sessions for the 1983 album Seven and the Ragged Tiger, during which bassist John Taylor fretted over the fussiness of the sound.

Wanting to rock, he enlisted fellow Duran member Andy Taylor to play lead guitar. Long a fan of Chic, the men nabbed Tony Thompson to play the drums. (Former Chic member Bernard Edwards acted as producer.) The trio initially thought they’d use rotating lead singers. But when Robert Palmer walked in sang the stuffing out of an instrumental track the trio had already recorded—which happened to be a cover of the T. Rex classic “Get It On (Bang a Gong)”—they abandoned that idea and hired Palmer full-time.

The debut album for The Power Station arrived in March 1985 with a hit lead single (“Some Like It Hot”) leading the way. “Get It On (Bang a Gong)” followed hot on its heels and, on the strength of Thompson’s thunderous drums, rocked MTV fans throughout the summer. But this low-key Duran war was only just heating up.

A “Pretentious” Powerhouse

Perhaps all you need to know to get the sense of the music that these competing outfits were making is to look at the band names they chose. The Power Station was the name of the studio where the Taylors and their new cohorts recorded the album, and it also suggested, well, power. Arcadia, the name chosen by singer Simon Le Bon and keyboardist Nick Rhodes for their project, was taken from a painting found in the Louvre and suggested, well, ancient myths, maybe?

Le Bon and Rhodes would both, in the aftermath of its making, call Arcadia’s album So Red the Rose “pretentious.” While they were being partly tongue-in-cheek, it’s undeniable the music from the November ’85 release was somewhat elusive, atmospheric, and clearly made to please the whims of the makers, with the hope that the audience would follow along. (The fact they chose the same producer, Alex Sadkin, who had infuriated John Taylor on Seven and the Ragged Tiger, should tell you how their sensibilities diverged from The Power Station folks.)

Although Duran Duran drummer Roger Taylor was listed as a member of Arcadia, he wasn’t used on the entire album (and he also contributed to The Power Station as well). Le Bon and Rhodes used a series of ace session men to fill out the roster, while enlisting special guests like Sting, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, and Herbie Hancock. On the brassy hit single “Election Day,” Grace Jones performs a spoken-word section, because in the spirit of indulgence, why not?

The Aftermath

Andy and John Taylor had hoped The Power Station would endure, but Palmer’s decision not to tour largely put the kibosh on that. Although Michael Des Barres subbed for a while (including when they performed at Live Aid), the writing was on the wall. They reunited for a 1996 album called Living in Fear that largely went unnoticed. Sadly, Edwards passed away in 1996, and Palmer and Thompson both died in 2003.

Arcadia, on the other hand, was always intended as a one-off. Rhodes did admit the following in an interview with SuperDeluxeEdition.com: “Simon and I have only talked about it in jest. The only time it’s ever arisen is when one of us says: ‘If we save up all the money we earn for the next 10 years, we could make another Arcadia record.’”

When Duran Duran returned for their 1986 album Notorious, they were two men down. Roger Taylor semi-retired, while Andy Taylor played on just a few tracks before splitting for a solo career. It turned out The Power Station and Arcadia era might have exposed more fissures in the group than even they realized at the time. But that both albums are now included by Duran Duran in their unofficial canon also suggests that all is forgiven.

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