Track Listing

1. Election Day
2. Keep Me In The Dark
3. Goodbye Is Forever
4. The Flame
5. Missing
6. Rose Arcana
7. The Promise
8. El Diablo
9. Lady Ice

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31787 in Music
• Released on: 1991-07-02
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

An album that captures music lost in time.
I remember this album like it was yesterday. I have the albums and the remixes, plus all the videos which I need to transfere onto disc. The album so red the rose was an awaited project from the three members of Duran Duran, Simon, Nick & Roger. If you have any taste in music your will appreciate this album with nothing to loose. The album is a work of art along with the cover and pictures. The players on the album are some of my favorite especially David Gilmore from The Floyd (pink floyd). The reason this album hold so dear to me is when I bought this album I was 14 years old. I just broken up with my girlfriend and being a teen, this music captured alot of strange emotions and would be one of the albums I would listen to let me wander in my head. I still very much enjoy listening to all my Duran Albums, minus the Red Carpet Timber Fail Album. I admitt Duran Duran went through some pretty bad career moves, member loosing and Album direction, but somehow no matter how bad these albums hold something monumental. So Red The Rose is and was a more dark pop album. It also showed that Simon Le Bon had a range and used it. The Nicks synth and keyboard parts do not sound like any other album they have done. To be honest I have never been albe to replicate his parts with my keyboards. But to sum this up it's not Indy Pop and it's not high energy but a well balanced lush, vocal, guitar, orchestraed journey.

I was very dissapointed that they never toured with this project. I did however catch Power Station with Micheal Da Bar, good god.. YUCK!~

This album is worth owning... :)

Perhaps the most accomplished Duran Duran album that never was....
When Arcadia released So Red the Rose, Duran Duran had just come off of ruling the world with Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Powerstation had hit it big with meaty, muscular guitars and sexy vocals from Robert Palmer. Simon , Nick, and Roger answered that gauntlet with an album that seemed to capture the most elegant aspects of Duran Duran. Shimmering yet funky at the same time, Simon's voice slithered in and out of a set of the best tunes he had ever had to work with. Where Seven and the Ragged Tiger seemed almost thrown together at times (although still a great album), everything on So Red the Rose seems careful, imbued with secret meanings. Replacing John's disco tinged meaty baselines was an exotic fretless bass that brings Dali's Car to mind. Nick's keyboard playing was playful, quixotic, and the most assured thing that he had yet done. People make much of Duran Duran's art school roots, and this is the album that brought all that promise to the floor. When you round out the package with fantastic guest guitar from David Gilmore and backing vocals from Sting and Grace Jones, this is about as perfect a Classic New Romantic album as you can get. If you don't own this and you enjoy Duran Duran, this is a simple decision--you should buy 2 copies of this. One for yourself, and one for a friend. Simply marvelous.

Maximum Big Surprise!- Sort of....
I have disagree with some of the reviewers here. This album DOES indeed sound much like Duran Duran. A Duran Duran with a little more interest in the avant-gard type moodiness of David Sylvian or Bryan Ferry maybe, but still in the same ballpark.

The interesting thing to note is that Arcadia's "So Red The Rose" benefits from a couple of things not afforded early Duran Duran albums. One, there's no Andy Taylor around feeling the need to throw a power chord or two into each song, and there's no John Taylor here to throw in a funky bass line here and there. What this accomplishes is focus. The sound from start to finish sounds like it all fits together as one musical offering. Something not really accomplished on the first three Duran Duran albums to this extent anyway.

Then there are the other players. "The Promise" is a great seven minute pop masterpiece augmented by a haunting Sting cameo on vocal and some unbelievably eloquent guitar work from David Gilmour and horns from Herbie Hancock.

Simon sounds great throughout and the sound experiements that Nick Rhodes is allowed to explore are really top notch. Some wonderful music is contained on this CD and it is a shame they never recorded officially under this moniker again (aside from the odd soundtrack offering titled "Say The Word"). I think this music is good enough to be explored more deeply by Simon, Nick and Roger sometime. Although the ideas they worked on here turn up in several other Duran Duran songs post-Arcadia (think "Winter Marches On," "Silver Halo" or Simon Le Bon's "Follow in your Footsteps") they never really delved into this type of recording for a whole album ever again.

But we have this and if you like Duran Duran, you owe it to yourself to have a copy.