Coke & Wet: The Power Station Versus Arcadia By Simon Price

40 years on, Simon Price revisits the undeclared war between Arcadia, who made “the most pretentious album ever”, and The Power Station, who made “the most cocainey album ever”; and asks who, if anyone, was the winner

“Arcadia and The Power Station”, writes Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story Of Pop, “were possibly the two worst bands of the decade. So much huff and puff.” Critical hindsight hasn’t been kind to Duran Duran’s two splinter groups. It wasn’t even particularly kind at the time, for that matter. There’s a puritan streak in the music press which abhors excess, and Duran Duran were the most excessive band in an excessive age.

Duran Duran were essentially the Led Zeppelin of…

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