arena (album)

align="center" bgcolor="darkturquoise" colspan="3"\|Arena
lign="center" colspan="3"\|
lign="center" bgcolor="darkturquoise" colspan="3"\|Album by Duran Duran
lign="left" valign="top"\|Released Reissued	colspan="2" valign="top"\|November, 1984 1 June, 2004
lign="left" valign="top"\|Recorded	colspan="2" valign="top"\| 'around the world 1984'
lign="left" valign="top"\|Genre	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Dance-New Wave
lign="left" valign="top"\|Length	colspan="2" valign="top"\|47 min 54 sec (1984) 59 min 48 sec (2004)
lign="left" valign="top"\|Record label	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Capitol/EMI
lign="left" valign="top"\|Producer	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Duran Duran
gcolor="darkturquoise" colspan="3"\|Professional reviews
lign="left" valign="top" width="34%"\|AMG	valign="top" align="center" width="33%"\|3/5	valign="top" align="center" width="33%"\|link
lign="left" valign="top"\|Q	valign="top" align="center"\|1 stars out of 5	valign="top" align="center"\|link
gcolor="darkturquoise" colspan="3"\|Duran Duran Chronology
align="top"\|Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983)	valign="top"\|Arena (1984)	valign="top"\|Notorious (1987)

Arena is an album by Duran Duran, originally released worldwide in 1984 (see 1984 in music), and reissued with two bonus tracks in 2004, (see 2004 in music).

Background

To cap off the band's highly successful 1983/1984 Sing Blue Silver World Tour, EMI ended 1984 with a live album, which according to the sleeve was 'Recorded Around The World 1984'. The album featured most of the band's big hits in a live environment, as well as some album tracks from "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" (1983) and "Rio" (1982) and a new studio track "The Wild Boys" produced by Nile Rodgers, who has previously remixed the single "The Reflex". The "Wild Boys" single came with six separate covers - one featuring each individual band member and one of the band collectively. At the time of release, critics deemed the album far too polished for a live album, as most of the audience was muted in the mix. The song arrangements and adlibs like "Is anybody hungry?" ensured that this was indeed a live effort. Other criticism arose from the omission of the BIG singles like "The Reflex", "Girls On Film" and "Rio". Undaunted by these critical concerns, "Arena" still managed to peak at #6 in the UK (November 24) and #4 in the US (December 1). The album was eventually re-issued 1 June, 2004 and included two bonus tracks "Girls On Film" and "Rio". "Arena" would be the only full-length live Duran Duran release until the 2003 Encore Series of legitimate bootlegs from shows in Japan and the West Coast of the USA.

Further Events

Capitalising on the band's success, EMI turned the album's release into a multimedia event. Arena (An Absurd Notion) on long form VHS was quickly followed by The Making of Arena. These videos featured Duran Duran performing live in Oakland, California between Apr 12-15, 1984 while Milo O'Shea, reprising his role as the evil Dr. Durand Durand from Barbarella (1968) tried to wreak havoc. The Arena video also featured the extended video for "The Wild Boys", as directed by Russell Mulcahy. It was meant to be a teaser for a full-length feature film of the same name, based on the 1971 novel "The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead" by William S. Burroughs. The film would never get made. Also released during this period for the "Arena" multi-media event were a board game called Into The Arena, a series of collectible cards, the tour documentary Sing Blue Silver and a book about the tour featuring extensive photos by Dennis O'Regan, also called Sing Blue Silver. Both the Sing Blue Silver documentary and Arena have recently been reissued on DVD. "Arena" features The Making Of Arena as a DVD extra.

Other Live Material

Two further live cuts from the 1984 world tour were released as B-sides to singles in 1984: New Religion (Live in LA) on the North American issue of The Reflex and Cracks in the Pavement (1984) on The Wild Boys. New Religion was recorded 9 February at The Forum, Los Angeles, and Cracks in the Pavement was recorded at the 5 March 1984 show at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. This is the same concert where the video for The Reflex was filmed.