Songoftheday 8/6/13 - You've gone too far this time but I'm dancing on the valentine...

Duran Duran - "The Reflex"
from the album Seven & The Ragged Tiger (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's Song of the Day is by the new-romantic Fab Five, Duran Duran, whose third full-length album Seven & The Ragged Tiger (the first recorded after their big American breakthrough) had already spun off two top-10 singles with "Union Of The Snake" and "New Moon On Monday". For their third release the band recruited Chic leader and king of disco Nile Rodgers to remix the track they originally wanted as the lead-off for the album, "The Reflex", from the original Alex Sadkin/Ian Little production. The video jazzed up a recorded concert take done in Toronto on their tour....

"The Reflex" became Duran Duran's first #1 pop hit in the US in June of 1984, which it had done the month prior in their native England. The single also topped the charts in Belgium, Holland, and Ireland, and at least top-20 everywhere else. I think the wide appeal can be traced to Nile's tight mix and those female backup vocals that are addictive. After this record DD established themselves as the 2nd Brit invasion band to beat, as Culture Club's chart fortune was just cresting.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's the band performing "The Reflex" at Live Aid in 1985...

...and their version from their concert/scifi movie Arena (some of which was used in the original video)...

...here's the remix of the song redone on video, which went to #15 on the Club chart in Billboard magazine...

Finally, here's my queen Kylie Minogue along with Ben Lee with a cover of the song for a Duran Duran tribute album...


Up tomorrow:Not the most well known, but the highest-charting song about cocaine in the 80s....