Duran Duran
Seven and the Ragged Tiger

"It’s not an album where you find boy-chasing-girl type lyrics. Rather, it’s the story of a commando-like team. The seven of us, the five members of the band and the two managers. The tiger is success. Seven people chasing success. It’s ambition." (Simon Le Bon)

If the first "Duran Duran" was an ideal self-introduction ticket in the music market, the much-awarded "Rio" - which in America will become a gold record on March 1, 1983, and a platinum one on the subsequent April 26 - represented the development and consequential growth of five charming young men, capable of being appreciated also for that creative simplicity that led them to write easily engaging songs, but with an intrinsic charm whose longevity few would have bet on.

After the broad consensus gained as an opener for the Blondie tour, it was time for the first live concert on MTV held at the Savoy Theatre, which saw among others the presence of Rolling Stones, Stray Cats, and Go-Go's. The next goal of the DD was to not abandon the presence in the charts, fully succeeding with the release and success of "Is There Something I Should Know". The press of the time described the song as strongly influenced by the Beatles, allowing the nascent duranmania to be compared to the fever that had already erupted for the four from Liverpool less than two decades earlier. The 45 rpm in question would become the seventh single in the history of English music to reach the number one spot and be an essential trait d'union for the band between the recent past and the immediate future.

The duranan autumn of 1983 begins with the market release of "Union of the Snake". A pleasant appetizer available in 45 rpm version and relative mix (enriched with the unpublished and melancholic "Secret Oktober") characterized by the drum loop of the contemporary "Let's Dance" by Bowie, then developing into a succession of melodies in which keyboards also guide the rhythmic carpet. To reconcile those who (still) love to recall the four dances in the disco that once were with a sprinkling of energetic pop-rock, there is "New Moon on Monday"(where you can feel the gait of "Ain't That So" by Roxy Music) with a fairly successful verse-bridge-chorus conjunction. The quest for perfection that characterizes the entire album continues with "Of Crime and Passion", where the vocal participation finds completion with an unusual yet enjoyable sonic alchemy. "The Reflex" is left to open the album, and it is no accident. Released as the third single in April 1984, it is supported by a clip showing a vivid collage of images taken during the last tour (...the effect of the waterfall of lights and water on the audience is still in the minds of many...), proving to be a true big hit, thanks also to the remix conceived and realized by Nile Rodgers, allowing the five from Birmingham to be more chic than the Chic themselves.

You can smoothly slide into listening to an album that, stripped of the elegant veil reflected by the careful production, brings out the delicate manageability of a period where the entire group pays in terms of tension and partly in artistic direction. The prevailing presence of Rhodes keyboards in "I Take the Dice" (in workmanship as "The Cat with the Magic Dice"), or the unusual mid-tempo of what was originally "Furthest Shore" and will gain the new identity of (I’m Looking For) Cracks in the Pavement", allowing Andy Taylor to express his versatility with a simple yet tasteful solo, speaks volumes. A single listen is enough to be gently captured by the immediacy of "Shadows on your Side", where immediacy and vocal impetuosity come to live in perfect symbiosis. "The Seven and the Ragged Tiger" was the embryonic state of a track that would be (appropriately) divided and reworked into the two that finely close the album: "Tiger Tiger" - the second instrumental for the Duran - sees Rhodes take the lead in an elegant journey between synth and sounds involving the use of new technologies (Fairlight docet!), leaving the torment and velvety harmonies of "The Seventh Stranger" the task of reflecting that cohesion that the DD must convey and that fans of a band will always nourish themselves with.

The pressure state that the group must endure is evident. At the beginning of 1983, for a partial exit from the limelight and to give birth to this third album, the band migrated to French soil, transforming it into a real golden prison, where participation in the creative process by Ian Little (already in the ranks of Roxy Music) undoubtedly optimized the DD’s efforts, to give with this third work an adequate follow-up to the irresistible glamour of "Rio". The number three is (or should be...) synonymous with precision, the examination test that everyone awaits with fervent anticipation, and nonetheless, in this instance, represents the album of confirmations of a band now launched towards a stellar dimension that must not disappoint. The first real step towards the planetary conquest that everyone pursues but that only the most obstinate succeed in grasping, even at a very high price.

[On March 29, 2010, the special edition of "Duran Duran" (1981) and "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" were released on the market. The latter consists of two audio CDs and one DVD. The first disc contains the original album in remastered version while the second, is equipped with as many as thirteen tracks that between alternate versions and ("Faith in This Colour"), single versions ("Is There Something I Should Know", "The Reflex"), live ("New Religion", "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)") and mix ("New Moon on Monday", "Union of the Snake", ...) of the most varied nature, will satisfy those who had no way to get hold of the abundance between 45s and remix that accompanied at the time the release of an LP. The DVD contains the US version of "As the Lights Go Down", a documentary slightly different from that broadcast by English TV and which perfectly mirrors a full-fledged musical phenomenon. To further fill this juicy package, the performances at Top of The Pops of "The Reflex" and "Is There Something I Should Know" as well as the video clips that accompanied the singles extracted from a qualitatively high long playing].