Why is Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Every little thing the reflex does leaves you answered with a question mark.
Some stats & info about Duran Duran – Seven and the Ragged Tiger
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? British Bands, Synth Pop, Pop Music, Dance Music, New Wave
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Seven and the Ragged Tiger released? 1983
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #650 out of 1,000
Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.
What does Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
I still find “The Reflex” to be one of the most exciting pop songs of the 1980s. It’s likely that part of it is because it was wired into my pop cultural DNA at a peppy young age (embarrassingly more on this below), but I still feel about it as I did when I was a kid. I don’t even care what “the reflex” means or what it’s about (“And watching over lucky clover isn’t that bizarre?”… it sure is, Simon Le Bon!), it’s 1,000% what a synth pop monster hit from 1983 is supposed to sound like.
And, yes, in the music video when the fake waterfall – for reasons that still can’t really be explained – pours from the video screen into the audience at the Duran Duran show, I’m still into it to this day!
“Union of the Snake” is almost as good as “The Reflex,” taking the tempo down just a tad while still relying on Le Bon and the band’s smooth pop harmonies. Again, understanding what exactly the union of the snake is or what its purpose may be is entirely besides the point.
In revisiting Seven and the Ragged Tiger for this project, I had completely forgotten what the verses on “New Moon on Monday” sound like. They’re fine, as it turns out, but it’s that chorus that is simply spectacular. I’d wager that there are so many good to great 1980s Duran Duran pop songs that some like “New Moon” get lost in the shuffle a bit.
Also see: Duran Duran – Duran Duran (The Wedding Album): #662 of best 1,000 albums ever.
Pop culture stuff that’s somehow related to Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger
What does Seven and the Ragged Tiger mean, you ask? Who knows, it was the ‘80s, man! Oh, what, you want a real answer? I actually have one, thanks to our friends at Wikipedia:
Vocalist Simon Le Bon said the album “is an adventure story about a little commando team. ‘The Seven’ is for us—the five band members and the two managers—and ‘the Ragged Tiger’ is success. Seven people running after success. It’s ambition. That’s what it’s about.”[2]
Personal stuff that’s somehow related to Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger
Time for a true confession: I was a little kid back in the hazy 1980s, and during a certain stretch in the early to middle years of that decade, Duran Duran became a Big Deal to my friends and I. If the video for “The Reflex” played on MTV, that was a stop everything and run over and check it out scenario (this was pre-DVR and pre-on demand content, kids!).
This is where you’ll dig the “true confession” part, and part of me can’t even believe I’m writing this: a couple of friends were into doing “dance routines” to some of our favorite songs, and at one point there was serious consideration given to a song on Seven and the Ragged Tiger, and I want to say it was “(I’m Looking For) Cracks in the Pavement,” because of course doing “The Reflex” or “Union of the Snake” would have been far too expected, dig?
Also, importantly, note: this era represented the absolutely peak of my attempt to form a dance-centric boy band, dance troupe, or any combination thereof.