Robert Palmer + Duran Duran + Chic = ….
Let’s look back to 1985. Duran Duran were on top of the world, having had 5 top 20 hits in the US from 3 different albums in the span of a year. But they were also on the verge of breaking up, and bassist John Taylor and guitarist Andy Taylor were looking for something to do. Robert Palmer had been releasing music for 15 years, both with bands and as a solo artist, but he’d only had one moderate hit (“Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)“), way back in 1979. As a member of Chic, Tony Thompson had played on some of the biggest disco hits, but the band had gone on hiatus in ’83.
Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but this rather random group of musicians, all at loose ends, somehow came together to form the most awkward-looking supergroup ever: POWER STATION.
Can’t you just feel the love?
They only recorded one album. Let’s take a look at this doozy of an ’80s album cover, designed by John Taylor:
Their sole album included the top 10 hit “Some Like It Hot.” (Fun factoid: video stars transsexual supermodel Caroline Cossey!)
They also had a hit with a cover of T. Rex’s “Get it On (Bang a Gong)”, an idea too terrible to even contemplate.
After the success of the album that provided him with his biggest hit to date, Robert Palmer ditched the group to record another solo album. This disc, Riptide, borrowed heavily from the Power Station sound and scored him an even bigger hit: “Addicted to Love.”
Power Station wanted to tour, but was now out a vocalist, so they brought in Michael Des Barres, a.k.a. the co-writer of “Obsession”, a.k.a. Murdoc from MacGyver, a.k.a. ex-husband of Pamela Des Barres (groupie legend and author of I’m With the Band). The Des Barres version of the band only recorded one song — for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Commando! — before breaking up.
WHOA. 