What Price Paradise

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What Price Paradise
China Crisis - What Price Paradise-cover.jpg
Studio album by
China Crisis
Released24 November 1986 (1986-11-24) [1]
RecordedSummer 1986
Studio The Manor Studio, Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire and Westside Studios, London
Genre New wave
Length45:36
Label Virgin
Producer Clive Langer, Alan Winstanley
China Crisis chronology
Flaunt the Imperfection
(1985)		What Price Paradise
(1986)		 Diary of a Hollow Horse
(1989)
Singles from What Price Paradise
  1. "Arizona Sky"
    Released: 13 October 1986 [2]
  2. "Best Kept Secret"
    Released: 12 January 1987 [3]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [4]

What Price Paradise is the fourth studio album by English new wave group China Crisis. The first album to feature new keyboardist Brian McNeil, it included songs that now credited all five bandmembers as songwriters.

Contents

Although the album's lead-off single, "Arizona Sky" only saw modest success in the band's homeland and Australia (not reaching the top 40 in either country), it became a breakthrough hit in North America, cracking the top 40 on the U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary charts (at number 37). Follow-up single "Best Kept Secret" was slightly more successful in the U.K. than its predecessor, reaching number 36 on the British charts, though it did not chart in the U.S.

The album itself peaked at number 114 on the U.S. Billboard 200, becoming the band's highest charting album stateside, while peaking at 63 in the U.K., paling in comparison to the success of their previous album in their native country.

The album was released on CD, LP and Cassette in 1986. The CD version featured one bonus track: "Trading in Gold", originally released on the B-side of the "Arizona Sky" single.

A three CD deluxe edition of the album was released in January 2022. As well as a remaster of the original album, it also featured B-sides, previously unheard four-track demos and a 1987 live performance at the Liverpool Empire. [5]

Track listing

All tracks written by Gary Daly, Gary "Gazza" Johnson, Eddie Lundon, Brian McNeill and Kevin Wilkinson, except where stated.

  1. "It's Everything" – 5:09
  2. "Arizona Sky" – 5:24
  3. "Safe as Houses" – 4:26
  4. "Worlds Apart" (Daly, Johnson, Lundon, McNeill, Wilkinson, Kevin Kelly) – 3:35
  5. "Hampton Beach" – 4:47
  6. "The Understudy" – 5:45
  7. "Best Kept Secret" – 4:08
  8. "We Do the Same" – 4:21
  9. "June Bride" – 3:50
  10. "A Day's Work for the Dayo's Done" – 4:17
  11. "Trading in Gold" – 4:27 (Only appears on the CD version)

Personnel

China Crisis

with:

Critical reception

Switching to producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, Trouser Press found that "The sound has more edge to it, yet is somehow less delicate, less distinctive than on previous albums. In fact, the vocals (lead and backing) on one track are so different that the group is nearly unrecognizable. Still, it pretty much is China Crisis; if the songs occasionally seem more conventionally written, they’re still attractive, even almost (gulp) commercial." [6] In Record Mirror , Andy Strickland noted how the group were "..beginning to mature into subtle mood songwriters and more than competent musicians, making 'adult' albums... I like it". [7]

References

  1. ↑ "News Digest" (PDF). Record Mirror . 22 November 1986. p. 18. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  2. ↑ "News Digest" (PDF). Record Mirror . 11 October 1986. p. 52. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  3. ↑ "News Digest". Record Mirror . 10 January 1987. p. 6. Retrieved 16 August 2022– via Flickr.
  4. ↑ Dan LeRoy. "What Price Paradise - China Crisis | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic . Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  5. ↑ "China Crisis / What Price Paradise reissue – SuperDeluxeEdition".
  6. ↑ "China Crisis". Trouser Press.
  7. ↑ Strickland, Andy (29 November 1986). "Albums" (PDF). Record Mirror: 12. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
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