What Price Paradise

What Price Paradise
Studio album by
Released24 November 1986 (1986-11-24)
RecordedSummer 1986
StudioThe Manor Studio, Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire and Westside Studios, London
GenreNew wave
Length45:36
LabelVirgin
ProducerClive 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. "Best Kept Secret"
    Released: 12 January 1987
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic

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.

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.