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Singles that are hard to find.

Robert Bass said:
Well yes and no. Sometimes the single versions have different arrangements and instrumentation as compared to the album versions. John Waite's tune Missing You is a good example of this. The single mix has reverb on the vocals that is missing on the album version, for example. I'm glad I got it from TM while I had the chance.
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Well, I indeed said:
assuming that that is the only difference between the single edit and the album version.
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Yours is a different example than the one that I cited.
 
Obtuse said:
If you are talking about original single versions of Top 40 hits, might I add:

Tone Loc-Funky Cold Medina.

The single/radio/hit version uses a different vocal than the LP version. I've heard the album version misused on a couple of "Variety Hits" stations. The single version has a spoken intro as well ("...and we go a little something like this...hit it!"). The hit version can be found on Rhino's "Millennium Hip Hop Party" compilation.

As for "Holiday"....most stations seem to use the remix from "The Immaculate Collection".

Another one where stations seem to use the album version (instead of the single): Men Without Hats-Safety Dance
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Let's not forget the Ultimix version of Technotronic's Pump up the Jam. So many singles, so many different mixes.
Stations back around 1990, 1991 would play that version or an edited version of that song.

Add OMG's How Bizzare to the list as well.
 
Unregistered said:
Just finished formatting a Variety Hits station that launches mid March and the decision was made to use album versions where we can. Our thinking is when the CD or whatever was purchased it was the album version that was listened to so why not give people that version instead of some arbitrary edit....I worked for one station in the late 80's that had a 4 minute or less rule, and as the Production Director on add day there would be music on my desk with instructions on where to cut to make the time limit...The majority of the time it was an instrumental bridge that got cut but more than once I cut an entire verse to make the 4 minute rule....Needless to say songs like Baker Street were murdered to make the time limit...I realize using the album cut goes against the norm, but maybe shaking things up a bit is what is needed from time to time.....
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Sounds like the 104 KRBE days back in 1991.
 
Robert Bass said:
In most cases I prefer the radio versions of 80s songs, and that's what I use on my 80s Internet station. The station has been operational since May of 2009, and not one listener has ever complained to me about the versions of songs I use. There are a few exceptions where I will use the longer version. One example is Heart To Heart by Kenny Loggins. In this situation I use the 5:00 minute version, because to my ears the shorter version sounds abrupt.

This reminds me of Money For Nothing. The original single version is around 4:30. Of course cutting the verse from the song that contains the objectionable word, knocks it down to 4:00 minutes.

R
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I remember back when KZEP was part of Lotus, and not Clear Channel they would play the Money for Nothing song in it's entirety. I listened to the same song in Houston on the Point and KKRW and they would edit the objectionable verse.
Music Choice's Classic Rock station would censor the words objectionable and play the album cut, even though I was listening to it at 3 AM.
 
I am annoyed at how some stations still frustratingly stick with the single edit of a given song, rather than going ahead and playing the album version. I am referring to those in which the album version is NOT that much longer than the single edit. Some examples include:

Steve Miller Band, "Fly Like an Eagle" (drop the SFX at the end of the song if you must)
Billy Joel, "My Life"
Wild Cherry, "Play That Funky Music"
 
firepoint525 said:
I am annoyed at how some stations still frustratingly stick with the single edit of a given song, rather than going ahead and playing the album version.
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You and BRH (post #13) appear to want opposing versions. Remind me never to let you jointly program music anywhere.
 
K.M. Richards said:
You and BRH (post #13) appear to want opposing versions. Remind me never to let you jointly program music anywhere.
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I gather that he primarily wants single remixes (not necessarily edits) of songs that apparently weren't available (at least in that particular mix) on the album. With groups who were one- or two-hit wonders, such remixes are going to be EXTREMELY hard to find.

Finding and collecting alternate versions of Beatles songs (not just the ones that were singles) is almost a cottage industry unto itself. However, I don't necessarily see that level of interest (except maybe here) in collecting alternate versions of John Waite songs. Not saying that there is no merit in it, just that it is going to be harder to do.

I personally like the 12-inch mixes of many hits from the '70s and '80s, but many of those are also extremely rare and hard to find now. I know that Hall & Oates, for example, included a dance mix of "Out of Touch" as a bonus track on the Big Bam Boom cassette, and I believe that Men Without Hats did likewise for "Safety Dance," but for most others, you are probably SOL on finding other extended dance mixes, unless someone has them for sale on Ebay. (I know that in the case of Hall & Oates, that dance mix of "Out of Touch" had to be counter-balanced with an extended period of silence on the opposite side of the cassette. And I don't know if that wasn't done more often possibly because record companies shied away from long periods of silence on cassettes back in the day.)
 
firepoint525 said:
(I know that in the case of Hall & Oates, that dance mix of "Out of Touch" had to be counter-balanced with an extended period of silence on the opposite side of the cassette. And I don't know if that wasn't done more often possibly because record companies shied away from long periods of silence on cassettes back in the day.)
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Actually, that practice was fairly common; the cassette insert card would contain some kind of disclaimer that the blank portion at the end of a side was to allow for program continuity. Otherwise you would have had switch-over gaps in the middle of a song (remember 8-tracks?)

This is only going to get worse now that we are in the era of the Cult of the Eternal Remix, where any given song seems to exist in a dozen different versions. No longer is "a" recording "the" recording. I've even heard "Now" CDS that contain alternate mixes other than the ones typically heard on radio; and if any CDS should follow the radio versions, it's those!

This is slightly outside the time frame, but sometimes a "radio mix" is a completely different recording. 10 years ago, Enrique Iglesias scored a hit with "Not In Love," a duet with Kelis. Far as I know, that version was only released on a CD single; the album version is a different arrangement and no Kelis!
 
JeffM said:
Actually, that practice was fairly common; the cassette insert card would contain some kind of disclaimer that the blank portion at the end of a side was to allow for program continuity. Otherwise you would have had switch-over gaps in the middle of a song (remember 8-tracks?)
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Which sort of begs the question, why wasn't silence at the end of an 8-track (I would guess primarily on the fourth channel) acceptable? If you encounter silence, you could easily "play through" it by switching to one of the other channels. Somehow, splitting songs over multiple channels was preferable to having (extended) silence anywhere on the tape. With cassettes, you could obviously fast-forward.
This is only going to get worse now that we are in the era of the Cult of the Eternal Remix, where any given song seems to exist in a dozen different versions. No longer is "a" recording "the" recording. I've even heard "Now" CDS that contain alternate mixes other than the ones typically heard on radio; and if any CDS should follow the radio versions, it's those!
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That's it right there! If you have any of those 12" singles, you would notice that there are often different mixes right there on the same record!

Nowadays, we can create our own custom mixes right here on our own computers. I have created a few such mixes myself. The possibilities are almost endless!
 
My theory only...

I suspect the reason they would track change in the middle of a song on 8-tracks, instead of having excess silence on any given track, was due to the cost of manufacturing. 8-tracks required lubricated back-coating on the tape due to the endless loop design. I would imagine it cost more to make such tape, as opposed to what was used for cassettes.

R
 
firepoint525 said:
Which sort of begs the question, why wasn't silence at the end of an 8-track (I would guess primarily on the fourth channel) acceptable?
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Commercial 8-tracks generally didn't have extended silences because the tape inside was only as long as the program recorded on it, and the tape ran thru the player one way only without having to be flipped over. Home-recorded 8-tracks were whatever length the blank tape was, and would have as much or as little silence as you left unrecorded on them.
 
Robert Bass said:
I suspect the reason they would track change in the middle of a song on 8-tracks, instead of having excess silence on any given track, was due to the cost of manufacturing. 8-tracks required lubricated back-coating on the tape due to the endless loop design. I would imagine it cost more to make such tape, as opposed to what was used for cassettes.
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Didn't really mean to send this one off-topic, but I will get to that in a moment. The Hall & Oates and Men Without Hats examples were the only ones (that I am aware of) in which a bonus track on the cassette was a dance mix of the single. In the case of John Mellencamp (for example), a song entitled "The Kind of Fella I Am" was a bonus track on Scarecrow which appeared on the cassette and CD, but not on the LP. But that particular song was never a single. What I was getting at earlier was that there would be longer than normal such periods of silence at the end of the cassette when the bonus track was a dance mix of the single.

When I had 8-tracks, I actually didn't mind if it clicked over to another channel while I was making a home recording. It would obviously create a momentary silence while it clicked over. Although I suppose that this would be unprofessional for store-bought tapes, hence the fade-out, click, and then fade back in. When I recorded, I tried to make it so that the last track would end right before the end of the fourth channel. Who knew, that was how I learned back-timing, which would later help me in my career in radio!

Back to topic, I noticed that The Essential Billy Joel contains the album version of "My Life," which I obviously like. I was going to check it to see if it contains the the (single) remix of "Keeping the Faith," but I notice that it doesn't contain "Keeping the Faith" at all! Bummer! (I know that Billy Joel's greatest hits album (Vol. I and II) contains the single edit of "My Life," which steamed me, and probably explains why some stations still stubbornly stick with that version. I don't have Vol. III so I don't know about "Keeping the Faith," if it is even on there.)

Another Hall & Oates example, I know that Rock & Soul part I contains "Adult Education" (it originated there), but it is not the mix that contained the clapping, which seemed to be the version that got the lion's share of airplay while it was a hit.
 
The 45 version of Keeping The Faith is labeled as "the special mix" and has never been released digitally. Only the LP version has.
 
I'm listening to iHeartRadio's "Lite Rock" channel at work, in lieu of the local AC station which has gone all-Christmas.

I've noticed that they play the 1987 Radio Mix of Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again", the single remix of Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (with the additional lead guitar), and oddly, they cut off the entire intro of Culture Club's "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me". I've heard it with a shortened intro, but this is the first time I've heard it with the whole intro chopped off, and beginning where the bass drops.

And as for the aforementioned Billy Joel's "My Life", most stations are now playing a re-done edit of the song that avoids the awkward hacked-off hi-hat where the piano solo is skipped over.
 
kevtronics said:
they cut off the entire intro of Culture Club's "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me". I've heard it with a shortened intro, but this is the first time I've heard it with the whole intro chopped off, and beginning where the bass drops.

And as for the aforementioned Billy Joel's "My Life", most stations are now playing a re-done edit of the song that avoids the awkward hacked-off hi-hat where the piano solo is skipped over.
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Any edits were done by the record label. The original Culture Club song was 4:30, so that wasn't going to work as a single. They had to chop somewhere. The Billy Joel song had multiple edits, all done by the label, but the one you mention was both for time and content.
 
I have the same version of the Culture Club and Whitesnake songs. Got them from TM Century awhile back.

R
 
Robert Bass said:
I have the same version of the Culture Club and Whitesnake songs. Got them from TM Century awhile back.
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And TM Century got them from the record labels. They did not always get them, but in most cases, particularly in CHR, they did.
 
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