I like superdeluxedition. Even when I don’t like an artist, I’m always impressed by Paul’s eye for detail and his insistence on poly-lined sleeves. Anyway, with a few recent releases (Tears for Fears and Prince particularly), I’ve noticed vinyl reissues particularly that feature 7″ edits as the extra tracks (rather than, say, b-sides or live cuts). Is there anything less enticing that a shorter version of a song already on the original album? I’ve never been tempted by New Order’s Singles 4LP because of the edits. So leaving aside debate about completism and/or overpriced box sets – which are different issues – has any song ever been improved by a 7″ edit? Are there any songs you’d rather the single version than the album version?
7″ Mix
The Depeche Mode camp take a great deal of time and effort on remixes and these versions are among their very best work.
However the best version of their 1987 song Strangelove is the single. It’s all you need.
I’ll correct that for you Black Celebration! 😉
“The Depeche Mode camp used to take a great deal of time and effort on remixes and these versions are among their very best work.”
Yes – you’re right, sadly.
Yes. Bloody loads. In fact, one of my greatest gripes in the last two decades is the way artist hit compilations use LP versions of songs i.e. not the hit..
Leftfield Open Up. As a single it is an uncompromising, eyewatering kick in the balls. On the LP all the energy is drained out of it by four extra minutes of dub. And I love dub.
IMO the 7″ version of Temptation by New Order is vastly superior to the 12″
Did it go at 33rpm though? I think my version did. Always enjoyable when singles did that.
Yes it runs at 33 and is 5.5mins long. I’m pretty sure it’s not a an edit it’s a completely different mix, possibly a different take. Both feature a drum sound that sounds like someone slamming a cutlery drawer in a cellar.
And b-side Hurt is a totally different mix, too. VFM.
Let’s Dance – David Bowie
Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads
With a Little Luck – Wings
To name but 3 ..
The best extended versions left the single intact -but then went on a little adventure afterwards. If you like Tainted Love, then it’s here – no worries. But if you hang around a little longer, we drift into Where Did Our Love Go? I’d like to say I heard this at a club or something but it so wasn’t – it was probably at a family wedding disco. Keeps people on the floor.
Gets a bit boring when it goes into “Where Did Our Love Go”.
In my opinion.
One of the biggest musical financial mistakes ever, not putting a self written tune on the B side.
Good thread! Whenever a SuperDeluxeEdition is posted – no matter how extensive and exhaustive you can be sure someone will get into a hissy fit because a Belgian 7″ Radio edit is missed off a Dollar reissue or a Belouis Some track which was on a “Now” Compilation isn’t included which has 3 second shorter fade than the standard 7″. That’s kind of fair enough because the generation who really want these things, and are prepared to pay good money for them won’t be around forever. A whole generation is growing up who don’t even care about the concept of An LP – and probably wouldn’t noticeif one Spotify stream of their fave tune was slightly different to another – so if I was a rights holder/record company I’d be tempted to just give ’em the whole lot while anyone is interested enough to pay for it.
I love an extended 12″ mix – however I’ll post this 7″ edit as while this is a great electro synth tune in full – it gains something by being compressed down into a Radio edit and is forced to be almost a pop song (classic video too):
It’ll probably upset a few on here but I actually prefer the 7” edit of Heroes to the longer album version. I think that’s probably because I knew the single for a long time when I was in my teens before I actually bought the album
Yeah I think I might agree with you. It starts from the third verse doesn’t it? The full length version palls after a while. Funny that it’s one of his more well known songs.
To be contrary, I would probably say most of the original 7 “ edits are better, especially when everyone and their dog put out as many versions as they could to maximise chart stats: the number of totally unnecessary ‘extended 12” version’ records is huge. Ever heard any of those 80s compilation discs of such? Largely dreadful and usually unnecessary
You see that’s why Depeche Mode are so very very ace. You’re right about most remixes and extended versions – they’re a waste of time. But bands like yer Mode, the ZTT people and Soft Cell really went big on the format and produced things that went way beyond mere singles.
Depeche Mode ended up doing an extended mix themselves and then another that often sounded nothing like the source song and then another totally unrelated producer would come in and have a go.
The remix compilations are brilliant and the ones I go back to most often.
Ashes to ashes and Fashion
The longer versions with the noodling annoy me.
Also under pressure with the second “this is our last dance” intact.
There’s a longer version of Under Pressure? Interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard it.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Where can I hear this?
You’re missing out if you haven’t heard the New Order Singles LP. There are some great edits & mixes on that, and some non-album singles, although the quality drops off during the second half of CD2. You could probably drop the second half of CD2 and not really miss much – I really don’t need to hear Jetstream again, even in 7″ edit form.
We used to have the radio on at work in New Zealand and the only thing you could put on without everyone whingeing was the local classic rock station. They always used to use album versions which irritated me no end. Especially when the put on Nights In White Satin which used to go on and on with the Thunderbirds style love theme at the end of the track
Offhand, the Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ edit wasn’t necessarily better than the 8-minute LP tracvk, but it had power and immediacy and did the job – yet for years you could never get it on CD, IIRC.
One could make a case for the single edits of Focus’ ‘Hocus Pocus’ and Argent’s ‘Hold Your Head Up’, and I think people generally view Free’s ‘Alright Now’ single edit as definitive (the LP adds a drum solo or something).
Weirdly, there was a Duffy Power single ‘Liberation’ in 1973 that was a minute and more *longer* than the accompanying LP version.
Thought the WGFA edit was very ham fisted, no build up to the scream. Certainly inferior to the album version.
But be fair – the point of a single edit is to ultimately squeeze it down to a length that will get on the radio (at least, it was in 1970). Something has to give.
A shame that turning “Don’t Fear The Reaper” into a radio-friendly single necessitated chopping out an important part of the album track’s dynamic. IMO.
My favourite author is Muriel Spark … “Public Image,” “The Driver’s Seat” … real page-turners … never really know where the book is going until the end … best of all, though, really short.
If you’re on page 140, you’re not reading a Muriel Spark book.
Very little in entertainment is improved by lengthening it. I’m re-reading all those orange Hepworth’s and that seems to be one of his recurring themes, but then I do own all of one 12″ single.
Anyway … “Light My Fire” by The Doors and “You Can’t Always Get Want You Want” by The Rolling Stones.
Two eighties singles that I think benefited from a shorter 7 inch mix:
– Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime (There’s a third verse that never quite sounds right to me when I hear the full version)
– Let’s Dance (I was shocked when I first heard the album version with all the saxophone noodling before he starts singing)
See above. I picked both of those!
oops – great minds, and all that.
The 7″ edit of Autobahn, the one that hit big in the UK, is very clever and a good record in a different way to the album version.
Ditto the brutal edits of Showroom Dummies and Numbers. Computer Love they just faded out halfway through, which feels like cheating.
I had the Pocket Calculator 12” with Numbers on the other side. So you get a fine traditional melodic song with PC and then a stormin’ phat bass-heavy electrofest on the other side.
When you got the 12″ of Dummies in 1982 you still got the 3-minute edit rather than the LP version. It was fantastically loud.
Could be another category, shortest ever 12 inch singles.
Is this the winner?
https://www.discogs.com/The-Beatles-Love-Me-Do/release/1901253
Think I have a very short Smiths one too.
The Beatles on 12″, oh, Fab, just what the world categorically didn’t need.
Didn’t they get this release wrong, the Ringo (or was it the other) version incorrectly being released on the 45? … and then 30 years later, they definitely got the 50th Anniversary release wrong, cat45 currently having 185 comments on the sorry saga.
Can’t remember the exact details, but it needed, and didn’t have, Mark Lewisohn at the helm.
You might be thinking of Ask, which I think has Yootha Joyce from TV’s George and Mildred on the cover, which spells disco fever if nothing else does.
Could be Ask.
Side A
Ask 2.59
Side B
Cemetary Gates 2.39
Golden Lights 2.38
8.16
Beatles one would be around 7 mins total.
The Shakespeare’s Sister 12″ is a bit shorter:
Side A Shakespeare’s Sister 2:09
Side B What She Said 2:40
Stretch Out and Wait 2:37
Having the 7″ version spaced out on one side of a 12″ was distressingly common, unfortunately. Even worse was when the B-side was exactly the same but an instrumental.
Mind you, in Jamaica in the early 70s, the habit of putting an instrumental version on the B-side was the starting-point for the creation of an entire genre – dub. And what a magnificent genre it has proved to be.
But LOUD!!!
Editors and editing are ess