Re: Frustrating things record companies did to albums you want

The idea for this thread came from bemoaning the high cost of recent prince box sets on monk’s site.

I know that today we couldstream anything we want... but what about when you want to own the thing? Like we had to do in the golden days of yore (ie ‘79-‘81).

Some things that always frustrated me:

-when I bought an album, I wanted the tracks to be the versions I heard on MTV or the radio. Why did my version of Duran’s ‘Rio’ lp have to have an extended intro to Hungry like the Wolf? I didn’t want that! I wanted the single version we all knew!! Why did my version of Speak and Spell by Depeche Mode have a goofy extended version of ‘just can’t get enough’? I wanted the familiar version! I’ll buy the 12” if I want goofy extended-ness!

-I hated when ‘greatest hits’ albums would add an extra new track or two. If I have all the albums and non-lp singles, I shouldn’t need to buy your stupid greatest hits album. My friend bought the Foreigner greatest hits album. They used a live version of Hot Blooded that no one knew. Nobody wanted that!!! Nobody asked for that!! Give him the hit version everyone knows!!

-With someone like Prince, give us an option to buy the non-lp b-sides and unreleased tracks...and THAT’S IT! Don’t make us buy an additional seven cd’s of live stuff, alternate takes etc etc. It’s killing us, Prince estate!

-I’m tired and I don’t even want to get started about the version of ‘everything she wants’ that ended up on their ‘make it big’ album. NOTHING like the single version, which I really liked.

-I’m sadly convinced that I’ll go to my grave knowing that the best, kindest, most generous ‘package’ any band ever...ever...ever released was the spartan ‘singles going steady’ by Buzzcocks.

...look, I know the world’s a mess right now. Use this thread to complain about something that is really important!

...and even some EMI CD reissues of "Singles Going Steady" added bonus tracks that messed up the perfection of the original!

Well, with the reality of labels and artists from differing countries/markets it meant that there might not even be a "definitive" version of an album you wanted. In many cases, there are nothing but versions of compromises out there to actually buy! The most extreme case of not getting the "hit single version" of a track after dutifully buying the album that I can point to was Soul II Soul's "Back To Life!" The hit single version, with Caron Wheeler singing on it to music was only on the single. The LP had an a cappella version for our edification. GREAT if we wanted to remix a track. Not so great for listening.

I bought the US "Speak + Spell" immediately on release over here, so it was a few years later until I even heard the 7" mix of "Just Can't Get Enough" when MTV chanced to play the viddy. That stupid "Schizo mix" is forever imprinted as the "real version" due to my first exposure to it. Which also points out the futility of a "definitive version."

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2020 10:40AM by Post-Punk Monk.

I don't mind the odd new single at the end to entice radio stations to promote the sale of the record. I would throw out Squeeze's "Singles going Steady", Echo and the Bunnymen's "Songs to Learn and Sing" and XTC's "Waxworks" Some Singles 1977-1982" as three other examples of ace greatest hits collections that got it right. I prefer the chronological sequencing too, although Madness' "Complete Madness" is an example of a band whose greatest hits collection isn't chronological and still worked for me.

The problem is in the CD era bands (and labels) feet like they needed to fill up all 80 minutes of the CD and created these sprawling messes, for their regular albums as wells their compilations. Many of these early hits collections on LP have either been replaced on CD with bloated messes that don't cohere. "ChangesBowie" is the only CD "hits" collection that improved on the LP for me.

For sure the two versions of the song My Ever Changing Moods. In late high school and early college I loved the full band version of that song, had never even heard the piano version. When I started collecting CD versions of my albums I stumbled across the Cafe Bleu import at a Borders. Get home, plop it in and imagine the disappointment. With time I really do like both versions now but that day in my apartment was definitely a WTF moment before WTF was even a thing!

> "ChangesBowie" is the only CD "hits" collection that improved on the LP for me.

I respectfully disagree. Nothing wrong with the seven songs that Rykodisc appended to the original Changesonebowie; all of them are legitimately great hits. But then the label blew it by replacing "Fame" with "Fame '90." I'll take the original over the remix any day of the week, and twice on Saturdays.

When I bought the extensive Bowie hits collection NOTHING HAS CHANGED, I realized that the hit version of "I'm Afraid of Americans" was one of its many remixes, not the version included on this compilation.

That's just the beginning of the transgressions on Nothing Has Changed. The edit of "Young Americans" is nothing short of butchery.

Instead of reissuing the Chrome Box (which was all the Chrome albums plus two LPs of assorted stuff), Cleopatra condensed it down to three CDs and replaced some of the songs with live tracks from a show in Italy that sounds like it was recorded with a Walkman in someone's pocket. At the time when I bought this, I figured this was the best I was going to find on CD. Then all the albums were reissued and now I just saw a nine CD box set was released a couple of years ago.