Labels Speed Up Songs

[davideduardo]

Yes, but the original post was that record labels are speeding the songs up.

This also is nothing new, though. Columbia Records noticeably sped up Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up In Blue" for the 45 pressing from its normal speed on the "Blood on the Tracks" album. That was 1975.

And UA Records did the same thing with Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" in 1978.

And in the Spanish language music world, for a few years (it has subsided, thank goodness) we'd get multiple versions of the same song, including everything from a ballad to a 120 bpm disco version all from the same master. Some were just terrible, but they kept coming.

When I did the TM Hitdisk of Latin pop (that became Tom Rounds' Radio Express' Exitos Express), it was hard to determine which version to include, and we often heard from stations about how "that was not the version my competitor has".

I don't know which was worse, this practice or the awful razor blade "radio edits" of the 60's and 70's.

 

[davideduardo]

Sometimes the goal of more revenue is played out a bit differently, such as when one orange juice company offers a multitude of different variations of orange juice. I doubt the grocery store customers really want twelve varieties of Tropicana orange juice. I think Tropicana does this to use all the shelf space they paid for to exclude competitors, without the obvious stupidity of seven linear feet of one variety of orange juice

Good example.

I can see "no grain", "light grain" and "heavy grain" but that is it. In music, it's the short and long version and maybe a club mix. Going beyond that is confusing to anyone over about age 18.

None of this do-it-yourself stuff is Bob Clearmountain type work.

 

[teaneck]

A lot of Top 40 stations sped up songs 30-40 years ago too, this is nothing new.

WHTZ had a lot of fun calling out WPLJ on sped up songs. (Shannon WHTZ / Berger WPLJ era)

 

[ajaynejr]

I would suspect that music publishers making available "materials that the consumer could remix" would make ripping and pirating easier.

As I have gotten older I have wanted to hear only the original versions of the songs I grew up with. I would rather not spend (waste?) time experimenting with changing the tempo etc. of a song. I came to despise "re-recordings" -- "new stereo recordings by the original lead singer and one or more members of the original group" -- even though some had close duplications of the harmonies and instrumentation. Yet I would still go to live concerts which of course were not precise duplications of the original released records.

A song on analog tape or vinyl record could be sped up 12 percent (two semitones; the difference between E and F sharp or between C and D; taking 15-20 seconds off the playing time of a typical single record.) and I would not notice dehumanizing of the vocals in the direction of Donald Duck or Alvin.

I have never recognized one station as sounding brighter than another although I just might never have run into (stumbled upon) a station that was speeding up its music. (Or at least not sped up sufficiently that I noticed the music sung or played in a different key.)

 

[vchimpanzee]

What we're seeing is that those 22 year olds playing around with music on TikTok or YouTube are also making money doing this.

I keep reading about TikTok being banned. What's going to happen if that happens to all these kids?

 

[vchimpanzee]

And UA Records did the same thing with Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" in 1978.

What was the purpose in that?

The one thing I remember about that song is that WBT, which was adult contemporary, never played the guitar solo at the end.

 

[CTListener]

What was the purpose in that?

The song was very long for a Top 40 hit, and speeding it up a bit really didn't hurt. It did kind of drag in the middle. I believe the same was done to Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat."

 

[vchimpanzee]

The song was very long for a Top 40 hit, and speeding it up a bit really didn't hurt. It did kind of drag in the middle. I believe the same was done to Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat."

WERT plays a long version of that (added vocals), if you can believe it. The long instrumental breaks are so good, though, I don't mind.

 

[michael hagerty]

I keep reading about TikTok being banned. What's going to happen if that happens to all these kids?

As Duke said to Zonker in Doonesbury back in the 70s, "Why can't you get interested in baseball and drugs like other kids your age?"

 

[michael hagerty]

What was the purpose in that?

The one thing I remember about that song is that WBT, which was adult contemporary, never played the guitar solo at the end.

What did they do with the one in the middle?

 

[michael hagerty]

WERT plays a long version of that (added vocals), if you can believe it. The long instrumental breaks are so good, though, I don't mind.

So, what WERT is playing is the song as it appears on the album. The single edit was created by taking out a verse.

This is everyone's friendly reminder that, for the most part, there are no "long versions". There's the song, as recorded by the artist, and then there's an edit done to meet artificial constraints (time, content) imposed by radio.

 

[vchimpanzee]

What did they do with the one in the middle?

I only know of one guitar solo.

 

[michael hagerty]

I only know of one guitar solo.

You're right----don't know why I thought it was in the middle, too. Sorry.

 

[CTListener]

As Duke said to Zonker in Doonesbury back in the 70s, "Why can't you get interested in baseball and drugs like other kids your age?"

Foghorn Leghorn was on the right track ...

 

[kevtronics]

The song was very long for a Top 40 hit, and speeding it up a bit really didn't hurt. It did kind of drag in the middle. I believe the same was done to Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat."

The 45 of "Year of the Cat" was not sped up, but was edited to be about two minutes shorter than the album version.

But Don McLean's "American Pie" did get what can be called an "uptempo remix" (although I believe it was a complete re-recording, not just a remix) for the promo 45 that was sent to radio stations -- this version has never been commercially released:

 

[wadio]

Question: are there any copyright consequences of messing with the original content?

 

[CTListener]

Question: are there any copyright consequences of messing with the original content?

For an individual doing so for their own entertainment? I doubt it. How would that be enforced? As for radio edits, pitching up, etc., who's going to complain? The songs are getting played on the radio and that's what the record companies want, right?

 

[TheBigA]

Question: are there any copyright consequences of messing with the original content?

That's a good question. Obviously if the record label is GIVING the stems of the music to the public for them to remix, they've had to think that through. The key word in copyright is COPY. So radio stations fade a song early or edit a song for content, that is not making a copy for resale. However, this idea of allowing fans to remix the music could get into copyright consequences if a user doesn't properly credit the original creators for payment and then places that song on a public platform such as YouTube or TikTok.

I was at a music seminar just a few weeks ago when the subject of AI came up, and there was a lot of talk there about copyright. I think this is so new that it hasn't been addressed yet. Or if it has, I haven't seen it.

 

[radiofan2023]

Remixing is part of fair use in terms of copyright, because it's changing the original song into something new. The same thing with parody songs (see the case of Rick Dees getting sued for parodying "When Sunny Gets Blue" as "When Sonny Sniffs Glue":

Fisher v. Dees - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[TheBigA]

Remixing is part of fair use in terms of copyright, because it's changing the original song into something new. The same thing with parody songs (see the case of Rick Dees getting sued for parodying "When Sunny Gets Blue" as "When Sonny Sniffs Glue":

Keep in mind that this wasn't a full song but just a :29 bit. He didn't remix it, but re-wrote lyrics to an original melody.