Single Edits vs Album Versions

[radioguynj]

Gang:

Lots of great posts.

Three major "edits" have always stuck in my mind as being very bothersome all these years... the forementioned "Beginnings" (what the heck were they thinking?) and "Joy to the World" (love that 45 version) plus...

"Pick Up the Pieces" by AWB!!! One Century 21 cut has an AM fade version, the other cut ends cold (as it should, IMOHO)... yet there's really only 10 or 15 seconds difference in either version.

Speaking of Billy Joel... "The Entertainer" has the following lyric: "It was a beautiful song/ But it ran too long/ So they cut it down to 3-oh-5". And the label on the 45 version indeed reads "3:05"!

 

[Oldbones]

Speaking of Billy Joel... "The Entertainer" has the following lyric: "It was a beautiful song/ But it ran too long/ So they cut it down to 3-oh-5". And the label on the 45 version indeed reads "3:05"!

IIRC it also times out to 3:05 as well. Wonder how much work it took to make that happen?

 

[cklw800]

Mars, I'll do my best to stay with the aesthetics of this discussion...and amfmsw, thanks for the response about "Make Me Smile."

I have the single "The Payback, Part I" b/w "The Payback, Part II" by James Brown. I know they broke it in half for the single, and I can tell the record-buying public paid attention to either the LP version or listened to "Part II." The easily recallable part of the lyrics appears to be "I don't know karate, but I know cr-az-y!", which only appears in "Part II" and on the LP version. I didn't buy the album, but my single has a disc jockey making announcements like "This is for Los Angeles" and "This is for Atlanta" in the spare parts of the song. Is this on the album version, too? "American Top 40" seemed to play the retail copies of singles, so I heard the voice on that show. But our local station's version didn't have it on there. Nor do any James Brown compilations I come across have that voice included. I have several "Best Of" and "Greatest Hits" with the song but without the voice. Anyone know the scoop as this is the "Single Edits vs Album Versions" thread?

 

[firepoint525]

Gang:

Lots of great posts.

Three major "edits" have always stuck in my mind as being very bothersome all these years... the forementioned "Beginnings" (what the heck were they thinking?) and "Joy to the World" (love that 45 version) plus...

"Pick Up the Pieces" by AWB!!! One Century 21 cut has an AM fade version, the other cut ends cold (as it should, IMOHO)... yet there's really only 10 or 15 seconds difference in either version.

Speaking of Billy Joel... "The Entertainer" has the following lyric: "It was a beautiful song/ But it ran too long/ So they cut it down to 3-oh-5". And the label on the 45 version indeed reads "3:05"!

It always irritated me when I would hear that one on the air, and the DJ would "cut it off"! I now realize they were playing the single edit, and they basically couldn't let it "finish." A similar early fade was done with "Shout it out Loud" (on the single) by KISS. Since the time difference was so minimal (again only 10-15 seconds), I can only conclude that this was done to push up album sales!

 

[firepoint525]

Speaking of Billy Joel... "The Entertainer" has the following lyric: "It was a beautiful song/ But it ran too long/ So they cut it down to 3-oh-5". And the label on the 45 version indeed reads "3:05"!

IIRC it also times out to 3:05 as well. Wonder how much work it took to make that happen?

Just a matter of printing "3:05" on the label. One thing I learned when I got into radio was that the listed times on records and CDs was often very inaccurate, or just plain wrong! (I actually didn't learn this until my second station, because my first station didn't even carry network news at the time I was there! And this was during the first Persian Gulf War! )

 

[Tom Wells]

Speaking of Billy Joel... "The Entertainer" has the following lyric: "It was a beautiful song/ But it ran too long/ So they cut it down to 3-oh-5". And the label on the 45 version indeed reads "3:05"!

IIRC it also times out to 3:05 as well. Wonder how much work it took to make that happen?

Just a matter of printing "3:05" on the label. One thing I learned when I got into radio was that the listed times on records and CDs was often very inaccurate, or just plain wrong! (I actually didn't learn this until my second station, because my first station didn't even carry network news at the time I was there! And this was during the first Persian Gulf War! )

In the old viynl days, the actual audio time was listed.
Nowadays, the silent time before and after seem to be counted, while it IS the track length, the
audio time is often 4-7 seconds less, due to CD block lengths, long fades, "late starts", singly or in combination.
I find many of the tracks my wife has selected from her music, which I then load into pt 15 automation, have a distressing dead-air hole.
Either before or after, but they never fit tightly like other elements I've edited to exact lengths myself.
So I need to clip heads and tails on such files, and then find it's usually 4-7 seconds total.

 

[firepoint525]

At the second station where I worked (referenced above), I noticed that nearly all the times listed on the 45s were crossed out, and replaced with written-in times that were usually 10-15 seconds shorter than shown on the label. I was told that the listed times were often too long! Very important to know if you are back-timing into a top of the hour newsbreak, and want it to sound professional! When I was growing up, I always thought the listed times on the 45s seemed accurate. For instance, I always thought "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers was 3:16. I later found out that it started fading shortly before 3:00, and was down to complete silence by 3:16. Everyone thinks "Hey Jude" by the Beatles is 7:11, but after about 6:30, it has faded down to the point that if you let it keep playing, you will have dead air.

The most egregious example of a wrong time I ever noticed on a 45 was about two minutes off for "Mr. Bojangles" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. And that was so obvious that I noticed it while working at my first station (the one that didn't carry network news at the time)!

Even when I was growing up, I timed the music. I needed to know how long (or short) the songs were, so I would know what would fit on my 8-track tapes! ;D Usually, there was always time left over! I would attribute that to the manufacturer of the tape giving the buyer some bonus time, but now I wonder if it wasn't because the songs I was dubbing off onto that 8-track tape maybe weren't as long as I had thought they were! I never double-checked the time. I just assumed that what was listed on the label was accurate.

Now in the days of CDs, I know the listed time is the track time, NOT the length of the song on the track! Of course, anyone can watch the timer tick up (or down) the time, and know immediately whether or not the time is accurate.

 

[spiritof67]

In regards to Billy Joel's reference to "cut it down to 3:05" in "The Entertainer," I remember hearing that he was singing about his earlier hit "Piano Man."

Also, does anyone else remember the 45 version of "Rock And Roll All Nite" from "Kiss--Alive?" At the end of the single, I remember hearing "Rock and roll!" shouted out. It isn't like that on the LP or the commercial 45, as far as I know, but an old "American Top 40" featured it recently.

 

[Retro]

At the second station where I worked (referenced above), I noticed that nearly all the times listed on the 45s were crossed out, and replaced with written-in times that were usually 10-15 seconds shorter than shown on the label. I was told that the listed times were often too long! Very important to know if you are back-timing into a top of the hour newsbreak, and want it to sound professional!

Now could this be because turntables often spun faster than the actual take of the song? You can't mess with CD's, but you can with LP's and 45's though. ;D

 

[firepoint525]

Also, does anyone else remember the 45 version of "Rock And Roll All Nite" from "Kiss--Alive?" At the end of the single, I remember hearing "Rock and roll!" shouted out. It isn't like that on the LP or the commercial 45, as far as I know, but an old "American Top 40" featured it recently.

I remember hearing that one years ago, but I haven't heard that version lately.

 

[firepoint525]

At the second station where I worked (referenced above), I noticed that nearly all the times listed on the 45s were crossed out, and replaced with written-in times that were usually 10-15 seconds shorter than shown on the label. I was told that the listed times were often too long! Very important to know if you are back-timing into a top of the hour newsbreak, and want it to sound professional!

Now could this be because turntables often spun faster than the actual take of the song?

No. The turntables at that station had pitch control on them, but we never adjusted it. We always left it at neutral, dead center, not too fast, not too slow. The times on the singles were often wrong.

You can't mess with CD's, but you can with LP's and 45's though. ;D

Actually, you now can adjust the speed on CD players. My last station had some CD players with pitch control, but again, as far as I know, no one ever adjusted them from the center position.