Single Edits vs Album Versions

[Robert Bass]

Ahhh finally, some numbers to work with

OK here we go...

Re: Whitney Houston

Do you have 923R or 923N? Easiest way to tell, is to look for the NoNoise logo. If it isn't present, you've got a GDR that has been discontinued and replaced with a GDN. Let me know what you have.

Re: Chicago

GoldDisc 226 is the one that would match the 45 RPM single, "if" you are timing it until the song fades beyond useable level. In that case it goes to 2:46, even though the indexing code is positioned at 2:40. I'd trash 431 if I had it, unless I wanted the 7:00+ minute version of that song, which is the last track on the disc. 431 is a GDR. On your copy of 226, where does it momentarily switch to mono?

Re: Huey Lewis

You have what appears to be a GDR pressing of disc 149. The GDN version has the indexing code at 3:43, with full fade out at 3:53. Does your copy of 149 have the NoNoise logo? If not, it's most likely a GDR pressing.

Re: Stevie Nicks

GD121v1 more likely means GD1, the first generation of that disc. Can you describe the difference in the vocal and mix? I have 121N here, and I have another copy of the song on a Time Life CD. The versions are different

Re: Stevie Wonder

I don't have any knowledge of that one's release history (or lack thereof), so I have no comment.

Yes I know in this case, I am playing devil's advocate with regard to "timing geeks". However this is a more realistic approach because we are dealing with actual TM disc numbers now.

I've seen a few posts over on that forum where someone says "my copy of TM Century's disc has..." but they don't give the disc and generation number. Without that information, it's not worth the effort.

R

 

[RadioMan203]

As far as my discs go I won't be able to check the physical media until I unpack my garage, which looks like Spring since my house remodeling is going slower than expected. When I get to one of my client's stations I can check their media and see what they have for each disc in question.

Personally, I'm leary of most NoNoise discs as I've heard tracks that can be identified has having vinyl transfers (lack of and/or phase issues with the high frequency information is typically nothworthy of vinyl transfers - listening to the mono product will usually confirm it). Not all stations are going to race out and start replacing vast portions of their library to fix these problems as I've seen the "it's good enough" approach all to much in today's radio operations (the only exception would probably be the bigger markets that process so much that their air product quality would improve dramatically by upgrading those questionable tracks). I know for the money I'm making with my webstream (it leaves me in the hole each month) it doesn't pay for me to plunk down expensive $$ to replace my libraries to get the "N" version discs (especially since parts of my core libraries came from other stations). The vinyl lets me feel confident I have the proper "radio" or retail version just be confirming well know and commonly available label data.

While C21/TM have put an admirable effort into their libraries there are other libraries that can put some of them to shame. My personal pet peeve is trying to find promo-edit singles of tracks, which are not all that common to anybody's library, no matter who the vendor is. This is most typical in pre-80's music as well. I have C21/TM, BPI, Radio Programming and Swaitek to name a few and they all leave something to be desired as far as finding certain tracks. Having grown up with real Top-40 radio from NYC during it's heyday in the 60's through early 80's I feel the only sure way to get those original edits is to find those old scraps o' vinyl and clean 'em up. Fortunately, noise reduction software has come a long way since NoNoise was introduced. Luckily I have many airchecks available to me to confirm my reference tracks against. I get comments most every week about certain songs from music diehards who notice the difference, so I feel the effort I put into my restorations are worth it (not to mention it helps build up my unique library of tunes most everybody else doesn't have).

 

[Robert Bass]

Arrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to Phil, I can't get California Dreamin' outta my head! I keep hearing the first lines over and over and over...

Thanks a lot, Phil! It's all your fault!



;D

R

 

[Aljr]

I've got to say the album version. Like a guy further up said,I always felt cheated by the edited version. ZZTop's "LaGrange" radio cut used to drive me nuts. Fades out in the middle of a blistering guitar solo that is just starting on the original version. Funny thing is the CD versions available now are the radio edit.

 

[firepoint525]

In most cases, I favor the album version. Especially if the album version is not significantly longer than the radio edit. Good examples: Billy Joel's "My Life" and Eddie Money's "Baby Hold On." But there are others in which the full-length version just seems "bloated." Almost anything by Prince seems to go on too long if not edited.

I can't stand it when a single edit chops out an entire verse of a song, like they did with "Play that Funky Music" by Wild Cherry. But when an edit clips out an unnecessarily long guitar solo (such as on "Black Betty" by Ram Jam), it could be a good thing.

Has anyone noticed that stations (even "rock" stations!) are now playing an abbreviated mix of J.C. Mellencamp's "Pink Houses"? That's as sure a sign as any that it is starting to wear thin on some people out there!

 

[BenTehelenbach]

Like a guy further up said,I always felt cheated by the edited version.

That would have been yoors trooly, Ben Tehelenbach.

ZZTop's "LaGrange" radio cut used to drive me nuts. Fades out in the middle of a blistering guitar solo that is just starting on the original version. Funny thing is the CD versions available now are the radio edit.

What drives me nuts is to hear "La Grange" or "Tush" from the 1991 ZZ Top's Greatest Hits CD, awash in reverb that wasn't there originally. I much prefer the older, drier-sounding versions.

 

[amfmsw]

Disc 421 is worth it's weight in gold with an ultra clean version of "Get Back" Beatles Rooftop version. And if I'm not mistaken it also has the correct 45 mono version of "Joy To The World" Three Dog night with the key change in the rend reprise chorus.

 

[Aljr]

Like a guy further up said,I always felt cheated by the edited version.

That would have been yoors trooly, Ben Tehelenbach.

ZZTop's "LaGrange" radio cut used to drive me nuts. Fades out in the middle of a blistering guitar solo that is just starting on the original version. Funny thing is the CD versions available now are the radio edit.

What drives me nuts is to hear "La Grange" or "Tush" from the 1991 ZZ Top's Greatest Hits CD, awash in reverb that wasn't there originally. I much prefer the older, drier-sounding versions.

Me too.

I remember seeing them on that '74 Tres Hombres tour. Three guys in jeans and works shirts in front of a wall of amps with the house lights up. They stood out there played a two and half hour,then did four encores. It was basic as it gets and maybe the best rock concert I saw in the 70's.

Two years later they were touring with a buffalo and vulture on stage.lol.

 

[RMarino]

Disc 421 is worth it's weight in gold with an ultra clean version of "Get Back" Beatles Rooftop version. And if I'm not mistaken it also has the correct 45 mono version of "Joy To The World" Three Dog night with the key change in the rend reprise chorus.

We had the GoldDisc library at an oldies station I worked at and our #421 did not have the 45 version of "Joy To The World." You are correct though about "Get Back."

 

[gr8oldies]

It depends on the song. "Light My Fire" I can go either way on an oldies format, on classic rock I'd go with the album version. Case in point about versions heard today: "Lowdown" by Boz Scaggs. I seem to rememmebr an edit that went something like this...the entire verse that starts "Nothing you can't handle, nothing you ain't got" was gone from that edit for one thing, now I hear a "short version" which includes that verse and just fades way early.

Going further back, I hear a version of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas "Quicksand" which has a drum solo that sounds like it was thrown in years later. I didn't realize until I started volunteering at a super-large playlist oldies station that there was a long version of "Tracks of My Tears" by the Miracles (another minute of "take a good look at my face, etc.).

And which version of "Jimmy Mack" is the original? There are versions with very distinct differences in the bridge.

 

[cklw800]

A TALE OF THREE SONGS:

A lot of folks don't edit anymore at radio stations, but on several occasions I edited "Make Me Smile" so you get that great guitar solo many Top 40 stations played. It's basically a combination of "Make Me Smile" and "Now More Than Ever". You get the extended beginnig and ending. It's a difficult edit and there are many sloppy station edits floating around.

I still have our family copy of "Shop Around" by The Miracles. I grew up listening to that record and it is still in good shape today. The versions I hear on oldies stations today sound like they're playing too fast. I know they speed up songs to play more tunes an hour but this is ridiculous.

I've always noticed extra drum beats on Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed Delivered." I did even back in 1970 when the song was new. My version doesn't have that but my oldest child has a CD compilation and the extra drum beats are there (it's the snare drum).

On Edwin Starr's "WAR" about that same time I noticed the guitar and stomping sounds more pronounced on the radio after I bought my copy. Were these album versions or just the labels fooling around with the songs when they made newer copies?

 

[marsneedsscoop]

To return to the aesthetics of the discussion:

I've always been a single edit guy. I owned a lot more singles than albums. Didn't give up on AM Top 40 radio until the early '80s. Clearly I was just getting a head start on the iPod era. There just weren't a lot of songs that needed to go on for that extra 45-seconds or more.

In fact, it kinda bothered me to have long versions in the iPod, except, of course, when you were talking about "American Pie" (or, for me, "The Payback" by James Brown).

So I was very excited about finally getting a USB turntable hooked up and being able to dub some of my vinyl. In other cases, I've been using the vinyl as a guide and trying to recreate single edits of MP3s. Not an enterprise that would appeal to most, I know.

But now I've gotta admit it. After hearing five minutes of "Staying Alive" or six minutes of "The Finer Things" for all these years, the singles edits just sound like abrupt fades.

 

[amfmsw]

cklw...Make Me Smile mix from Chicago II was played on WCBS-FM the Golden 101 for years. I play the same mix, just a simple blend when done in Audition multitrack.

mars...Stayin' Alive? There could never, ever be a fade abrupt enough. Impossible!

 

[amfmsw]

OK...Three Dog night "Joy To The World IS on Gold Disc 421 # DIDX 021754. Cut 15 is the Stereo LP version, Cut 27 is the correct mono 45 rpm hit version.

 

[spiritof67]

When I was younger and knew everything, I believed that the album version was superior to the single version. Generally the LP version was longer or at least un-edited, and I disregarded single versions outright. As I got older and paid more attention to various mixes of songs, my attitude changed.

As far as AOR tracks, I still tend to favor the full length LP versions. For classic Top-40, that isn't so easy. I still like the LP version, but single mixes might also be used. Three Dog Night's 45's were mentioned earlier in the thread. Other oldies, like the pitched-up mono version of "Bend Me Shape Me" by American Breed sound much better than the stereo version.

Billy Joel's 45 version of "Keepin' The Faith" is completely different from the LP (and longer), as another poster wrote. His 45 of "Sometimes A Fantasy" is longer than the LP, and includes a cold ending. Pat Benetar's 45 of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," and "Never" by Heart had different single/LP mixes that both work well.

Then, in the late 1970's, there were the beginnings of 12" extended versions of standard hit songs. Wings' "Goodnight Tonight," Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love," The Doobie Brothers "What A Fool Believes," "Miss You" by The Rolling Stones, and John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" all had special mixes.

A decade ago, I remember Dick Bartley released some compilation CD's that featured radio versions of hits that had long been forgotten.

In some of these cases, perhaps radio stations could toss some of these versions in their rotations, or at least play them in specialty shows.

 

[Les Stock]

Has it been mentioned in this thread that some radio stations played an edit of "Green Eyed Lady" by Sugarloaf that was neither the 45 rpm nor the album version?

 

[firepoint525]

Billy Joel's 45 version of "Keepin' The Faith" is completely different from the LP (and longer), as another poster wrote. His 45 of "Sometimes A Fantasy" is longer than the LP, and includes a cold ending. Pat Benetar's 45 of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," and "Never" by Heart had different single/LP mixes that both work well.

Then, in the late 1970's, there were the beginnings of 12" extended versions of standard hit songs. Wings' "Goodnight Tonight," Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love," The Doobie Brothers "What A Fool Believes," "Miss You" by The Rolling Stones, and John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" all had special mixes.

I prefer the remixed version of "Keepin' the Faith" on the single, and I have both it and the album version, but I was not aware the single was longer. How much longer? I'm guessing not much. I never noticed.

As for "Sometimes a Fantasy," that was his attempt at recreating what the Beatles did with "Helter Skelter," and that is letting the listeners hear what was actually recorded in the studio, not the fade-out at the end. He even recreates the "Helter Skelter" ending when he shouts out "I've got blisters on my blisters!" Hilarious! Priceless! Glass Houses was an album in which Billy Joel tried to break out of his previous image as a crooner, so leaving that break-down at the end of "Sometimes a Fantasy" on the album would have done that for him nicely! I like the way the drums drop out first on that one!

As for those 12-inch singles, I prefer the long version of "Miss You" over the one on the Some Girls album (it even got album rock airplay in west Tennessee in the late '70s!) and I prefer the 12-incher of "Goodnight Tonight" over the 45. I was not aware of an extended mix of "Starting Over." I would like to hear that. (If you check youtube, there is a longer version of John Lennon's rendition of "Stand By Me" than was ever put on record. Beware, one of the youtube versions is sped up!)

 

[CaptainFirstReturns]

When I was younger and knew everything, I believed that the album version was superior to the single version. Generally the LP version was longer or at least un-edited, and I disregarded single versions outright. As I got older and paid more attention to various mixes of songs, my attitude changed.

As far as AOR tracks, I still tend to favor the full length LP versions. For classic Top-40, that isn't so easy. I still like the LP version, but single mixes might also be used. Three Dog Night's 45's were mentioned earlier in the thread. Other oldies, like the pitched-up mono version of "Bend Me Shape Me" by American Breed sound much better than the stereo version.

Billy Joel's 45 version of "Keepin' The Faith" is completely different from the LP (and longer), as another poster wrote. His 45 of "Sometimes A Fantasy" is longer than the LP, and includes a cold ending. Pat Benetar's 45 of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," and "Never" by Heart had different single/LP mixes that both work well.

Then, in the late 1970's, there were the beginnings of 12" extended versions of standard hit songs. Wings' "Goodnight Tonight," Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love," The Doobie Brothers "What A Fool Believes," "Miss You" by The Rolling Stones, and John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" all had special mixes.

A decade ago, I remember Dick Bartley released some compilation CD's that featured radio versions of hits that had long been forgotten.

In some of these cases, perhaps radio stations could toss some of these versions in their rotations, or at least play them in specialty shows.

Hey, spiritof67...thanks for mentioning the Dick Bartley CD's. I had owned a couple of them then traded for other stuff and totally forgotten about them. Just ordered "On The Radio" Vol. 5 from Amazon (they're out of print apparently so grab your used copies while you can- some of the series are already up to $30 or $40 a copy).

And 12" mixes- I have the 12"-incher of "True" by Spandau Ballet- much better than the album cut.

 

[spiritof67]

The "Special Version" of Billy Joel's "Keepin' The Faith" runs 4:44. I thought it was longer than the LP version, but either way, I prefer the 45 version. The last time I actually heard this version on the radio was on KFYR in 1999.

The longer version of "(Just Like) Starting Over" was released as a promo 12" single (Geffen 919), and runs 4:17. I bought mine at 21'st Century Music in NJ (www.21centurymusic.com)--I called them today and they have a copy for around $15.

It's unfortunate that Dick Bartley's "On The Radio" series is out of print. The disc offered quite a few "hit" versions of songs from the 1960's and 1970's. When CD burning was new, I collected several alternate versions of songs between friends and burned a four-volume disc for all of us. I called it "Not Available In Stores." Some of those songs included the 45 mixes of Fleetwood Mac's "Say You Love Me" and "Rihannon" (now on the reissue of "Fleetwood Mac"), Neil Young's "Cinamon Girl," and the 12" version of Aldo Nova's "Fantasy."

Some other posters talked about the TM Century Goldisc series. I got a Goldisc country CD that was sent to me in 1987. Most, if not all, were vinyl dubs on that CD. But back then, there were a lot fewer recordings available on CD, especially country releases.

 

[Oldbones]

Has it been mentioned in this thread that some radio stations played an edit of "Green Eyed Lady" by Sugarloaf that was neither the 45 rpm nor the album version?

Yes, that was the promo single edit. For some reason, it didn't seem to be widely distributed. It was a completely different edit of the song, not simply a shortened version of the commercial 45.