Playlist Changes & General Updates

Well, I know… I haven’t been keeping this up much since November. I’ve made excuses, but the simple fact is, life has kept me rather busy. I’m taking a moment right now to work at bringing this up to date.

First thing – I’ve made some updates to the main playlist at the supplemental site.  Five songs had to be removed as the files had been removed from the internet.  So, five songs have been added to replace them.  The new songs are:

Queensryche – “Silent Lucidity”

Foreigner – “Blue Morning, Blue Day”

Enya – “Ebudae”

The Echoing Green – “The Safety Dance”

Mike + The Mechanics – “The Living Years”

Secondly, a little explanation.  It may have been noticed that my Erasure playlists stopped suddenly after the posting of I Say, I Say, I Say at the end of October.  Two things have dictated this delay – well, technically, they’re the same thing.  First was a desire to try to get my hands on the deluxe edition of The Innocents.  I finally got it about two weeks ago, while shopping for birthday presents for my wife.

The second delay is that, as stated above, I got my hands on it.  Why is this a delay?  Well, now I’m going back and reworking the playlist for The Innocents.  This is also necessitating some minor changes to some of the later playlists, in order to reduce some of the duplication.  Additionally, I was able to find the Phantom Bride EP, which means that there are a large number of new remixes of songs from The Innocents to look over and get added to the Light At The End Of The World playlist (since that was the last full album). I will get back to those posts once I’ve gotten the cleanup finished.

“Superman’s Song” – Crash Test Dummies

As stated many a time before, the “song of the moment” idea is deliberately vague in timescale, simply so I have the freedom of updating it when I want to.  Unfortunately, for a while now, I’ve been rather busy and had no time to do this.  Today, I came across a song while listening to my MP3 player; a song which I hadn’t heard in a while and inspired me to take the time to post a new “song of the moment”.

Review: Nirvana – “Live At Reading”

I’ve mostly been away from this site for the last two months, but am starting back in with my first product review in a while.  In late 2009, Nirvana released their first “real” live album.  Note that they had previously released the Unplugged session in 1994 and followed that up with the 1996 album From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah, a collection of assorted live performances throughout their career.  But 2009′s Live At Reading is their first album that covers a single regular concert of their career.

Observations Upon Ripping MP3s From Various Artist CDs

I recently ran through my collection of various artist CDs and finished ripping MP3s of all the tracks that I was interested in having in my digital library.  It was kind of an intriguing experience, as I discovered some weird things in my collection that I hadn’t realized before.  For example:

• Blondie’s “Rapture” – on one compilation (VH1: Big 80′s) the song is about a minute longer than it is on The Best Of Blondie.  Never knew I had this longer version of the song until this weekend – and that’s considering I’ve had both CDs for several years.  I just never paid attention to it, since I knew I already had the song.
• Likewise, “Der Kommisar” from After The Fire showed up on different CDs at drastically different lengths – about a minute and a half different.
• There were several 70′s rock songs that did similar things; Foghat’s “Slow Ride” was the winner, being around twice as long on 70′s Classic Rock (a 2003 release through Compass Productions and Warner Special Products, picked up in a Fred Meyer or Target or some such store) than on any other CD I’ve got the song on.

What’s my point in all of this?  It’s rather simple – while I would hesitate to recommend grabbing various artist CDs filled with songs one already owns in the hopes of turning up a previously unfamiliar version of a favorite song, one should definitely watch the discs of this nature that they pick up very carefully.  In all of the above cases, there were no notations that these particular discs contained remixes or edits – all were credited exactly the same.  Now, in the case of the Foghat song I referenced, a track time was printed on the box, but that hadn’t been done for either of the other two I specifically cited.

Additional note: I know November’s over and I had said I’d return to the Erasure posts in December.  They’re still forthcoming – my day job has to calm down a little bit before I’ll have the time to dedicate to finishing the series.  But they are coming, and relatively soon.

Update: Erasure’s “The Innocents” reissue & blog status

Two quick notes:

1) The North American release of Erasure’s The Innocents 21st Anniversary edition has been delayed due to manufacturing issues.  It will not be released here until December 8th.  Still no word on a US release of the “Phantom Bride” EP – while I doubted a physical release would occur here, I’m disappointed there’s been no news of a digital release either.

2) It may have been noticed that I haven’t posted much for a few days.  Posts on here will be rather sporadic for a while, for two highly different reasons.  First, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo for my second year.  I’ve already passed 13,000 words, which means I’m two days ahead of schedule.  For more information, you can look at the site linked above and you can even look me up there, under my Taylis moniker.  Secondly, I was in a car wreck earlier this week.  Luckily, no one was hurt.  The bulk of the damage was to my vehicle and it has been totalled, so I’m also entering into a period of having to find and purchase a replacement.  So between these two factors, updates to this blog will be highly sporadic this month.  Just bear with me, and we’ll return to somewhat normal status in December.

Playlist: Erasure – “I Say I Say I Say”

The first Erasure album to be released after I started following them was 1994’s I Say I Say I Say.  Erasure had fallen out of support here in the US (not that they ever had a lot of support here), so there wasn’t a lot of buzz leading into the release of the album.  I remember hearing about the single for “Always” from a friend of mine who had seen it in the store.  I had just recently gotten Internet access through my college, and soon located an e-mail based discussion group for Erasure, which I participated in for several years, keeping up with news of what was happening with the band.

“Always” would be only the third song in Erasure’s catalog to get significant airplay on US radio; I’m not sure if it ever charted, though.  It would also mark the last time (to date) that Erasure have charted on US radio.

Erasure - "I Say I Say I Say"

In addition to the standard release of the album, this album came in a rather cool limited edition.  The box for the limited edition release was the size of a standard record, but as thick as a regular CD jewelbox.  When you opened the gatefold sleeve, there was a pop-up of a fantasy castle.  After some searching, I found a picture of this release, as seen below.

Erasure - "I Say I Say I Say" - Pop-Up Castle

The three-dimensional aspect of the castle is a little hard to see in this picture, but there are three layers to the castle in front of the background panel.  Also note that the CD is situated in front of the castle, in the “moat” of the castle, and has lily pads painted on it (they’re hard to see, but trust me, they’re there).  This gives the limited pressing of the CD a distinctly different look from the standard edition.

Playlist: Erasure – “Chorus”

In October of 1991, Erasure released their fifth album.  This was the first album of theirs that came out after I started paying attention to the band and the first album of theirs that I ever owned.  Chorus was a landmark album for Erasure; Vince focused on using analog synthesizers rather than digital on this album, which caused some substantial changes to the recording of the album and the arrangements of tracks for live performances.  The tour for Chorus was an immense spectacle that allowed Andy the opportunity to run through a variety of costume changes with a group of dancers performing Broadway-inspired (or any type of musical theater) dance numbers during many of the songs.  (Fans should be sure to check out the concert film, The Tank, The Swan, And The Balloon, a fabulous presentation of this tour)

Erasure - "Chorus"

Playlist: Erasure – “Wild!”

The first album that I remember listening to from Erasure was the Wild! album.  Released in 1989, the album contains the singles “Drama,” “Blue Savannah,” and “Star”, plus the non-US single (and my favorite among the singles) “You Surround Me.”  In our ongoing series of “deluxe edition” playlists I’ve created for my own listening pleasure, we now turn our attention to Erasure’s fourth album.

Erasure - "Wild!"

Playlist: Erasure – “The Innocents”

Today we turn our attention to Erasure’s third album, The Innocents.  This is the point at which the band broke into the mainstream in the US – though only for a short time.  The two biggest singles they’ve released in this country are easily “Chains Of Love” and “A Little Respect” – the only two singles that were released in this country for this album.  (The first single, “Ship Of Fools”, was never released in the US)  In late October, Mute Records is releasing a deluxe version of this landmark album as a three disc set, with the third disc being a live concert film on DVD.  (This will get a US release in late November)

This is one of the first two albums of Erasure’s that I remember listening to.  It would have been around late 1989 or so, and I had heard a reference to the band in a radio commercial.  Some time after, I stumbled upon this album and Wild! at my local library.  The rest, as they say, is history. 

Erasure - "The Innocents"

Mute’s forthcoming deluxe edition of the album has some real intriguing aspects, but falls a little short of what I would have liked to see.  With deluxe editions, I like to see the formats used to the fullness of their capacity, and Mute has fallen well short of that with this release.  Even without knowing the specific track times of the material on the second disc, the original album disc has a large amount of blank space on it.  I tried very hard to get as much material as possible onto the set.  After I get my hands on it, I might revisit this playlist, but that won’t be until later next month.

The Innocents – Taylis’ Deluxe Edition (includes Crackers International EP)
Disc	Track	Title	Duration
1	01.	A Little Respect	3:33
	02.	Ship Of Fools	4:02
	03.	Phantom Bride	3:33
	04.	Chains Of Love	3:40
	05.	Hallowed Ground	4:06
	06.	Sixty-Five Thousand	3:24
	07.	Heart Of Stone	3:21
	08.	Yahoo!	3:49
	09.	Imagination	3:29
	10.	Witch In The Ditch	3:45
	11.	Weight Of The World	3:40
	12.	When I Needed You	4:03
	13.	River Deep, Mountain High [Warm Depths Mix]	5:43
	14.	Don’t Suppose	3:31
	15.	The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly	3:26
	16.	Like Zsa Zsa Zsa Gabor	4:02
	17.	Love Is Colder Than Death	2:13
	18.	Stop! [Cold Ending]	3:02
	19.	The Hardest Part [7"]	3:44
	20.	Knocking On Your Door [7"]	2:58
	21.	She Won’t Be Home	3:31
	22.	God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen	3:10
	Total Running Time:		79:45
2	01.	Ship Of Fools [Shiver Me Timbers Mix]	7:56
	02.	When I Needed You [Melancholic Mix]	4:25
	03.	River Deep, Mountain High [Private Dance Mix]	7:01
	04.	Chains Of Love [The Unfettered Mix]	8:26
	05.	Don’t Suppose [Country Joe Mix]	6:00
	06.	The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly [The Dangerous Mix]	4:42
	07.	A Little Respect [Big Train Mix]	6:10
	08.	Like Zsa Zsa Zsa Gabor [Rico Conning Mix]	6:09
	09.	The Hardest Part [12"]	5:07
	10.	Stop! [Remix]	5:47
	11.	Knocking On Your Door [Remix]	6:06
	12.	The Hardest Part [Live]	3:26
	Total Running Time:		71:15

The first eleven tracks of the playlist are the original vinyl version of the album.  The original cassette and CD pressings included two bonus tracks, remixes of the b-sides from the “Ship Of Fools” single, both of which I placed on the second disc of my playlist.  Instead, I’ve placed the original mix of “When I Needed You” on the first disc along with mix of “River Deep, Mountain High” that appeared on the standard edition of the “Ship Of Fools” single.  An “original” mix was never released for this song, though it appears one will be on the forthcoming Mute Records deluxe edition.

A standard pattern of the material on Erasure’s singles at this time was to put one b-side on the 7”, a remix of that b-side along with a second b-side on the standard 12”, and lastly a remix of the second b-side on the limited 12” along with either the original version or a new remix of the first b-side.  So while the UK singles tended to have three tracks on the 12” pressings, it was rather common for a track to be re-used, particularly on the limited run.

“Chains Of Love” continued that tradition, placing “Don’t Suppose” on the 7” and a cover of the theme music from the Clint Eastwood film “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly” on the 12”.  “Don’t Suppose” is notable for the prominent use of a banjo in a synthpop song.

The third (and final) single from the album contained “Like Zsa Zsa Zsa Gabor” on the 7” and “Love Is Colder Than Death” on the 12”.  This single tinkered with the formula I previously mentioned for the singles; no remixes were ever released for “Love Is Colder Than Death.”  The original mix appears on both 12” pressings.  Instead, different remixes of “Like Zsa Zsa Zsa Gabor” appear on the two 12” pressings.  Note that there are three “Zsa”’s in that title – the actress’s name is only “Zsa Zsa” and some pressings of the single have the title incorrectly written that way.  However, it is clearly three “Zsa”’s in the lyrics of the song.

For Christmas of 1988, just a couple months after the release of the “A Little Respect” single, Erasure released an EP of new material, entitled Crackers International.  The EP contained, across the three main formats, five newly recorded songs.  For US readers, it should be noted that in the UK a large emphasis is placed on which song will be atop the chart during the week of Christmas; Erasure did not make this pinnacle, but the EP did reach #2 – their second time, and last time to date, to reach that position.

The Crackers International EP has some interesting permutations between the formats.  Though the 7” and the standard 12” present the track list as being identical, the first three tracks are notably different.  In this playlist, I’ve presented the 12” version of “Stop!” with the 7” versions of “The Hardest Part” and “Knocking On Your Door”.  The main difference between the 7” and 12” versions of “Stop!” is that the 7” version ends with a fade out, while the 12” version has a cold ending.  I prefer the cold ending to the song, so went with that version.  “The Hardest Part” is my favorite song from the EP, so the 12” version will appear later in the playlist.

The last two tracks on the first disc are the last of the four songs from Crackers International plus the one additional new song that appeared on Crackers International II – the limited edition 12” pressing.  These songs were even promoted in the US on a radio-only 7” single as a Christmas release.  I don’t know what kind of reaction they got, but don’t recall hearing either of them on the radio.  Ever.  I originally left “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” out of the playlist, due to the seasonal nature of the track.  However, I’ve since relented and decided to include it.

The second disc of this set focuses almost entirely on remixes.  There is one live track at the end of the disc, but other than that, we’re strictly in remix territory now.  We start off, once again, with the “Ship Of Fools” single.  I tend to like the Shiver Me Timbers mix a little better than the Rico Conning mix – not that the Rico Conning mix is bad, but it just doesn’t grab me quite as strong.  This is followed with the two remixes that were included as bonus tracks on the cassette and CD pressings of the album.  For those who are familiar with these tracks, it should be noted that the remix of “When I Needed You” is actually noticeably different from the original 7” version.  I enjoy both, but find myself more likely to pull out the remix than the 7” version.

The remix I present here for “Chains Of Love” is one of the more unusual tracks in this series of playlists; one of the rare remixes to have not been released in the UK originally.  When Sire Records released the “Chains Of Love” single, they included both UK remixes of the song, plus the b-side tracks from the standard UK 12”, and added in two remixes of their own.  “Chains Of Love [The Unfettered Mix]” is easily my favorite mix of the song.  Unfortunately, it was not included in the UK singles box set version of this single; it did turn up on a compilation CD released by Canadian label Hi-Bias of rare 80’s remixes.  (Retro:Active 6 for those who are interested).  The remix of “Don’t Suppose” is little more than a longer version of the single version.  “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly” was remixed for the limited 12” pressing; while not a bad mix, it’s nothing terribly spectacular either.  Interestingly, these same three tracks will all be included on the upcoming official The Innocents deluxe edition.

For “A Little Respect,” however, I avoided the US-only remixes.  Justin Strauss isn’t exactly one of the remixers that I have a lot of patience for.  His remixes of “A Little Respect” weren’t exactly even up to his usual level.  So I turned my attention instead to the Big Train mix.  This mix is notable for a unique alternate lyric in which Andy belts out “What religion or reason could drive a man to despair?” instead of “to forsake his lover?”  The remix of “Like Zsa Zsa Zsa Gabor” I selected is from Rico Conning, and is actually the first version of that song that I heard.  For whatever reason, Mute put this remix on the “A Little Respect” CD single instead of the 7” version, so it wasn’t until later I tracked down the original mix.

Next up are the remixes for the Crackers International EP.  I struggled a little with how to sequence these.  Normally, I would put the “single” first, then follow up with the b-sides.  However, in this case, I’ve put in the 12” mix of “The Hardest Part” first.  The reason I decided to do it this way is two-fold.  Principally, I did this to follow the premise of going from Crackers International to Crackers International II – and since the other remixes I’m presenting were both from II, it seemed appropriate to separate the tracks by that distinction.  This mix of “The Hardest Part” is little more than an extended version – however, if you enjoy the 7” version, it’s hard not to enjoy this version just as much, since it builds up much of the backing track.

The last two remixes, as I stated, come from Crackers International II, and were both remixed by Mark Saunders.  Mark Saunders is one of my favorite 80’s remixers and these two tracks are quite good.  Maybe not his best work, but excellent nonetheless.

We close the set with a relatively newly released track.  This live recording of “The Hardest Part” comes from the tour for The Innocents and could even be from the concert film that has yet to be released in this country.  I’m not sure what the date and location of the concert film are to be able to say for certain.  It was included on the third disc of the Total Pop! Deluxe boxed set.  This live disc has live performances from The Circus tour all the way up to the most recent tour, for Light At The End Of The World. 

After the official deluxe version of the album comes out, I might make some alterations to this set; after all, it is scheduled to include a 7” mix of “River Deep, Mountain High”, along with a selection of live tracks from the BBC and MP3 files of the entire The Innocents Live DVD.  I’ve only got a few minutes of space to mess with, though, as I don’t intend to expand this to the point that I need a third CD.  While I did do that with a forthcoming playlist, it’s still a ways off.

There is a sampler playlist for this set over at the supplemental site.  It includes several songs from the main album (including “Hallowed Ground,” one of my all-time favorite Erasure songs) plus the remixes of “When I Needed You” and “River Deep, Mountain High” that appeared on the album and even two tracks from Crackers International.  Up next will be the album that pulled me in as a fan, Wild!

Playlist: Erasure – “The Circus”

A few days ago, the first post in this series of custom Erasure deluxe edition albums was posted.  Today, we have the next volume – Erasure’s second album, The Circus.  The new group’s first release, Wonderland, had been a surprising failure on the charts for a project from Vince Clarke.  Vince had a string of successful singles with Depeche Mode, Yazoo, and The Assembly; when none of the singles from Wonderland could break into the top 50 of the UK chart (let alone make the top 40 chart), most didn’t have high expectations for Erasure’s second album.  And since Yazoo had only barely released their second album before they broke up, expectations were likely pretty strong that Erasure’s days were numbered.

But you never know what will happen sometimes.  The first single from The Circus, “Sometimes” defied all expectations by reaching the number two spot on the UK chart.  It would kick off a run of top 20 singles that would remain unbroken for a little over ten years.  Every chart-eligible single released in the UK since “Sometimes” has made the UK Top 40.  (Note that the UK has strict rules defining what a “single” is, and several songs got a commercial release but were not “singles” by UK chart rules)