Generally, I prefer the longer album cuts, and I own many albums myself mostly on CD. However, there are rare exceptions. Weight of the World by Young Guns, released in 2010 as a single from their album "All our Kings are Dead" is one of my favorite songs, however, I find the album version, and the album itself to have a somewhat excessively "gritty" sound to it, but the single version seems to have been mastered with a much cleaner and brighter sound, which must have been essential for it to have acceptable sound quality on terrestrial radio stations. The best way I can describe the subjective superiority of the single version is that it seems to me that the guitars are much more prevalent relative to the drums, the overall dynamic range of the track is better allowing for a more natural sound and that singer Gustav Wood's vocals are more melodic and "present".

I may be mistaken, but I presume that this may be a deliberate choice of musical art style at the discretion of the band myself and that the record label had the single version mastered more in line with general technical expectations of radio stations, although 2010 was still the era of the "loudness war". I feel that I should respect their choices as a fan of theirs and a supporter of their works, and I extend this respect to all other bands and musicians I like. Nonetheless, I often choose to listen to the single version, and you can hear it in their official music video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVg5GFINVpk

Last edited by tdotwriter (August 24, 2024 3:52 pm)

Radio/single edits are for housewives and little girls. They're a gateway drug to K-Tel compilation edits.

djwildbill wrote:

This has always been a touchy subject with me as I feel I’m the only person who prefers hearing the radio version, single edit version of a song over the album version.

I’m constantly hearing the album version of hits played on greatest hits radio stations today. I’ve always been play the version of the song that listeners grew up on. Sometimes album versions have extra verses in songs or are even sung differently on the album over the 45.

Why can’t today’s classic hits radio stations pay for a service like the old TM Century discs where they carry the hit version. I just feel playing the wrong version is a disservice to the listeners.

I'm with you on this.  However I would NOT recommend TM Century GoldDisc, as many of those are NOT genuine radio edits, but rather recreations hastily made from the LP version of songs.

To me (or at least if I were to recreate the CKOC of its heydey), a classic hits formatted station should play songs using the versions that were made popular during its chart run.  When I had CKOC tuned in at some point last week, "Green Eyed Lady" by Sugarloaf aired, and it was the long, drawn out LP version.  I find songs such as this, along with Simple Mind's "... Forget About Me" have LP versions that fail to get to the point of the song.  They have extra verses, refrains or instrumental breaks that seem added for addition's sake.  They add no value to the song.  Other records, such as "Light My Fire" and "Magic Carpet Ride" also suffer this issue, but people with my mindset feel we have to muzzle our opinion on these songs because they're classics.

There are radio versions of songs that seem to have completely vanished from the landscape, and while RadioAaron points out that many of these versions have become harder to source, they can indeed be found.  "In the Air Tonight", as a radio single, has Phil laying down a drum track over top of a slightly edited run of the LP version, up until the loud part of the song kicks in.  Up until the Miami Vice Soundtrack included the LP version in 1985, the aforementioned single mix was heard everywhere in this market, except for say, CHUM-FM and Q107.  The edits of "Kiss On My List", "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", have virtually disappeared, although they could be easily recreated with software.  I made mention of Hall and Oates, so what about the radio mix of " I Can't Go For That", which CKOC actually played in the winter and spring of 1982?  Where has that gone to?

So to the OP, I do lament hearing songs in the way they were popularized in their chart run.  You are definitely not alone here.
 

Last edited by Jody Thornton (August 24, 2024 10:11 pm)

This is a bit different from the original topic, but I had no idea this was happening - one music fan discovered that some songs have simply "disappeared" from all forms of media, including the Internet, so he began a bizarre quest to resurrect them from the original record companies. 

And to everyone's surprise - including his own - he's been remarkably successful.

I used to think almost everything was available on either YouTube or Spotify, But if you've ever been looking for an obscure song there and can't find it, this could be the reason why. 

Record labels forgot these songs existed. One man rescued them

Jody Thornton wrote:

I'm with you on this.  However I would NOT recommend TM Century GoldDisc, as many of those are NOT genuine radio edits, but rather recreations hastily made from the LP version of songs.

Seconded on not using TM GoldDiscs/HitDiscs. About 20 years ago we bought a bunch of them to build a new station's music library, and some of the songs, especially the then-newer tracks, were distorted and squashed to oblivion. Would not recommend.

To RA's point, Sweet's "Love Is Like Oxygen", very different on the later third of the LP version.

For those like me that LOVE this topic, I post on the forum linked below now and then, and find it a great resource for both seeking out edits, promos and different radio mixes.  Every so often, there are great instructions for recreating edits from LP versions, when the mixes are identical.

https://www.top40musiconcd.com/forum/

Storm wrote:

I also want to hear what I heard when the song was a hit. Now that I am using streaming an YouTube for most of my saved music I seek out the radio or 45 rpm version. One of the worst is Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again". The 45 version, which is what Top 40 radio played when the song was a hit, is considerably different from the album version which is what is played on rock and classic hit stations. I love the 45 version. I hate the album version. I do have the 45.

I always preferred the 45 over the 1987 LP version, too. I always felt the latter had a rather clunky tempo and dynamic change leading into the first chorus.



PJ