Bigger ain’t always better, but in the case of some songs, too much is never enough. Here are some of my best extended cuts.
George Clinton – Atomic Dog (Super Awesome Extended Version)
There are some songs that are really good but just a little too long. There are other songs that sound good the first time you hear them but get really old after a while. George Clinton’s ‘Atomic Dog’ is neither. I could rock out to this jam everyday for a year and not get sick of it, and to me no version is long enough. This extended cut is off of an import 12-inch I recently picked up and clocks in at nearly 10 minutes! That’s twice as long as the regular version! That’s twice as much “bow-wow-wows!” That’s twice as much 1st degree funk from Lord Funkenstein!! Need I say more?
Art Of Noise – Peter Gunn (Extended Remix)
A great remix of a great song. Peter Gunn is one of the most recognizable songs in the world, so if someone is going to re-record it they better do something really good with it. Art Of Noise sure as hell did. Help from Duane Eddy, the guy that played guitar on it the first time around, probably didn’t hurt either. Strickingly faithful to the original version with enough panache and unique-but-not-annoying samples thrown in to spice things up (that synth-voice effect is AWESOME), this just might be the best cover of the 80s. This extended version comes from the 12-inch single, although the version on Art Of Noise’s greatest hits album is even longer.
Art Of Noise – Paranoia (Extended Version)
Ah, an Art Of Noise song featuring Max Headroom…how 80s can it get? I feel like I should be playing my NES and spraying my hair with Aquanet before heading off to see Can’t Buy Me Love. As a child of the 80s, I was slightly obsessed with Max Headroom during his short time in the limelight, and was totally in love with the TV show (which didn’t even last two seasons and has yet to be released on DVD…bastards) but the whole craze around him confuses me to this day. And when I found out he wasn’t really computer-generated, but just Matt Frewer in heavy prostetics, a part of me died. This song came out in 1986, during the height of Max Headroom mania, and this extended cut also seems to be available on The Art Of Noise greatest hits collection
Queen – Radio Ga Ga (Extended Version)
I really don’t have anything to say about this other than it’s a kick ass song. This version is from the 12-inch single, and has a pretty gnarly jump about 20 seconds in that I couldn’t fix. Sorry about that.