I have a ton of Japanese music that I want to blog about, but I think I’d mix things up a bit with some Madonna. Besides, I went through the hassle of re-recording almost all of my Madonna singles before I left the states, so it would be silly not to share at least some of them now.

Before I do that though, I want to remind all of you, once again, of my other site, Mostly-Retro. If you want to read my ramblings about living in Tokyo (and buying records/occasional descents into OCD insanity) I’d bookmark it.

Enough talk, now let’s get up on the dance floor.

Madonna
Vogue [12″ Version]
Vogue [Bette Davis Dub]
Vogue [Strike-A-Pose Dub]
Frozen (Stereo MC’s Mix)
Frozen (Meltdown Mix – Long Version)
Frozen (Extended Club Mix)
Frozen (Widescreen Mix)
I own both of these singles on vinyl. In fact, they’re two of my most prized 12″ records. However, they sound like total garbage. The “Vogue” single is scratched to high heaven, and the “Frozen” single just sounds like shit, like someone mastered it underwater. I spent probably two hours total trying to fix my rips so they’d sound better before I just said fuck it and bought he damn CD maxi-singles online. Because my sanity is worth more than the $10 I ended up paying for both of these combined. 

So yeah, these sound great. CD quality…as they are both from CDs. Look, sometimes the Turntable in “Lost Turntable” is metaphorical. In fact, it’s probably going to be for a while, as my turntable hasn’t even been shipped to Japan yet.

So I guess I should probably elaborate on this?

Okay, I transferred my site to Nearly Free Speech (NFS) last month because I heard a lot of good things about them, most of which I detail in this post.

I resolved a lot of the financial issues with them, but now I’m finding that they aren’t all that cracked up to be when it comes to the technical side of things either.

I was going to try and be civil and rational with this, but I guess I’m not good at that. So I’m just going to come right out and say it.

NFS is apparently run by a group of paranoid idiots.

They’re servers are jacked up with so much excessive and redundant security systems that upgrading, modifying or altering anything on my end is nearly impossible. Under NFS’s default settings, I cannot upgrade WordPress, install plug-ins, remove plug-ins, modify anything, or even upload pictures. It’s a mess. And what makes it all worse is that there’s NOTHING on NFS”s site to explain this, and that there is NO free customer support to help users sort all of it out. If you have an account with NFS and you need help, your only option is to turn to their forums, which are staffed by both NFS employees and other users who try their best to help each other navigate the magical land of bullshit that is NFS’s server system. Pretty convenient for them huh? Make a system that no one can understand and then charge the users to help them!

Assholes.

And to make matters worse, this is effecting my upcoming site as well, so I have to postpone launching that AGAIN. I vow to get that shit up before I go to Tokyo, and it will happen. But I think it’s going to be close now.

Is NFS a cheap web hosting solution? I mean, maybe? It’s not for me. I’ve already had to go to a third hosting provider for my files, because NFS’s system is straight up broken if you want to host large files. It’s pathetic. But even without that taken into account, NFS isn’t really affordable or a good deal. Why?

Because your time is worth money. A blog without any large files would probably be able to be hosted on NFS for less than $40 a year. But you know what? My time is worth money too! And when I have to spend dozens of hours just figuring out how to do basic things that every other hosting provider on the planet does automatically, then any value that NFS’s low-cost hosting may have had is immediately lost.

Screw these mofos. I’m never using Nearly Free Speech again, and I really recommend that no one else does either. They are scam artists who exploit their convoluted, broken service for a quick buck from those who don’t know better. They suck.

Now let’s listen to Madonna.

Madonna
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Mix Alternate Ending)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Spanglish Mix)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Dub Mix)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Mix Instrumental Version)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Spanglish Mix Edit)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Extended Journey)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Hot Mix Edit)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Hot Mix Radio Edit)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Edge Factor Dub)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Early Morning Dub)
Express Yourself (Shep’s ‘spressin’ Himself Re-remix)
Oh god that’s a lot of Madonna what have I done? I have one more Madonna single I want to post sometime soon, but this should be the last of the Madonna for a while.

A year or two ago I had a post with some remixes of Madonna’s much-maligned “American Life,” where I dubbed it one of the worst songs of all time. That may have been a bit harsh, so I’m going to try to avoid such hyperbole tonight.

However, that being said…wow holy fuck do I hate “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.” I hate it. I hate it so much. Seriously. It’s like, unhealthy how much I hate this goddamn song. I hated the original version, I hate these remixes and I hate the fact that I even own the 12″ single, something I bought solely because I have to be a completist and own one version of every single Madonna 12″. Why? I don’t know, because I have weird problems. But hey, if you like this song, go nuts. Seriously, if you like this song, good for you! Have fun with these remixes! Download all of them and have yourself an Andrew Lloyd Weber dance party!

Just don’t invite me.

Now, “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” that’s a song that I can get behind. And it’s a song that I didn’t realize was a cover until about five minutes ago! Research! It’s a wonderful thing! Madonna’ first covered it for Like A Virgin, but it wasn’t released as a proper single until 1996, when it was re-recorded/reworked for inclusion on her ballads compilation Something to Remember. As I said before, I’m not a huge fan of Madonna’s ballads, but I do enjoy this one, and I especially like these more upbeat dance mixes that inject some life into the downbeat number. I got these mixes from a weird red label promo 12″ that I guess is kind of rare. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

And finally, “Express Yourself”! I don’t feel that I need to explain, extol or exclaim the virtues of this one. It’s a bona fide classic, and is probably in my top five list of Madonna songs, behind “Vogue” and before “Hung Up.”  This remix is by Shep Pettibone and it was included as a b-side to “Justify My Love.” It’s a pretty out there mix too. A lot of the elements from the original version are stripped out and about half of its 9 and a half minute running time is dedicated to an extended breakdown in the middle that features more stutters than a class full of kids with speech disorders (I can make that joke! I have a stutter and a speech impediment!) It’s really different and worth a listen. I hope you like it.

I am definitely the only person on the planet who spent their Sunday afternoon crafting a semi-intelligent analysis of Madonna while watching footballs.

Madonna
Justify My Love (Orbit 12″ Mix)
Justify My Love (Hip Hop Mix)
Justify My Love (The Beast Within Mix)
Erotica (Kenlou B-Boy Mix)
Erotica (Jeep Beats)
Erotica (Madonna’s In My Jeep Mix)
Erotica (W0 12″)
Erotica (Underground Club Mix)
Erotica (Bass Hit Dub)
Remember when these songs were controversial? Oh, the 90s seem so long ago now.

I still maintain that both of these songs would have been far less controversial if they were, well, better. Neither “Erotica” nor “Justify My Love” are particularly great, especially compared to the stuff that Madonna was putting out just a couple years earlier (“Vogue,” “Like A Prayer,” “Express Yourself”). Shit, “Justify My Love” is barely a song, it’s more of a spoken word rant with some trip-hop grooves tacked on. I’ve always thought that if you want to challenge your audience with your message or lyrics, then the music that accompanies it better be damn good, or at least be catchy. As interesting, experimental and brave as these songs are musically, they completely fail as pop recordings. No one, not even Madonna, can challenge their audience both thematically and musically and expect to get away scott free, especially when the thematic challenges are as controversial as the ones found in these songs.

As uneven as these songs are, I will say that their minimal and sparse nature certainly help lend themselves to some interesting remixes. All of these mixes are pretty good, and some, like William Orbit’s “W0 12” mix of “Erotica” are great reworkings. Even if you’re like me and don’t really dig on the original versions, you should still check out these mixes, you might be pleasantly surprised.

A quick news update on the news I mentioned a few weeks ago.

I am still planning on launching my new site very soon. I was actually planning on launching it today, I have articles ready and everything, but I ran into some technical snafus that have forced me to postpone it a week or so. It’s definitely coming along though, and I think I’ll be able to get things rolling there relatively soon. I’m pretty excited about it and I hope you all like what I have in store.

I’m actually pretty happy with how things are going right now with both the new site and this one. I got some cool stuff lined up here, and my readership has gradually been increasing for the past few months, which is pretty rad. My last post, the one with the Alec Empire mixes, was actually one of my most popular posts in months, no doubt in thanks to Alec Empire himself, who retweeted a link to the post. I always love it when I get some sort of approval from the artists I’m posting. Makes me feel somewhat validated, especially since the number of posts I’ve gotten approval on more than doubles the number of posts that I’ve had to remove because of DMCA notices.

Although I doubt Madonna would be one of those artists. Just a hunch. So no one tell her!

Madonna
Secret (Allstar Mix)
Secret (Junior Luscious Club Mix)
Secret (Junior’s Luscious Club Dub)
Secret (Junior’s Sound Factory Mix)
Secret (Junior’s Sound Factory Dub)
Take A Bow (InDaSoul Mix)
Take A Bow (InDaSoul Instrumental)
Take A Bow (Instrumental)
Take A Bow (Silky Soul Mix)
More Madonna! And these mixes of “Secret” are some of my favorite.

I’ve always found these remixes to “Secret” interesting from a production standpoint, for a variety of reasons. First of all, they’re vastly superior to the original album version, which is way too slow and subdued. Secondly, the vocals on a few of them  are sped up in a very unique way. Typically when a song is remixed and they want to change the tempo, the pitch of the vocals is affected as well, giving the whole song a “chipmunk” feel. Here, they do some interesting audio editing, snipping out bits here and there, to make Madonna’s pace slightly faster all while keeping her vocals sounding the same otherwise. It’s fascinating to me, and I bet it was even harder to do back then, with digital production techniques just starting to become more sophisticated.

As far as the mixes for “Take A Bow”…man, remember New Jack Swing? These mixes New Jack Swing the fuck out of that song, which was already kind of New Jack Swingy to begin with, Babyface did produce and co-write it after all.  They’re pretty dated. Still a good song though.

I’ve been blabbering on about Madonna all week on Twitter. So without further ado…

Madonna
Cherish (Extended Version)
Keep It Together (Shep Pettibone Mix)
Into The Groove (Shep Pettibone Remix)
Supernatural
Spotlight (Dub)
Where’s The Party (Dub)
Drowned World/Substitute For Love (BT and Sasha’s Bucklodge Ashram Remix)
Sky Fits Heaven (Shasha Remix Edit)
Live To Tell
If you see that list of tunes and think, “Oh God not more Madonna!” then you’re going to have a really rough month reading this blog. I recently bought about 12 or so Madonna singles, about five hours of remixes total, and over the next few weeks I’m going to be posting all of them. Because Madonna is awesome. That’s not a statement that can be debated here. I don’t have a lot to say about these songs though other than the fact that I really like most of them, so instead I’ll just break down where I got them all and some details about each mix.

The extended mix of “Cherish” and “Supernatural” are both from the “Cherish” single. The extended mix is about a minute longer than the original version of the song, and two minutes longer than most single edits. Such a great song, it could be twice as long and not get old. “Supernatural” is a weird little b-side, an odd upbeat romantic pop song that has a strange “spooky” sound to it, with plenty of ghostly metaphors for love.

Shep Pettibone’s mixes of “Keep It Together” and “Into The Groove” are both from the single of “Crazy For You” that was issued to promote the release of Madonna’s greatest hits collection The Immaculate Collection. Not a big fan of “Keep It Together,” but I like this mix more than some other remixes of the song that I’ve heard. The “Get Into The Groove” mix is excellent, with an awesome extended breakdown in the middle that stretches it out to over eight minutes.

The dub mixes for “Spotlight” and “Where’s The Party” are both from a promo only single that also has extended versions of those songs. However, those remixes are both on the 1987 remix album You Can Dance, so I’m not including them here. Dub mixes are a little boring, but I like to be through.

The Spanish version of “You’ll See” is from the 12″ single for that song. I assume that was an A-side in some Latin speaking markets. The live version of  “Live To Tell” is also taken from that single. “Live To Tell” is one of my favorite ballads by Madonna (I generally prefer her more upbeat stuff) and this live version is great. However, there’s some simbilance on the live recording that I couldn’t get rid of. Sorry about that.

Finally, there are the remixes of “Drowned World/Substitute For Love” and “Sky Fits Heaven,” both of which appeared in their original forms on Madonna’s Ray of Light album. They’re both great songs from a great record, and these remixes do them both justice. I especially love the nearly 10-minute version of “Drowned World/Substitute For Love.” Too often remixes take a song like that, a great pop tune with amazing lyrics, and strip out the vocals in favor of the beat. Here, BT and Sasha let the lyrics stay, while at the same time stretching out the instrumental parts of it to great effect. A best of both worlds scenario.

Today sucked. Seriously. There was a bunch of stuff I don’t even want to get into, and then there’s this stupid cold or I-don’t-even-know-what that I’ve had for like two and a half weeks now. First it was a flu with a fever; then it was a regular cold with congestion; then it turned into a hellacious cough that literally kept me up for hours in bed. Now the back of my tongue hurts. Not my mouth, not my throat, my tongue.

Really? What the hell? You know what you get if you Google “tongue pain?” CANCER. Apparently tongue pain = cancer. Yeah, I needed that irrational fear right now. It hurts so much I can barely swallow and it’s making it hard to talk. And since I already have a pretty drastic speech disorder, I really don’t need any help there, thank you very much.

And then I get this new router to replace my shitty Netgear router, but it’s an even bigger piece of shit. Hey, all you potential router buyers out there! Thinking of buying an ASUS router? Well, do yourself a favor and just punch yourself in the face. Because that will be less painful than dealing with their shitty technical support when it inevitably doesn’t work as advertised. (This router does not work with iOS devices, and it cannot be fixed, it can go to hell.)

And now its all hot in Pittsburgh, and since my office is filled with electronics and I’m on the second floor I’m all sweaty and gross. And my damn tongue! Ow! Fuck!

So yeah, here are 32 Madonna remixes.

Madonna
Bedtime Story (Junior’s Sound Factory Mix)
Bedtime Story (Junior’s Sound Factory Dub)
Bedtime Story (Orbital Mix)
Bedtime Story (Junior’s Wet Dream Mix)
Bedtime Story (Junior’s Wet Dream Dub)
Borderline (New Mix)
Lucky Star (New Mix)
Deeper And Deeper (Shep’s Classic 12″ Mix)
Deeper And Deeper (Shep’s Deep Makeover Mix)
Deeper And Deeper (Shep’s Deep Beats)
Deeper And Deeper (David’s Klub Mix)
Deeper And Deeper (David’s Deeper Dub)
Deeper And Deeper (Shep’s Deeper Dub)
Express Yourself (Non-Stop Express Mix)
Express Yourself (Stop & Go Dubs)
Express Yourself (Local Mix)
Like A Prayer (Instra Dub)
Like A Prayer (Bass Dub)
Like A Prayer (Dub Beats)
Like A Prayer (12″ Dance Mix)
Like A Prayer (12″ Extended Remix)
Like A Prayer (Churchapella)
Like A Prayer (12″ Club Version)
Like A Prayer (7″ Remix)
Like A Virgin (Extended Dance Mix)
Material Girl (Extended Dance Remix)
Open Your Heart (Extended Version)
Open Your Heart (Dub)
Papa Don’t Preach (Extended Remix)
Vogue (12″ Version)
Vogue (Bette Davis Dub)
Vogue (Strike-A-Pose Dub)
Now, you may be asking “why 32 (almost four full hours) of Madonna remixes? ”

And to that question I say: Shut up. Awesome things make me feel better. There are like, maybe three or four things in this world that might be more awesome than Madonna and that’s it. Ergo, 32 remixes of Madonna songs should make me feel significantly better. Got a problem with that? Didn’t think so.

I recently re-recorded all of these on my new turntable. Some of my old Madonna rips were my worst rips (many accidentally in mono even) so if you’ve ever downloaded a Madonna song from my blog before and it’s posted here tonight, re-download it. And if you’ve never downloaded any Madonna songs from my blog, you’re a bad person and you need to get that looked at.

I mean, that mix of “Open Your Heart” is TEN MINUTES LONG! How awesome is that shit!

I’m feeling better already.