Arranged game music for the new year

January 3rd, 2019

Capcom
Ghosts ‘n Goblins (Arrange Version)
Commando (Arrange Version)
These arrange versions are both from Capcom Game Music, a collection of tunes from Capcom games that was released by GMO Records in August of 1986 (according to the VGMdb). It was their sixth release overall, and their fourth collection of game music by a single company, following similar collections featuring Nintendo, Hudson and Konami.

While the Hudson collection featured an an entire side of arranged editions, this album copies Konami’s format, with just a pair of re-imagined tracks. Shame, I wish we would’ve been treated to arranged variations of music from games like “Section Z” or “Trojan” instead of ear-grating audio rips from “1942” and “Higemaru.”  Neither of those games feature much music, so their tracks are mostly just raw game audio, and are very hard to listen to.

Like many other early arranged versions featured on GMO releases, the arranged mixes here are by Yoshihiro Kunimoto. Unlike future arrange albums, which often featured full bands or sometimes even orchestras, these are still largely digital affairs with drum machines and synthesizers abound. Very fun stuff though. I always view arranged versions like these as what the game company wanted the music to sound like at the time, if they weren’t limited by game hardware limitations. Both of these are great, but the “Ghost ‘n Goblins” version is better, mostly because it’s just a better song overall, but also because it has plenty of dope synth bass. Said it before, I’ll say it again – I love me that synth bass.

Namco
Pac-Man A Go-Go
Solo Suite Xevious -No. 1-
Main Theme From “Rolling Thunder”
The early GMO releases would usually feature just a handful of arranged versions. The focus was always on the original music. But by the 90s this would change, and more companies would embrace the arranged version as the showcase tracks, even releasing albums comprised entirely of arranged versions. Makes sense to me. If you wanted to hear the original game music, you could always just play the game. These albums gave the companies and the composers more freedom with the music.

Like I said when talking about the Capcom albu, most arranged albums I have feature mixes that are largely still digital and based around electronic instruments.

But This is Namco!, the album from which these tracks came from, is really different. All of the tracks here focus on live instrumentation, and with some really odd choices too. The “One O’Clock Galaga ’88” track reworks the theme music from that game as a big band jazz tune, while “Solo Suite Xevious -No.1-” takes the game’s rather simple melody and transforms it for saxophone (I think – I’m not up on my brass instruments). It’s a really sparse mix too, so raw and quiet that I can even hear the player’s breath between notes and the clicks of the keys.

There are some bold choices here, but overall I think the variety is a little detrimental to the final product. There’s just too much going on, the album has no focus on defined style. Yeah, the lullaby version of Mappy’s music is alright, but it’s sandwiched between the jazzy Galaga theme and a bombastic as fuck 80s-rock take on the music from Dragon Spirit. There’s no flow. And also, some of this music just isn’t all that great or memorable. Maybe I would feel differently I was more familiar with games like The Return of Ishitar and Dragon Spirit, maybe nostalgia would help. But I have no feelings for most of the games on this album, so it’s just a collection of (sometimes not great) versions of music from games I’ve barely heard of.

There are a few standouts though! In addition to the awesome saxophone Xevious theme, the full-on jazz version of the theme to Rolling Thunder is just an absolute banger. It completely nails the suave, suit-and-tie spy aesthetic the game was going for.

Also “Pac-Man a Go-Go” is great. Because Pac-Man is great. And good on them for somehow making an entire song out of what is probably 10 seconds of original game music.

May 2019 bring us more impressively reworked game music, and less white nationalists hellbent on killing us all!

Posted in Game Music, remixes | No Comments »

Mythos – eccentricity over greatness

December 29th, 2018

Mythos
Oriental Journey – Hero’s Death
Transatlantik Non-Stop
Harry Chanceless
Concrete City
Quasar
Flut-e-Quenzer: The Knight

Flute really had its time in the rock spotlight in the 70s, didn’t it?

A few weeks back, I wrote about Steve Hillage. One thing I like/respect about Hillage is his willingness to change with the times and embrace new genres. He started as the guitarist of the supremely out-there Gong, went solo with a series of fantastic prog rock albums, shifted gears entirely into synthpop only to take a break from the music scene entirely for over a decade before reinventing himself as ambient/electronic musician. That’s bold.

An artist that went along a similar path to Hillage was Mythos, which started off as a group in 1972 but slowly morphed into a solo project by lead vocalist/flutist/keyboardist Stephan Kaske by the end of the decade. Their 1972 self-titled debut is a well-regarded classic by krautrock die-hards, thanks to its unique combination of jazz, folk and space rock. Their 1975 follow-up, Dreamlab, featured an entirely new line-up save for Kaske, but mostly kept the same sound. It was a little more spacey with some more keyboards thrown in, but I hazard to guess that most fans of their debut dig on that record too.

But things would take a hard turn, and fast. Again with an entirely new line-up, and this time with Kaske taking reigns creatively (he’s the sole credited songwriter on all Mythos releases from this point on), the band would release Strange Guys in 1978, followed by Concrete City in 1979. Both albums completely disregard the band’s penchant for long-form experimental pieces and lieu of hard rock mixed with synthesizer solos and the occasional flute trip. Gary Numan by way of Alice Cooper and Jethro Tull.

The lines between prog and new wave would blur even more with their next release, Quasar, which came out in 1980. I’ve listened to this record over a dozen times since discovering it last month, and I still struggle to describe it. I’ve read comparisons to Ultravox, which make sense, but while early Ultravox was synthpop masquerading as punk rock, I feel like this is prog trying to work on the dance floor. The sequencers and synthesizers are so prominent here. The acoustic drums are the only thing on this album that ground it to any rock sound at all, and they’re often so low in the mix that it barely matters. When the electronic elements mix with Kaske’s flute, the album takes on a creepy vibe. One of the tracks I’m sharing from that album, “Flut-e-equenzer – The Knight” gives Goblin and Carpenter a ride when it comes to instrumental creepiness.

Quasar is Mythos’ best album not only because of its killer combination of electronic and classic rock elements, but because it’s the only album in their entire discography where I would call Kaske’s vocals “passable.” At best. I don’t think it’s unfair to just flat-out say it: Kaske can’t sing. At all. Kaske is probably a keyboardist first, a flutist second, and a vocalist eighth (I mean, I bet he’d be better at plumbing, car repair and a myriad of other things if he gave them a go). Once you get used to it though, there is a charm to his occasionally off-key, always off-kilter way of vocalizing. Kaske isn’t the first singer with no observable singing talent, after all (insert joke about Bob Dylan). And on Quasar, the robotic nature of the music mesh well with Kaske’s vocals, which one could charitably describe “as if a robot impersonating Ian Curtis was reprogrammed to sound like Bryan Ferry on downers.”

But even Kaske had to know that vocals were weak point. In 1982 the “band” (which was finally only just Kaske and no one else) released Grand Prix, and the album is largely an instrumental electronic affair. Most all of the vocals are run through a vocoder and other distortion effects, and are brief at most. Only the hideous “Robot Secret Agents” features Kaske on lead vocals, singing in his natural voice, and boy…that track is…um…something else.

Yikes.

But aside from that, Grand Prix is a damn good record. Prog fans hate it, probably because it’s not a prog album. This is synthpop through and through, composed and performed almost entirely on electronic instruments…with flute, of course. It’s a good album of Kraftwerk-inspired technopop…with flute! I mean, how many albums can you say that about?

Jethro Tull gave flute a bad name, it’s not fair.

I find something oddly charming about Mythos. Their music is just so strange. There are more ambitious and experimental krautrock bands. There are better and more technically proficient prog bands. There are more upbeat and fun synthpop acts. Mythos tried their hands at many a genre, yet mastered none of them. They’re utterly forgotten. Failures three times over. All of their albums have weak spots. The early ones sometimes drag on too much. Their prog albums have their fair share of weak numbers. Grand Prix at times comes off as both dated and an obvious Kraftwerk rip-off. But each of them have their own qualities that make them stand out too. Their first two albums combine folk, jazz and electronics in a way that even most of their fellow krautrockers never even tried. Concrete City and Quasar and their amalgamation of metal and synthetics, create a sound that is at times menacing, and never boring. And Grand Prix is just a really fun, great-sounding record that is as charming as it is dated.

If you dig the sampling of Mythos that I’m sharing tonight, I encourage you to dig deeper and check out their albums proper. Again, I really recommend Quasar the most. But if you like pure early electronic music, you really can’t go wrong with Grand Prix either. Do be careful with their digital re-issues, however. While I haven’t found much fault with the CD copies of Grand Prix and Concrete City that I bought, a lot of reviews of their other albums cite multiple audio defects with their other CD re-issues. With those, it might be best to stick with the original vinyl copies. Thankfully, as literally no one cares about this band, you can usually find them online for a pittance.

Mythos. Occasionally amazing. Usually okay. Sometimes bad. Never boring.

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Radiation for Xmas

December 23rd, 2018

Tycoon To$h
Children Of The Radiation
Tycoon To$h was a Japanese musician who started out as a member of the early new wave group The Plastics, but later worked as a rapper later in his career. One of his very first songs was “China Syndrome,” a track protesting Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy, rather prophetically calling the idea of building nuclear power plants in a country prone to earthquakes as something so stupid “even a child can understand.”

To$h sadly passed away from cancer in 2017, but before he left us, he cut one more track. And just like “China Syndrome” it was an incendiary attack on Japan’s nuclear power program. As the title suggests, it’s an interpretation of T. Rex’s classic “Children of the Revolution,” with new lyrics lambasting nuclear energy.

I’m no going to get into the pros and cons on nuclear energy here. I got conflicting feelings about it. But I’m sure as hell not going to debate with a Japanese anti-nuclear activist about it – I feel like their views on radiation are a bit more valid and worthy of attention than mine.

I will comment on this song though, it’s fucking rad. It’s basically “Children of the Revolution” re-recorded with really angry lyrics. Get down with that.

T. Rex
Megarex 2
And it got my in the mood to listen to more T. Rex. You know who was dope? T. Rex.

I bought a strange T. Rex remix album in 2017 called, predictably T. Remixes. It got a lot of shit from hardcore T. Rex fans, who saw it as a shameless cash-in. Yeah, they were probably right about that, but it was a pretty good shameless cash-in. Most modern remixes of classic tracks suck, because they try too damn hard to rework the tunes into EDM club bangers. But that album features remixes in the more classic sense of the term, reworkings that are focused more on creative interpretation of the source material than making a track that’ll light up a dance floor.

Anyways, it wasn’t even the first time that T. Rex got the remix treatment. In the mid-80s, two “Megarex” megamixes were issued on vinyl and CD. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it was an anniversary of some T. Rex event. Maybe it was a shameless cash-in. Maybe it was both. Regardless, just like T. Remixes, it’s not bad, especially as megamixes go. The Japanese version of the second mix, which is the one I have, also had a really rad cover. Check out that cover. See, it’s rad.

Sorry for the rather random and poorly researched post tonight. It’s just been a while since my last post and I wanted to get something out. I actually have something a bit more ambitious planned later this week. Of course, like my massive Steve Hillage post, it features an artist that literally almost no one cares about. Hopefully that literally almost no one and the literally almost no one who reads my blog have an overlap! In the meantime, merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and happy Monday to everyone else.

 

 

 

Posted in remixes, T Rex, Tycoon To$h | 1 Comment »

Pop Rock by Pot Pixies

December 13th, 2018

Steve Hillage
Alone (Extended Version)
Kamikaze Eyes (Extended Version)
Timelines
Before The World Was Made

Steve Hillage is a guitarist whose work has spanned over 50 years, but I hadn’t heard of him until this year – when I stumbled upon his work in one of the most backwards ways possible.

Earlier in the year I was in a record store in Kichijoji when I happened upon this. The album is by Daevid Allen, and it’s called Divided Alien Playbax 80. I knew nothing about it when I saw it, but I was immediately attracted to the cover. It had a crazy vaporwave vibe to it, despite the fact that it came out in 1982. I gave it a quick listen, decided that it was properly weird, and at 400 yen (about four bucks) I decided to pick it up.

 

Unfamiliar with Allen when I bought the album, I learned that it’s a remix album of a prior release by Allen’s previous group, New York Gong. That group would breakup after it’s sole 1980 album, but the group (sans Allen) would continue as the influential no-wave dance outfit Material. Turns out I accidentally bought an album with Bill Laswell on it (that happens a lot). New York Gong, as its name would suggest, was a New York offshoot of Allen’s original group, Gong.

From there, I decided to give Gong a shot and ,long story short, several months and I don’t know how many albums later, I have become obsessed with the group. They’re utterly mad, an the most obvious example of “music made on drugs to take drugs to” that has ever been committed to wax. Not too soon after discovering the wonderful world of the flying teapot (look it up) I started to seek out solo albums by members of the group, starting with Allen and then moving onto Hillage.

Allen’s solo work is…something else. Sometimes great, but often a bit too insane for my tastes. But Hillage turned out to be right up my alley. Much of his stuff is spacey drugged out insanity for hippies, no doubt about it, but he shows a bit more restraint than his fellow Gongers. His songs sound like actual songs, and not dug-induced hallucinations set to something that kind of resembles music. I’ve bought nearly his entire solo discography now, and can recommend all of it without reservation, he has something for everyone. If you like spaced-out Hawkwind-style guitar work, then you can’t go wrong with his amazing debut Fish Rising, or it’s excellent follow-up L. But I really think Hillage came into his own with his 1978 record, Motivation Radio, where he expands his sound to include even more electronic effects and influences.  He continued on with that sound for his next release, Green, which I’ve learned most people cite as pinnacle of the man’s 70s work. However, I actually prefer his 1979 follow-up Open, it’s eclectic as hell, and I feel it’s a perfect amalgamation of guitar-driven prog rock and the synth-pop sound that would define the following decade.

As a solo artist though, Hillage would only release one more proper studio album, 1982’s For To Next. I don’t know how his fans responded to it at the time, but I can’t imagine that many of them liked it. While his previous work always straddled the line between pop and the avant-garde, between progressive rock and synth-pop, this album didn’t just jump over into the pop spectrum, it pole vaulted. Hillage’s amazing spacey guitar sound is still there, but as part as synthesizer-heavy pop numbers, many of which could be mistaken for Gary Numan tracks. It goes to show that Genesis and Yes weren’t the only prog acts looking to synthpop to reinvent themselves in the 80s, that’s for sure.

As much as I like For To Next, I do think that’s its probably Hillage’s weakest effort next to his purely ambient 1979 Rainbow Dome Musick, which is too mellow even more my Tangerine Dream-loving ass. It’s simultaneously not synth-pop enough and not prog enough. I feel like he had to move more in one direction. Either embrace his proggy side, or dive head first into pop ala Inivisible Touch.

 

After working mostly as a producer in the 80s, he’s since committed himself solely to electronic music. Today, he releases music as System 7, alongside his partner Monique Giraudy. They have a prog rock side to them, but they’re much more ambient than anything else. Think The Orb. I sadly don’t have much by them yet, but I’m still listening to his solo stuff so much I’m in no hurry.

Anyways, I’ve blathered on for nearly 800 words without even mentioning the songs I’m sharing tonight! These four numbers come from 12″ singles taken from the For To Next album. The original versions of “Alone” and “Kamikaze Eyes” are on the album proper, while the other tracks are B-sides. “Alone” has a good riff, but it’s the weaker of the two. “Kamikaze Eyes” is a banger of a track, I hope it was the lead single for the album, it’s by far the best number on it. Catchy as hell, good beat, good guitar solo, good lyrics. Great all around. Definitely should’ve been at least a minor hit.

Both “Timelines” and “Before The World Was Made” are instrumentals, and good ones at that. Again, while For To Next isn’t the best album, I really wish Hillage would’ve experimented more with this style, he could’ve had something.

Anyways, if you’ve read all of this (congrats) and you want to know a good starting off point for Hillage’s solo stuff, I say you can’t go wrong with L, Green, Open or Motivation Radio (Fish Rising is good too, but a little rougher around the edges). Also, his Live Herald and Dusseldorf live albums are good starting points too, as they both feature a lot of his best work. He was also a member of the group Khan, and their sole offering, 1972’s Space Shanty, is some good prog-ass prog if that’s your scene.

And if you’re thinking about getting into Gong, well, that’s a bit trickier. I’d say either start with You or Flying Teapot. If either of those albums don’t drive you insane, then you’ll probably dig the other stuff by Gong proper. Be warned there are two Gongs. When the band broke up, it was reborn as Pierre Moerlen’s Gong and they are way more jazz fusion than prog. Seriously. You’ve been warned.

Posted in B-sides, Gong, remixes, Steve Hillage | 7 Comments »

Five songs by the greatest band in history

November 30th, 2018

Foxy Shazam
Born To The Devil
Sky In A Room
Drain You
I’ll Be Home Soon Mother Earth
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
If you’re reading this close to its original “publication,” then you still have a chance to own one of the greatest albums of all-time on vinyl for the first time. Enjoy The Ride records recently released Foxy Shazam’s self-titled album (their third overall and their major label debut) on vinyl. While the colored variant has sold out, some copies of the equally-limited standard black vinyl variation remain.

I really, really (really really really really….really) cannot express in words just how great that album is. When I reviewed that album in 2010 I thought “this will probably be the best album of the decade.” Now, here we are, nearly nine years later, and I’m still standing by that. And here we are, nearly nine years later, and I still can’t find the words to properly describe it. I think the best I came up with at the time was something like “one part screamo, one part Queen, and one part a kick in the genitals.” I guess that’s still the best I can do. But if you don’t like screamo (I sure as hell don’t) still give them a chance. By the time of their third album, that element of the group had definitely been put on the backburner. It was still there, that’s for sure, but the glam and classic rock influences had more than taken over.

Of course, as their self-titled album is in-print (and I’m actively encouraging you to buy it) I can’t share tracks from that. Instead, above are a few of my favorite Foxy rarities, taken from various sources. The first two numbers, “Born To The Devil” and “Sky In A Room” a bonus tracks to the Japanese edition of their second album, the oddly-titled Introducing. “Born To The Devil” sounds a lot like the other tracks on that (awesome) album, a bizarre combination of howling and yelling with a strong piano base, whilst “Sky In A Room” is a solo instrumental number by the keyboardist Sky. Low-key and pretty.

Their bewildering cover of “Drain You” is taken from a 2011 online-only Nevermind tribute album, put out by Spin Magazine. That album is not very good. It has Amanda Palmer butchering “Polly” as only she can, and other ill-advised reworkings of Nirvana classics. Midnight Juggernauts are a good band. Their electropop cover of “Come As You Are” is bad. The only solid tracks on it are The Vaselines’ cover of “Lithium,” EMA’s take on “Endless, Nameless” and this insane reworking of “Drain You” by Foxy, which all but deconstructs the song entirely into something else. If you’re coming to this hoping for a faithful rendition of the Nirvana song, you’ll be let down. But if you’ve ever wondered what Nevemind-era Nirvana would sound like as if sung by Freddie Mercury and with a horn section, then hey, this cover’s got you covered.

The final two tracks are, at least from what I can gather, vinyl only B-sides. “I’ll Be Home…” serving as the B-side to “I Like It,” and “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” the B-side to “Oh Lord.”

“I’ll Be Home Soon Mother Earth” finds Foxy in full classic rock mode. If you told me this was a track by some long-forgotten 70s has-been act that was oddly proto-screamo I’d believe you. It’s a good number, but it pales in comparison to “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” which I still think is secretly Foxy’s best damn song. How the hell this ended up as a vinyl-only B-side will forever remain a mystery to me. Not only should this have been on the album proper, it should’ve have been the lead fucking single. This track is a distillation of everything that made Foxy the powerhouse they were. Amazing vocals as always by Eric, fantastic work on the keys by Sky, a boundless energy that demands you get up on your feet, and absolutely incredible lyrics of self-reflection that rival Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” Fuck. This song kills me. If Foxy reformed tomorrow and released this track as the lead-off single, I bet it would chart better than any of their other tunes.

So, if you like anything I’m sharing here tonight, I implore you, with all my heat, buy Foxy Shazam. Buy it on vinyl if you can, but hell, pick it up on iTunes or even on CD if you want. It’s best album by the best band of all-time. And keep on the lookout for Eric Sean Nally’s solo album! He keeps alleging it’ll come soon. I hope it does. Dude made Macklemore sound cool, he can do anything.

 

Posted in Foxy Shazam is the motherfucking real deal | 1 Comment »

Stupid band names and stupid business

November 19th, 2018

Magic Marmalade
America (America Tribute Mix)
America (Hot Chill Mix)
This song consists of basically four elements:
1. A vocal sample from “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”
2. A chorus shouting “go go up the road again”
3. A dude in a heavy German accent scowling “AMERICA!”
4. What sounds like someone having s seizure on synthesizer

And repeat.

So what I’m saying is, it’s pretty good. Strange how a dude yelling “America!” following by a vaguely menacing melody works as a shorthand to describe how I feel about the state of the union in 2018. Funny or sad. Whatever.

I guess I should talk about Magic Marmalade (sigh…that name) but I really don’t know who they are. Discogs’ profile for the group is literally nothing more than “Italian project.” That’s it. Dudes don’t even get a “An.” The four Italians in the group are unknown to me, but I’m sure if I put forth the effort I could Kevin Bacon at least one of them to a Goblin offshoot in less than five steps. From what I can gather, they never put out an actual record, just a series of singles followed by a compilation. If there are any Magic Marmalade (god…that fucking name) superfans out there and you wanna share a deep cut, let me know in the comments. And if anyone from Magic Marmalade (….) is reading this, let me know what the fuck is up with your name. Cuz damn.

 

John Carpenter
The End (J. Anthony Scratch Mix)
Okay, I’m going to use this opportunity to rant about something only tangentally related to this song. I apologize. Okay, not really, it’s my blog after all and no one is forcing you to read it.

The new Halloween movie came out a few weeks ago, any of y’all see it? Was it good? I heard it was good. I, being a die-hard Halloween fan who even owns the one with Busta Rhymes, really wanted to see it. Only one problem, it never came out in theaters here in Japan. Why? No fucking clue. No one knows. My boyfriend even did a bit of digging in Japanese and couldn’t find anything aside from angry Japanese fans wondering the same thing.

Now, you may be thinking “hey, that’s just how international release dates are.” And you’d be right, if it was 1978. It’s 2018. Shit’s changed. Halloween was nearly simultaneously released in about 40 countries. Forty! You know who got to see Halloween the week of Halloween? The Ukrraine! Sri Lanka! Poland! Kuwait! Turkey! Kazakhstan! What the fuck? You’re telling me that the studio had time to negotiate a release and subtitle the movie in…whatever they speak there (sorry) but not do the same in Japan?

Japan isn’t getting the movie until April. What the fuck they gonna do, rename it Easter and play up the whole resurrection angle?

One thing that I’ve really started to notice ever since I moved overseas is that media companies are woefully behind when it comes to adapting their product and sales strategies for an increasingly shrinking/international audience. They create these artificial restrictions and releases for reasons that no doubt make sense to them, probably financial ones. But they fail to realize that the people who really want to see the movie/TV show/whatever that’s being locked away for whatever-the-fuck reason sure as hell are going to find a way to watch it. Legal or not. And all that means is less money for them.

When MST3K announced a new season, I was hella stoked. I didn’t back the Kickstarter, but I figured I’d be able to watch it easily when it came out, especially when Netflix announced that they picked the show up. To this day, the show has never shown up on Netflix here in Japan. And sure, I get that it would probably be hard to translate to a Japanese audience, but they could’ve just put it up as is, with a disclaimer. It’s not like doing that is going to piss anyone off. I wanted to watch it, so I just fucking stole it. Fuck them. I pay for their fucking service. Why the hell should I feel bad when they withhold their own product from me without giving me any option to view it legally. I stole that shit guilt free. And if they do the same with season two I’ll probably swipe that too.

America is probably already facing a brain drain, if not, it will soon. As more and more Americans immigrate abroad to escape dire political oppression/climate hell, they’re still going to want to consume their favorite media once they settle down in their new home. And if they can’t pay to get what they want. They’ll just steal it. Why the fuck shouldn’t they?

Anyways, “The End” is the theme to Carpenter’s classic Assault On Prescient 13. It was kind of a club hit back in the day, no doubt due to its electro sound that made it well-suited for breakdancing. I had never heard this particiular version though, which I found off of an oddly-named 12″ single that featured it, and a terrible track called “Waiting For A Train” by an act called Moonbase as the B-side. I’m not sharing that because it’s really bad. Seriously. I know I share a lot of “bad” music but even I have my limits. And considering I watched Cannonball Run and Congo this weekend, that’s really saying something.

 

Posted in John Carpenter, Magic Marmalade, remixes | No Comments »

Woke MJ

November 15th, 2018


Michael Jackson
Black Or White (The Clivilles & Cole House/Club Mix)
Black Or White (The Clivilles & Cole House/Dub Mix)
Black Or White (The Underground Club Mix)
Black Or White (House With Guitar Radio Mix)
Black Or White (Tribal Beats)
Earth Song (Han’s Radio Experience)
Earth Song (Han’s Around The World Experience)
As much as I lament the lack of protest music in the year 2018, I think the lack of message songs, even ones without an overt political viewpoint, is even worse. Save for the occasional track about suicide, we just don’t get many songs that cover social issues these days. Sure, “We Are The World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” might not be very good, but at least they were trying to raise awareness and support for a serious problem. Where are the songs about civil rights, workers’ rights, the shrinking middle class, the opiod crisis, and so on?

If anyone under the age of 25 is reading this, they might think it’s silly of me to even ask that. But there are plenty of amazing songs that tackle such topics. There’s the entirety of Bruce Springsteen’s back catalog, for starters, not to mention songs from artists as diverse as Phil Collins (“Another Day In Paradise”), Nena (“99 Luftballoons”), Ultravox (“All Fall Down”), and even Frankie Goes To Hollywood (“Two Tribes.”)

Of course, it’s not entirely fair of me to say that artists aren’t making socially-conscious music. They are, it’s just that people aren’t listening to it all that much. Billboard made a list of their favorite protest songs of last year, and the overwhelming majority of those tracks were not hits, save for the Pink song and Jay-Z’s amazing “The Story of OJ.” But it’s hard to say if people don’t want these songs, or of the outlets covering music/the radio aren’t trying hard enough to get these songs out there. Chicken and the egg. I still think that if the song is good enough, or if the artist is big enough, the message can get out there. That’s why it’s a shame that artists like Bruno Mars, Imagine Dragons, and Taylor Swift are fucking up and skirting their responsibilities as some of the biggest artists in the world.

Michael Jackson knew he had the world’s ear, and that’s why he wrote songs like “Man In The Mirror” as these two tracks that I’m featuring tonight. When you’re the biggest star on Earth, you can turn a cry for social justice into a Top 10 single if you try hard enough. “Black Or White” was considered cheesy by some even at the time, but I’m never going to mock a message of peace and racial harmony. It’s a simple song, that’s for sure, ignoring the broader social issues that led to racial divides, but hey, it was a different time. This came out after the Rodney King beating (but before the riots), there were a lot of calls for racial harmony at the time. We were still a decade or so away from more people addressing the larger issues that were keeping that from being a reality. Gotta start somewhere.

“Earth Song” is, duh, a song about the environment, a topic that is crazily barely ever talked about in the media, let alone music, these days. That’s insanity. Literal insanity. The environment should be the number one issue on all of our minds at all times. The world is on the brink of an environmental collapse. Like soon, like, within most of our lifetimes. But you really have to dig deep in the media to even find mention of this, and it’s 100% absent in our pop culture. The pop stars of 2018 could actually help raise awareness about this dire issue. But they aren’t even trying. The world as we know it could end relatively soon. You think someone out there would try to right a fucking song about it.

Can a song literally save the world? I don’t know. But it could at least try.

Posted in Michael Jackson, remixes | 1 Comment »

If Prince really knew about The Future he would’ve warned us

November 4th, 2018

The world ended in 1990.

Prince
The Future (Remix)
Electric Chair (Remix)

These tracks are new to me. The original versions first appeared on the Batman soundtrack, which I still haven’t bothered to pick up, one of the more embarrassing Prince-sized holes in my record collection. I found this single for just a couple hundred yen so I figured why the fuck not.

As I’ve never heard the original versions, I can’t compare these remixes to them. If what I’ve read is any indication though, the mixes are pretty different from the album versions, especially “The Future” which is transformed into a straight-up house track thanks to the remix work of William Orbit. Geez, remember that five minutes when he was the hot shit producer? He did some great stuff with Madonna, but I don’t think his work has aged particularly well, especially his solo stuff. Although to be honest, I think a lot of it wasn’t all that great the first time around. I had a friend who kept a copy of one of his albums for years, specifically because there was a song on it that she thought was so bad that it was hilarious. That’s some cold shit.

Anyways, yeah, Prince. He was cool. Fuck. I sure miss Prince. I was just getting back into his music when he died. Yo, Plectrumelectrum is a damn good record. I really recommend it, especially if you dig this remix of “The Electric Chair,” it really reminds me of that album’s groovy guitar funk. I hope Donna Grantis, the guitar player on that album, goes on to do some more work soon. She fucking slays man.

As much as I dig Prince, I remember that Batman was one of the first times I wasn’t 100% up with what he was putting down. I didn’t really dig the Batman movies as a kid all that much, I guess. I mean, I liked them. But they were a little too dark for my tastes. God, if 10-year-old 1990 me thought that Tim Burton’s Batman was too dark, he probably would’ve pissed his pants and crawled into a fetal position if he had seen any of the Dark Knight movies. Burton’s Batman movies are absolutely day-glo happy fun times compared to those flicks, which I have kind of grown to despise because of their grimdark bullshit wankery And even my 10-year-old self could tell that Prince schilling for Batman wasn’t exactly cool. “Batdance” is a stupid, stupid fucking song. And the video is just as dumb. Holy hell, speaking of shit that didn’t age well.

Come to think of it, Batman kicked off my cold spell on Prince. While I dug “Gett Off” (not understanding what it was about) I didn’t like most of the other tracks off of Diamonds And Pearls, and when Prince went full symbol on us all I (along with most people) dropped off completely. Coming back to a lot of those albums now, I really do enjoy them. But I think they would’ve bored grunge-era teenage me to death. Best I avoided them at the time.

Whilst I was complaining that the Michael Jackson estate hasn’t given the fans what the want, the Prince estate seems to slowly getting their shit together. Did you know that earlier this year they put TWENTY-THREE out-of-print Prince albums on iTunes and various streaming services? Yeah, sure a lot of them aren’t exactly great (although Emancipation is fucking rad as fuck) but hey, at least they’re out there now. Prince’s estate even curated a special digital only best of that encompasses his 1995-2010 work, which has historically been very hard to dive into thanks to its eclectic nature. My next vacation I’m going to have to buy all of this and just spend a week in Prince World.

Prince World is great, everyone. It’s all purple (duh) and all the clothes are custom-made to fit out that day, just as Prince would’ve wanted. And absolutely nothing is on high shelves.

Because Prince was tiny.

Posted in Prince, remixes | 3 Comments »

Annie’s not okay, and neither am I – Smooth Criminal Remixes

November 3rd, 2018

Last time I posted Madonna. Let’s stay in the 80s for a while longer. It’s safer here.

Michael Jackson
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix Radio Edit)
Smooth Criminal (”Annie” Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Dance Mix – Dub Version)
Smooth Criminal (A Cappella)
I originally posted these nearly a decade ago but if you somehow were reading then and you’re still reading now, well firstly, thanks for not bailing on me like 90% of my audience did. Secondly, you should probably download these versions now. Those old ones were ripped from a scratchy record on a subpar turntable. These are fresh new CD rips, taken from a Japanese single that I scored last week, during the same trip that got me the previously featured Madonna single.

I’ve bought this on vinyl at least twice, and both sounded like shit in the exact same way, even with nearly identical scratches! I can only imagine there was some kind of problem with the original pressing. I’ve had that happen with other singles in the past. No matter how many times I buy “Right By My Side” by the Eurythmics, for example, I have the same problem.

Anyways, that’s a problem no more thanks to the wonders of digital music. CDs are underrated! Seriously! This vinyl boom is getting ridiculous. Why you wanna buy music on vinyl? What’s the point?

I know that sounds funny coming from me, proprietor of Lost Turntable, but I’ve long said that the main reason I got into vinyl wasn’t out of nostalgia, but because a lot of what I buy just isn’t easily available on CD or digitally. Of course, that was much truer when I started this blog 12 years ago than it is now. Truth be told, I buy a hell of a lot more CDs these days. And the vastness of iTunes digital library has literally saved me hundreds of dollars on formerly out-of-print CDs and LPs. Did you know that Prince’s Crystal Ball is on iTunes now?! Thirty songs for twenty bucks! You know how much that fucker goes for on CD? More than twenty bucks, I’ll tell you what.

But these remixes still aren’t on iTunes. Hell, most MJ remixes remain insanely out-of-print. A decision that is just utterly baffling. It’s not like the demand isn’t there. Why they hell are they sitting on these? Are they waiting for another anniversary so they can re-sell us all Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous again? I mean, I’ll buy them, I don’t mind. Assuming the remixes are included and sound good.

“Smooth Criminal” is the best shit. A while back Todd In The Shadows did a hilarious video profiling Alien Ant Farm and their cover of the track. In that video, he posits that, as dopey as that cover is, it helped cement “Smooth Criminal” in the popular lexicon as one of Michael Jackson’s best. He might be right, it certainly gave it a boost. But to me it’s always been one of his best, if not his absolute best, track. Everything about “Smooth Criminal” is just as on-point now as it was all those years ago. Top-notch production, dope AF bassline, and, of course, some of the best vocals that Michael ever graced the world with.

And of course, there’s the video another of MJ’s best. And definitely an early inspiration for my…*ahem*…interest in men in suits. That video just gives me the vapors I say.

All of these remixes are ass-kickular fan-fucking-tastic. Even the dub, which is really just a pure instrumental, is killer. It lets you hear just how dope that bass is. And the “A Cappella,” whilst not really an a cappella mix (it still has the drum beat), serves as an absolutely stellar showcase of MJ’s amazing voice. You put this shit on at a club and people would dance to it. You don’t even need that bassline (dope as it is).

More MJ soon. And some Prince too. Fuck it. Let us worship our fallen 80’s idols so they may be resurrected and save us from our accursed reality.

Posted in Michael Jackson, remixes | 2 Comments »

Madonna’s Hot Seven Inch Record

November 2nd, 2018

Madonna
Burning Up (Japanese 7″ Mix)
Physical Attraction (Japanese 7″ Mix)
This is really why I moved to Japan. Okay, not really, but I’d be lying if “finding Japanese only remixes” wasn’t in my top ten.

Of all Madonna’s early singles, “Burning Up” has the most convoluted release history. The song was originally released in the states as a 12″ single in March of 1983. That version is a 12″ remix, about six minutes long. The album came out a few month later, and featured a 4:48 version that is similar to the 12″ remix. But at some point, there was a switch, and the album version was replaced with a different version that’s 3:45 long and sounds drastically different, with different synthesizer and guitar parts.

But in addition to those versions, there’s also at least one 7″ single version. While America never got a 7″ single for “Burning Up,” other countries did. It’s nearly the same length as the replacement album version, and is actually an edited version of the 12″ single version.

I don’t know how many different 7″ edits/versions there are. According to some, the Japanese single is different than the European one. I have no idea one way or the other, as the Japanese version is the only one I have. I would hazard to say that if there are any differences between the Japanese version and 7″ versions found elsewhere, they’re probably minor.

The story of “Physical Attraction” is a lot more simple. It served as a B-side to the original US 12″ single, but that version was just the album version with no changes. This version is a 7″ version that was exclusive to 7″ singles. Neither of these versions have been made widely available since, save for a massive 40 CD singles collection that came out in Japan a few years back. So finding this single for less than ten bucks was a pretty good score for me.

I almost went an entire calendar year without posting a Madonna remix! Thank god we were able to avoid that.

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 1 Comment »

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