Both from Japan:
Favourite CD maxi singles
- Thread starter torontodj
- Start date
he/him
Bumping this because recently I've been tracking down maxi-singles I had purchased digitally on iTunes back in the days of DRM and it's unlocked a deep-seated annoyance: anyone else remember that period between 2005 and 2006 when digital maxi-single releases from I believe almost exclusively Warner Bros. Records artists would have the remixes (and in some cases B-sides) all edited to be either exactly or just under five minutes long? What the hell was that about and what purpose did it even serve? I doubt locals were going to have been so buoyed by Hung Up's chart success that they needed to hunt down a five minute edit of the Chus & Ceballos mix.
What's worse is that in some cases - Esthero's O.G. Bitch and Fastlane singles come to mind - not even every remix on the commercial physical single got included. There wasn't really any rhyme or reason to it at all!
What's worse is that in some cases - Esthero's O.G. Bitch and Fastlane singles come to mind - not even every remix on the commercial physical single got included. There wasn't really any rhyme or reason to it at all!
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Girls Aloud was the only one girlgroup to have mastered the art of releasing maxi singles, or Fascination it was.
Except for the final era and the reunion where they switched to the 7” route, almost every singles have a maxi CD that comes with tons of goodies. Name any other girlgroup that would put karaoke videos & games (?) in their physical releases.
But to be on the topic: Girls Aloud - Call the Shots - the one that has Blow Your Cover.
Except for the final era and the reunion where they switched to the 7” route, almost every singles have a maxi CD that comes with tons of goodies. Name any other girlgroup that would put karaoke videos & games (?) in their physical releases.
But to be on the topic: Girls Aloud - Call the Shots - the one that has Blow Your Cover.
I don't know, but might have had something to do with the chart rules at the time. I think 2-track singles were only allowed to be 10 minutes long.
I thought I read something about this once, maybe Dannii Minogue was the artist. But her latter-career maxis were so long that they were ineligible for charts or something to that effect.
To do with the charts I think
This affected Pop! with Heaven and Earth - the 2 track was like 30 seconds too long so only the maxi cd was allowed to chart. Stupid!
OCC didn't notice though so it was only in the second week they disqualified the 2 track.
As ever, the industry got it all arse end up....sales were booming so they got themselves obsessed with making the chart how they wanted it....over-thinking the formats and forgetting that what in essence they were stupidly doing was denying the public the chance to buy music/tracks that they would have willingly paid for...and then a few years later...whoops, nobody was buying singles anymore.
That turned out well.
I am constantly scouring Discogs when something piques my interest - comparing CD and vinyl releases, hoping I’ll luck out and find the full mixes on CD. Australia often got unedited mixes and additional content - but prices can get insane compared to the more patchy UK versions.
Sadly the US started phasing out physical CD singles a lot earlier than the rest of the world and it’s true - the mid-2000s became so hit or miss. Side note - what’s so hard about labeling an edit as such?? UK releases suffered from this especially. At least some promos continued to offer full mixes.
I think my rant is about over... on the plus side, some labels are quietly releasing comprehensive digital remix packages for certain artists.... Angie Stone and LeAnn Rimes are two I’ve found recently.
Sadly the US started phasing out physical CD singles a lot earlier than the rest of the world and it’s true - the mid-2000s became so hit or miss. Side note - what’s so hard about labeling an edit as such?? UK releases suffered from this especially. At least some promos continued to offer full mixes.
I think my rant is about over... on the plus side, some labels are quietly releasing comprehensive digital remix packages for certain artists.... Angie Stone and LeAnn Rimes are two I’ve found recently.
Kind of on topic but I always wondered how they decided what remixes would be put onto the UK CD (maxi) release and what might be consigned to vinyl or promo, even if there would be space on the CD Single.
And then during the 20 minute era what the decisions were for deciding what would be on the European releases? Eg the European Hepburn singles weren’t just CD1 and 2 merged - they all missed out a track that was on one of the CDs (which is a bit annoying as Sony have been digitising these and this missed a couple of tracks).
And for some releases why so many remixes? Particularly of dubs of pop acts. For example would any club DJ have dropped a Jimmy Ray dub into their set?! I guess the default would have been the remixer done remix/ edit/ dub but it still baffles me!
And then during the 20 minute era what the decisions were for deciding what would be on the European releases? Eg the European Hepburn singles weren’t just CD1 and 2 merged - they all missed out a track that was on one of the CDs (which is a bit annoying as Sony have been digitising these and this missed a couple of tracks).
And for some releases why so many remixes? Particularly of dubs of pop acts. For example would any club DJ have dropped a Jimmy Ray dub into their set?! I guess the default would have been the remixer done remix/ edit/ dub but it still baffles me!
I loved finding all the Cappella import cds in shops when they were bursting with mixes where we had between 4 and 7.
Exhibit A.
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