Best 12" Versions

[DrGreggles]

Been making a playlist of 12" versions.
The late 70s/early 80s is a particular goldmine.

What are your favourites folks?

[Better Midlands]

I'm a bit fan of early to miss 80s 12" versions, especially tracks with big drum machines

I'll start with A Flock Of Seagulls - The More I Live

https://youtu.be/Xb3QOHSYCaM

Couple of Rolling Stones dubs

Undercover Of The Night

https://youtu.be/KjXsQtZwP4A

Too Much Blood

https://youtu.be/GTBTVw6SQ9Y

[BJBMK2]

The 12" versions of Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3), and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.

[Better Midlands]

Flying Lizards - Money goes into an excellent dub reggae groove at the end

https://youtu.be/e_ld0WWvQ4o

[Better Midlands]

The 12" versions of Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3), and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.

Spasticus Autisticus has an amazing dub version

https://youtu.be/MIGeKS3IZqc

[Brundle-Fly]

Madness - Wings Of A Dove 12" Blue Train Mix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MM9_ejIcDE&frags=pl%2Cwn

[BJBMK2]

Spasticus Autisticus has an amazing dub version

https://youtu.be/MIGeKS3IZqc

I'd never heard that. It's brilliant, a new ear worm for the evening.

[Brundle-Fly]

I'd never heard that. It's brilliant, a new ear worm for the evening.

I used to love DJing this Dury sampling 12"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndzHrqKLkis

[Porter Dimi]

Cassiano - Onda https://youtu.be/_T_U_v8fV4M

[Sebastian Cobb]

Everything Counts

[buzby]

Ignoring the obvious choice of Blue Monday, New Order had many singles that fit into this category.

Temptation in it's original 12" form. It was the first single produced by the band themselves. Presumably they weren't happy with it though as the version they included on Substance was a re-recording of how the played it live in 1987 which sounds more polished but loses a lot of the charm of the slightly ramshackle original version.

The Perfect Kiss, in it's full 9-minute glory (cut in half for Low Life, and the version on Substance had a minute lopped off due to CD running time constraints).

From the mid 80s onwards it was common for them to put a 'dub' instrumental remix on the B side of their 12" singles (Blue Monday's B side, The Beach was the fist one, but the run really started with The Perfect Kiss, which got 2 - The Kiss Of Death and Perfect Pit. One of the better ones was True Dub, on the B-side of the True Faith Remix 12" (produced by Shep Pettibone, who also did many remixes for DM and PSBs).

By the time of Technique, the singles had got proper B sides again, but each A side was getting multiple remixes across multiple formats and it was all getting a bit much. However, the Round & Remix 12" did include the Round & Round Club Mix (by Ben Grosse & Kevin Saunderson) and the John Denver lawsuit-inducing 12"-only limited release for Run 2 included the Minus Mix of the B-side MTO (an unfinished house-style track from the Technique sessions) by Chicago House DJ Mike 'Hitman' Wilson that throws samples of loads of other New Order tracks in there and morphs into a nice acid groove at the end.

By the time of Republic the B-sides had largely been replaced (mostly because the band were barely talking to each other during the recording sessions) by even more remixes across multiple formats. The only memorable one from that era for me is the Ambient Mix of Ruined In A Day by Booga Bear (Cameron McVey, Neneh Cherry's husband and producer)

[Brundle-Fly]

Early 80s fusion pop

The Heavens Are Crying 12" - Blue Rondo A'La Turk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf4FrlKEXAA

Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag 12" - Pigbag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYYT15C42Oc&frags=pl%2Cwn

[gib]

Move On Up

edit: goes a bit proto-DnB 4 minutes in then so mellow https://youtu.be/6Z66wVo7uNw?t=238

[Sebastian Cobb]

Perfect Kiss is a banger.

[studpuppet]

"My name's Ped"
"My name's Mark"
"My name's Nash"
"Mine is the last voice you will ever hear..."

[buzby]

"My name's Ped"
"My name's Mark"
"My name's Nash"
"Mine is the last voice you will ever hear..."

On the FGTH nore, despite not being part of their first album imperial phase, I was always a fan of the tongue in cheek Young Person's Guide to The Twelve Inch mix of Rage Hard, with Pamela Stephenson narrating.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've got a 12" copy of Art of Noise's Peter Gunn it's a great record, but it sounds all digital and clinical like early cd releases do. My dad has the same track on his Invisible Silence CD yet the vinyl version does have a depth that grabs you by the balls by comparison despite sounding a bit clinical.

[buzby]

I've got a 12" copy of Art of Noise's Peter Gunn it's a great record, but it sounds all digital and clinical like early cd releases do. My dad has the same track on his Invisible Silence CD yet the vinyl version does have a depth that grabs you by the balls by comparison despite sounding a bit clinical.

It's a product of a Fairlight, so it's always going to sound digital. The difference between the sound of the CD and 12" is probably mostly due to the skill of the mastering engineer when single was being cut.

[Pauline Walnuts]

"My name's Ped"
"My name's Mark"
"My name's Nash"
"Mine is the last voice you will ever hear..."

Nahw mate, this is the one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFXBiqrG75g

Arguably. Hey, make up your own mind.

[Norton Canes]

This article by Pete Paphides pretty much precisely sums up my attitudes to certain 12" versions

The Folly of the 12" Pop Remix

Especially the bit at the start about extended versions of songs sounding disconcertingly unfamiliar. Except for me it was the other way around. I collected loads of Depeche Mode and Erasure 12" singles but none of the 7" singles. Obviously I was familiar with the 7" versions of the A-sides from radio and album play but I hardly ever heard the cut-down (or un-extended) versions of non-album B-sides; so now, when I play the 7" version of (plucks random example) 'Please Little Treasure' - the flipside of 'Never Let Me Down Again' - it momentarily puzzles me that it goes straight into the guitars and beats instead of opening vocals. The same with 'In Your Memory', the (far superior) track found on the reverse of 'People Are People' - the intro's all wrong!

Anyway, the only respect in which I diverge from Mr Paphides' current preference is that it still makes perfect sense to me that if there's a record I like, why wouldn't I want more of it?

[studpuppet]

Arguably. Hey, make up your own mind.

Oh aye yeah, well 'ard.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Oh aye yeah, well 'ard.

You might pronounce me guilty a thousand times over...

And we all know the best mix was the banned Hibakusha mix, so hard they had to ban it, even the title is filthy in Japanese, and you know what they're like I've got a copy I got of my uncle who works for a big record company who got it out of the fire when they burning them for being too good. But no you can't see or hear it. [/school yard banter]

[gilbertharding]

Couple of Rolling Stones dubs

Undercover Of The Night

https://youtu.be/KjXsQtZwP4A

Too Much Blood

https://youtu.be/GTBTVw6SQ9Y

Talking about the unfamiliarity of the 'short' version - the only version of Miss You I knew was the 12" version - but I lost that one (red vinyl and all) and had to make do for ages with the album version - at least until the invention of the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw8xwvKfRFE

The 'Radio Edit' version of Reverence by the Jesus and Mary Chain was a 12" only extra track, and it kicks quite a bit more arse than the normal version. At least I remember thinking so at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ZgurQ7LhE

And typing this made me remember Lazarus by the Boo Radleys. The internet hasn't helped (although there are plenty of versions of the song on youtube), but I remember loving this when it was a 12" single, several months before Giant Steps came out... and being oddly underwhelmed by the song in its new context. Several months after that I leapt at the chance to get a 12" of remixes of the song, and found myself disappointed anew.

[Nowhere Man]

I'll give a big shout out to Prince, in particular the "12" version of Erotic City.

the last part of Little Red Corvette's Dance mix has a great bass sound that harks back to Let's Work (another great "12" extended track"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB3h4zgK51U&feature=youtu.be&t=5m16s

and Let's Go Crazy, never sounds complete to me unless it's the full extended mix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIxdWmcj8XM

Oh god, She's Always In My Hair!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pHwMkqcYL0

I'm just thinking of the top of my head and from quite a narrow period, but his whole 80s period is littered with great extended mixes of his classic singles. Just check out the long version of Mountains.

[Lemming]

Bumping this to report that the 12" mix of Relax is really awesome, and I think I'd somehow managed to avoid hearing it before recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFLBIamw7SE

As a bonus, here's the extended version of Getting Away With It by Electronic, which I hadn't heard before either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvoNEMJC6-U

Now here's the flipside. I've been listening to the 12" versions of songs off Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night, and they're fucking bad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdTSJ0-hGMk

Little Lies with a cool new vocal bit by Stevie near the end, but also a completely awful dance freakout. Best part is 2:55, where they just repeat the word "lies" and shift the pitch around for no fucking reason.

Here's Big Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJh72NlHlmc
They got Stevie to do a new bit that's not in the original again, but... just go to 3:30 and listen. What the fucking hell were they thinking. I mean, I love it, but that's fucking shit.

[Golden E. Pump]

I'll give a big shout out to Prince, in particular the "12" version of Erotic City.

the last part of Little Red Corvette's Dance mix has a great bass sound that harks back to Let's Work (another great "12" extended track"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB3h4zgK51U&feature=youtu.be&t=5m16s

and Let's Go Crazy, never sounds complete to me unless it's the full extended mix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIxdWmcj8XM

Oh god, She's Always In My Hair!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pHwMkqcYL0

I'm just thinking of the top of my head and from quite a narrow period, but his whole 80s period is littered with great extended mixes of his classic singles. Just check out the long version of Mountains.

Nowhere Man, doing my job there! I was coming here to say 'Mountains'. 'I Wish U Heaven (Parts 1, 2 & 3)' is another belter of a 12", and 'America' too, clocking in at 22 minutes!

[Lordofthefiles]

Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat

https://youtu.be/huavJMGUbiI

Great build up.

[Huxleys Babkins]

If anyone wants a random dip into some 12" awesomeness, I'd recommend any of Ben Liebrand's Grand 12-Inches compilations.

http://www.liebrand.nl/grand12/index.html

I have up to vol. 5, I didn't realise he'd kept going and was up to vol. 16.

Some of them are his own remixes and edits which are really good. He's got a 17(!) minute version of Love Can't Turn around on vol. 4 which somehow manages to not outstay its welcome and a version of Yazoo's Don't Go on vol. 2 which is literally the single and the dub stuck end to end but it works really well.

[Endicott]

Colourbox's cover of Jacob Miller / King Tubby Baby I Love You So


Simple Minds Speed Your Love To Me

[mojo filters]

Ex-Spaceman Sonic Boom's 16 minute remix of Magnétophone's "Benny's Sobriety", sadly quite hard to hear unless you have the original one-sided "Benny's Trip" pink vinyl. Probably the best remix Pete Kember's ever done too!