Music night ramblings

Thursday night has been dedicated to music, no movies, no TV, just music, music videos, and concerts. It is, in other words, the highlight of my week.
Some form of alcohol is usually involved too.

Ask any music fan/collector what the highlights of the 80s were, and chances are you'll get two (linked) responses: picture discs, and 12" EPs. Picture discs came in 7" and 12"versions, 7" were usually the same tracklisting as the 7" single, whereas the 12" picture disc often differed slightly from the 12" EP tracklisting. The style of pressing the picture of the disc tended to ruin the sound quality, but eh, they looked great. I've got a reasonably complete set of Marillion 12" PDs (singles, not album PDs unfortunately), made superfluous by the single boxsets released recently, and the remastered CD series. But they still look great.
The remixes, or alternative versions on the 12" singles, different significantly from the radio single version, although in many cases were closer to the album version - particularly for the prog(ish) bands. Think of them as the precursor of the dance floor remixes. They often included different drum versions, or at least drums being more prominent in the mix, with extra keys (or keytars!!!) somewhere in there. I have fond memories of listening to an incredible variety of remixes of Falco's Rock Me Amadeus. Awesome stuff.

The death of the single (7" and 12") and the move to CDsingles, which have also died, killed the remixes. I think it's safe to say the main market for remixes are dance singles, which is sad from a collectors perspective. Having said that, there's a significant remix market in the ambient/noise groups, for example the collaborations between Muslimguaze, Bass Communion and Andrew Giles. But often not on vinyl.
Here's a Marillion extended version of Going Under, which appeared on the 12" for Incommunicado (and the CD single).

There appears to be quite a market for these 80s remixes. A few years ago Queen released an album called The 12" Collection, I'm not sure how widely available the album is. However Queen weren't that keen on remixes, and the differences are not significant from the released versions. But for completists, it's not a bad CD and I do play it reasonably frequently.
Marillion caught most of their remixes on the remastered CDs, and the two boxsets of singles (Fish era and H-era). Pet Shop Boys had bonus discs out recently.
For me one of the kings of remixes were Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I'd hate to be a completist for their remixes. For a band who have such a limited number of releases, the number of 12" remix versions is ridiculous (same could be said of Duran Duran).
So here's the Power of Love, the extended mix.


Talk Talk, who did do quite interesting remixes, had a compilation of A and B sides released (titled, imaginatively, Asides Bsides) which captured a lot of these. But do avoid Remixed which was a bunch of remixes done in the early 90s without the bands OK.

I was browsing amazon some time ago and looking at compilation CDs (I was after some funk compilations), and came across a number of 80s 12" CDs. Tempting. I succumbed to a 6CD set, 80s 12" (complete with garish fluoro writing) for the princely sum of 5 quid. 72 tracks, some utter crud (well ok, a lot of it), but extended cheesy goodness on so many levels. There's stuff on it I've never heard of before (Classix Nouveaux?!), but it's all "...in the best possible taste.".

I do miss the 12" remix, before the current trend of dumping a heavy dance beat to everything.

I leave you with some Mel and Kim, which I'm currently listening to.