The Perfect Kiss Revisited (2002)

Originally posted by Oh Look! There Goes The Laughing Martian Again!! > shit, I'm getting too technical now here aren't I?

Why heavens no. The only thing that keeps me scrolling through all of these football/soccer posts is the hope that I may blessed to stumble across a post like yours, debating the subtle nuances of Michael Johnson's hi-hat mike placement vs. Steven Hague's. Seriously.

As for Mr. Shields, have you heard his remix of Placebo's "Pure Morning?" I think he just blasted the original CD through his Marshall stack and rerecorded it. Naw, I definitely think I'm the one to handle tpk2002.

Originally posted by Hubert Mickle Funny enough, "Low Life" paradoxicaly has some of the worst edits you'll ever hear on a New Order album.

But the bad edits really peaked on PCL (on 586).

"I heard you KUH...Erd you...Curd you KUH...CUH erd you calling."

Listening to that again, there's some neat chinka-chinka muted guitar strumming toward the end I never noticed...and some really ill-timed snare fills. Sloppy as hell and still 15 billion times better than Republic.

Yer DEAD RIGHT about 5-8-6!!!! Ha ha ha ha!! - you really are the most sharp-eared obsessive around aren't you!!! Top one! I've no problem with that! Only last month I bought the Les Temps Moderne reissue of a classic Factory album by The Wake called "Here Comes Everybody" which has never to date been issued on CD. Said CD was mastered direct from Vinyl as fooking Factory lost their master tapes (surprise surprise!!) so when you listen to this CD you can hear straight away the off-centre spindle effect of a vinyl recording. And it's almost impossible to listen to without grimacing!!! Eeeewwww. I'm so pissed off about that as it now spoils my appreciation of the tracks: the sound quality is awful!! I have an exceedingly keen ear for anything that sounds remotely off-centre. I can pick up disturbances from absolutely anywhere if the air is quiet. My ears can be like fooking radar when they feel like it....which is an exceedingly strange thing to hear from a drummer, isn't it???

By the way Gnu, without sounding like a fooking muso/poser (I sincerely hope NOT!!) I can actually replicate - by playing my drum kit LIVE - the WHOLE of that "5-8-6" drum-track (complete with tom fills ON TOP OF the snare fills) towards the end just with one pair of drumsticks, and STILL keep in time. Ditto the last minute of "The Village". :D My next challenge is to replicate the stuttering kick drum pattern of "Blue Monday" at its proper BPM speed, using only ONE foot pedal instead of cheating like most people by using both double kick pedals.

Originally posted by mario Hello Marty, old fellow. Good to see you back! And on form as well:DAs for TPK: leave it alone!! The original, that's what it's all about(for me). Remixes...god what a waste of time they usually are! To me nothing can beat the original, and as soon a remix has been made by DJsix-pack-fly-on-the-wall, it's a new song that has got absolutely nothing to do with NEW ORDER.But this is just my modest opinion, there might be people with different ones, i guess:D

Hey, Mario!! good to see you pop up every now and then! Don't worry about what I said about TPK - I DON'T want any new remixes per se, so to speak. Cos I know damn sure, like yourself, what would happen if this GODLIKE song was to be thrown to the lions !! The only remixes are the near-14 minute (I timed it yesterday and I have to confess my earlier proclamation of 15 minutes was a bit exaggerated!! More like 13.53....) edit MAXI version I myself did with the original 12". I just hope it could find itself reissued but remastered WITHOUT ANY CHOPPING AND DICKING ABOUT (other than my old version of course!) if the long-promised box set of singles ever appears. The versions on Substance are also edited down a bit too, which is why I'm none too happy with those!! This song is damn well untouchable. Long may it remain that way..... (perhaps that's why the band cannot ever play it live anymore???)

Originally posted by Major Tarantino > Originally posted by Oh Look! There Goes The Laughing Martian Again!!> > > > Originally posted by Major Tarantino> > I've never heard perfect kiss... is it any good, then?>

I though you were supposed to have taken two weeks off from posting on this forum to learn to play and programme the bastard thing! :D :D :D :D

Tut tut tut........

Don't tell me you haven't done this, my lad !!! ;)

I started doing it but then i decided to make a 17 minute loop of me saying "its perfect" into a vocoder while brushing my teeth. :D

You wag!! How much spray did the microphone take before it packed in for good then??? Or did you construct a little cocktail-umbrella for it to shield it from your spittle? :D :D

Phew! for a moment there I thought you were talkign about a remix/rerelease as awful as those 60mph ones then. After reading all the replies here thank god my fears were not realised. I agree with everyone here who says this song must be left alone as it is one of the most powerfull New order songs of all time and deserves to be treated with respect - even the video does the song justice - something which none of the other New Order videos seems to do (I actually dislike most of them as they're just nonsensical with hardly a decent script beytween them - though the "Touched by the Hand of God' one is funny!).

Here's a nice chance happening - was at a cafe in town on lunchbreak with a couple of colleagues today, one of these trendy sort of continental cafes. Guess what album was on the jukebox? Yup - "LowLife"! and "The Perfect Kiss" was the song just starting up as we entered. Nice one.!! :) I refused to budge until I'd heard the last strains of "Sooner Than You Think". Needless to say, I was later than I thought getting back to my desk - eight minutes !! - but that's a small price to pay for half- an hour of musical genius!!

Fate can be a wonderful thing sometimes!!

Originally posted by Todd (Ben Sweeney) Phew! for a moment there I thought you were talkign about a remix/rerelease as awful as those 60mph ones then. After reading all the replies here thank god my fears were not realised. I agree with everyone here who says this song must be left alone as it is one of the most powerfull New order songs of all time and deserves to be treated with respect - even the video does the song justice - something which none of the other New Order videos seems to do (I actually dislike most of them as they're just nonsensical with hardly a decent script beytween them - though the "Touched by the Hand of God' one is funny!).

Well Todd, have I got news for you - Paul van Dyk has remixed TPK and is planning to get London Records release a version of it as a white label only 12" to give to clubs for this year's Creamfields event. ;) ;)

all i say is go barny on the cow bell

Or Barmy on the Cowbell even.... :D

Maybe we could get New Order to do an updated version of the original 12-minute TPK video - albeit nearly 20 years on - as a compare and contrast exercise. That'll be a good opportunity to coax Gillian back into the fold.....

Mind you, this would have to be a w-i-d-e-s-c-r-e-e-n production if only to allow for the sheer amount of flab that has infiltrated the NO camp of late of course! :D :D :D

Originally posted by Spotnick One sad thing is they removed it from their playlist for the first time. At least Temptation is still there.Temptation is the other "cult" song that was never remixed except the CJ Bolland mix which is available only on a TAPE somewhere from the rest of I think? or maybe on vinyl.. but does that count?The song is good, but it's typical, this song can get on many people's nerves because of Bernard and his voice, he's going pretty high in that song, and that usually is not something he should do too often...The only "remix" of TPK is "Kiss of Death" which would have been wonderful is it had the full lyrics.

Point taken, Nic, but what I've always found funny is, the album from which "The Perfect Kiss" is taken, "Low-Life", actually features a lot of unbelievably off-key singing from Bernard!! Amazing to relate, but "Love Vigilantes" has him warbling off key on all the verses, "SubCulture" likewise, "Face Up" is so badly sung it's hilarious!! And "Perfect Kiss" like you say, sees him straining to reach the high notes (all three of them!!).
But common consensus has it that the reason "Low-Life" makes everyone's list - if not the definitive critic's choice as best New Order album - is mainly through two things: it's pretty diverse - in mood and in sound, each of its eight tracks are quite different from one another. It's also, crucially, New Order's most human record....made doubly more so by Barney's off-key (emotive perhaps?) singing....!!! Interesting to relate, don't you think?

Wow - I've just happened across this excelently informative thread from the archives by typing "The Perfect Kiss" into the search function.... I've just been listening to the fantastic 'video' version of this track on the bonus disc of RETRO and it's made me realise why this song is held in such high reguard by so many people on this forum.

Hearing it once again - and reading all the posts here has now made me appreaciate the track even more. I can see why this track has been left relatively untouched by remixers, because its such a brilliant song that you cant really improve on it can you.?

Still a bit shortchanged that the best they could do was to include the edited version on disc 1 of RETRO yet again. :(

Everytime I hear the edited version, I put the entire disc on pause and whip out the 8:42 version and crank it up. Simple as that

By the way, I love reading really long threads only to discover they were from April

In the recent 'final' poll, I voted for TF (which shall always be my all time favourite song)but was surprised at the depth of passion for TPK. Don't get me wrong, I have always liked TPK but to find so many people voting for it was unexpected to me.

I have just been flicking through the Retro discs & boy is it good to hear the full on 'live video' mix blaring outta my stereo as I 'fly' down the motorway (freeway/autobahn.)

Someone summed it up exactly with the 'electronic symphony' comment earlier. It is simply a masterpiece - let's hope that engineer guy has a few months spare to programme it ready for the gigs around the next album. :) :) :) :) :)

Of course, I almost forgot to say that the video of this song is also one of the most effective examples of New Orders simple understated genius. Watching the four of them goiing through the song, deep in concentration, you begin to get a grasp on the intensity of the experience....matched by the music toward the end. ... fantastic!

Yup. It's a top notch New Order choon is TPK.

Say no more.