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By 'Eck! My Neck! wrote: Yep - amongst the remixes are possibly the worst crock of stinking fetid crap in the form of those 5 godawfully rancid piss poor Sly and Robbie mixes of RIAD.
Who would seriously want to see THOSE re-surface again, when in all fairness they should be encased in concrete and asbestos and buried deep deep in the molten crust of the earth.
Every now and then I return to those moments in my heroes' career I hated in the hope there's something stupendous there I missed - 'Beatles For Sale', Ingmar Berman's 'Serpent's Egg', 'Republic'... And normally I find no, they ARE shite. Not shite, just not in the same league. Actually - and it feels like I've been here before - Republic would be better with more NO (not just Hooky) and less Hague and backing singers and session musicians. I always got the impression it started off quite cool then they roped Hague in. Like Stephen told Select the first tracks they worked on were Regret, Everyone Everywhere and Special - the ones closest to the classic sound, the only ones they did live (except for the singles of course). And in 1992 Hooky told Melody Maker the new sounds revealed a 'harder' side of the band. Mind you, if it hadn't been for Hague they'd probably be still trying to make it now!
The Ambient Mix of RIAD is realy cool I think! Another mix would be the Perfecto Mix and the Brothers In Rhythm Mix of World or the Stadium Mix and the Night Tripper Mix of Spooky. The problem with the CD singles from 1993 is that they're missing some instrumental or dub mixes whith were present on the vinyl or cassette singles. Or the fact that they had different tracklists in the UK (London Records) and the US (Qwest often combined some Republic singles).
Maybe it's indeed a better idea to do 1 bonus disc with these (and other Republic) remixes 
If a reissue happens, I also would like to hear some early (demo) versions of the songs ... without involvement from Stephen Hague that is.
And what happened with the Advance Cassette of Republic which contained the Pre-mix instrumentals (FAC 300 oktober 1992 ?!) According to the book; True Faith: An Armchair Guide to New Order, Joy Division, Electronic, Revenge, Monaco and The Other Two (2005), ... I read that this is very limited. About 5 copies.
Yes Luke there are some Republic mixes that poo all over Hague's 'official' takes - Perfecto's World and Stadium Spooky spring to mind. The prime Vicious Circle was interesting too but only out on cassette. Love to hear some demos, partly cos (as I mentioned) the earlier stages sounded more classic NO, partly cos I'd like to know how badly they really were getting on! Beatles Anthology 3 à la NO, anyone? Read about the early Republic tape in NME back in the day - apparently they were limiting it so no one'd get their hands on it and not buy the official release! Looking back 93 was a funny year for the NO addict I was then. We got their longest-running album plus Other Two And You, three docs, loadsa interviews... But very little of the personality that made their earlier work so interesting. Personally I was disappointed there was no inner groove message on Republic's vinyl!
