With two retro (see what etc) threads I'd be interested in your opinions on the WORST remix. It'd have to be one of London's shameless cash-ins for me... Probably the 5 identical Shite 'n' Robbie RIADs (does ANYONE like them?), though Hawtwin's BM always sent me to sleep and the World dubs were filler spin-offs too. Then there were the ones that had sweet Fairground Attracition with the original except a token line (sometimes not even that): Tartman's BLT, CJBollock's Temptation, Lioncock's three totally-and-utterly-unlike-1963 1963s. It winds me up to think how much beer and porn money I wasted back then in the name of completion. So I don't do it. I can't comment on the MC mixes as my obsessive phase was well and truly over, and I don't thnk the tracks needed mixing. PS And how could I forget Razormaid? Just chop the songs up and repeat buts so they lose structure. Actually, don't.
Worst Remix
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To be fair, Razormaid was a remix service for DJs, with tracks edited to have cleaner intros and outros for mixing in clubs. They're also re-edits and very rarely involved any actual remixing. Those were never commercially available, so they shouldn't count.
Ruined In A Day remixes by Sly & Robbie, for sure. I also hate most of the new remixes on The Rest Of. The mid-90s were a terrible time for dance music.
the razormaid remixes of subculture (well the ones without the extra female vocalist) are better than the official mixes, and i like the official mixes.
later -1
negative1 wrote: the razormaid remixes of subculture (well the ones without the extra female vocalist) are better than the official mixes, and i like the official mixes.
I'm shocked, but I actually agree with you.
That's Debora Iyall from Romeo Void (Never Say Never, A Girl In Trouble (Is A Temporary Thing)) doing the additional vocals.
A version of that remix was made commercially available through Record Mirror magazine.
I grew to love the 12" version over time, but John Robie really made it undanceable by shifting the bassline by a 16th note. I love that the current live version uses both basslines, creating a fuller effect.
I liked the Record Mirror take because it was an extended version with lotsa Hooky as opposed to an overpaid DJ's ego trip à la Rest Of. The first time I heard Razormaid it was the 586 mix on https://www.discogs.com/it/New-Order-Decadence/release/581280 . There was bugger all (my priest's hobby) Internet or new stuff so I was quite chuffed to get a new mix. When I actually heard it I thought it was balls and anyone could do that with time and equipment. Same goes for all the other ones I've heard (Getting Away with Shit, Perfect kiss etc). No wonder I stopped being a collector.
the Gabriel and Dresden Voco Tech Lemon Sasquatch Flywheel mix (or whatever the F it is) of Someone Like You. Why I continue to have it in my iTunes s beyond me.
Michael Monkhouse wrote: 5 identical Shite 'n' Robbie RIADs (does ANYONE like them?)
Looks like someone does... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPTv6kdfjlI
Yeah, my vote would definitely go with the atrocious Sly & Robbie RIAD remixes. They are, hands down, the worst official product to come out with the New Order name on it. All IMHO, naturally.
I remember feeling very ripped off when I bought that 2nd CD. Why anyone would think the average NO fan would want one 'ragga' style mix, let alone five practically identical ones.
I'm guessing that the band commissioned S&R to do five remixes and they decided to cut corners, basically producing one remix, with five variations. The band, or their management, in typical NO fashion (especially in 1993) decided they couldn't be arsed to complain.
Here's hoping S&R only got paid for one remix.
perspexorange wrote:
I'm guessing that the band commissioned S&R to do five remixes and they decided to cut corners, basically producing one remix, with five variations. The band, or their management, in typical NO fashion (especially in 1993) decided they couldn't be arsed to complain.
Here's hoping S&R only got paid for one remix.
It doesn't really work like that, remixers tend to be asked to deliver variations, such as dubs and instrumentals and maybe a radio edit or a 'TV' version with main vocal dropped out.
I'm sure Sly and Robbie didn't intend for London to use most of what they delivered.
I know I bought the CD single of Ruined In A Day but haven't listened to it for at least 20 years, and have no memory of Sly & Robbie remixes , so personally I'd pick:
BLT (the Armand Van Helden mix), Ruined In A Day (the K-Klass remix) and Tutti Frutti (the Hot Chip remix), all piss poor and seem to go on forever without any redeeming features.
The bad ones... RIAD Bogle mixes, getting Sly and Robbie in 1981 to remix NO would have been special, but what were they thinking in 1993? BLT Armand Van Helden mix - this has to be a phoned in AVH cast-off with Barney's voice spliced in 1963 mixes (Lionrock and Joe T. Vanelli), although Vanelli's mix is quite funny at least - "johnny"! 60MPH who's idea was it to get the superman lovers? laughable mix the krafty mixes are hookless and boring
But worst of all has to be the cash grab Complete Music set, I didn't bother buying it. New order never stooped to pointlessly extended mixes in their prime. Even R&R, which has an extended intro, is a complete rerecording and not extended for the sake of it. It's the sort of thing every other 80s band got up to to milk the fans. At least with a remix by an outsider you can take or leave their take on it.
In defence of... TBTHOG (Biff & Memphis Remix) from Rest Of... is good fun with that BM-style intro the Someone Like You mixes work for me. Jetstream is an odd one, because the original is so bad that nearly all the remixes are improvements
Ken Doherty wrote: Ruined In A Day (the K-Klass remix)
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? That was the only decent thing about RIAD. It was even used for TOTP and Radio 1 Top 40. RIAD was probably the beginning of the end for the collector. The Factory takes tended to be true to the original and if they didn't, they tended to be worthwhile and the band sometimes used them live. Think GTM Groove or FEB 12"... Even Regret wasn't too bad. Apart from K-Klass, RIAD '''''boasted''''' Radio Edit / Ambient (both acceptable but filler), Sly 'n' Robbie (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhh) and VC (filler but acceptable). Worst of all, London spread them out so punters had to buy all the formats. It pissed me off to hear all this Paul Borely BS about how 'even on a major label, they could do WTF they liked.' I quite liked Vanelli's 1963 but as I've said, I was desperate for new material and this was the closest it got i.e. completely different music AND the full vocal. Can't be arsed with it now.
Michael Monkhouse wrote: ... WORST remix. It'd have to be one of London's shameless cash-ins for me... Probably the 5 identical Shite 'n' Robbie RIADs (does ANYONE like them?)
Music Complete wrote: Ruined In A Day remixes by Sly & Robbie, for sure.
perspexorange wrote: Yeah, my vote would definitely go with the atrocious Sly & Robbie RIAD remixes. They are, hands down, the worst official product to come out with the New Order name on it.
Isi wrote: The bad ones... RIAD Bogle mixes, getting Sly and Robbie in 1981 to remix NO would have been special, but what were they thinking in 1993?
Seems to be a theme here, and this was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title, so you can add me to the list. I seem to recall other people offering similar opinions on these mixes in older posts too. I'm guessing if we were to run a Best to Worst NO Remixes poll (a bit like the Slicing Up Eyeballs thingy) Sly & Robbie would rank pretty highly as one of the worst.
Michael Monkhouse wrote:
Ken Doherty wrote: Ruined In A Day (the K-Klass remix)
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? That was the only decent thing about RIAD.
I agree with Monkhouse (!). I think this may even fit into "Remixes Better Than The Original" territory. Although I would probably agree with Mr D that it (the full length version) goes on a bit. So the K Klass radio edit is the one.
Michael Monkhouse wrote: I quite liked Vanelli's 1963 but as I've said, I was desperate for new material and this was the closest it got i.e. completely different music AND the full vocal. Can't be arsed with it now.
Dont forget those Lionrock "The Excellence of Dance" remixes. They bore even less ralation to 1963 than Vanelli's Dubby mix. I actually quite like this Lionrock remix in terms of being a banging tech-house track with a nod to Kraftwerk. But I don't think there's any New Order in there. Maybe they did an "Aphex Twin" and went: oh shit we forgot to remix new order, let's just hand the courrier something we made earlier.
I only ever bought CD1 of 1963, partly because I was pissed off that they were re-hashing (and not improving) one of my fave B-sides, and partly because purchasing CD2 and the vinyl along with CD1 made the whole thing kinda expensive. So I'm actually listening to Joe T Vanelli's Light Mix for the first time ever, right now. It makes a little bit more (new order-y) sense to me than the dubby mix that I'm familiar with. Ooh Saxophone! Is that meant to be a synthetic tuba sound farting it's way through the track? Also the percussion overdub (1.30-ish) sounds like it might have been sampled from TBTHOG.
There were three Lioncock 1963s and none of them had anything whatsoever to do with the original, even by Rest Of standards. To be fair, they were OK in their own right, but still a total and utter fucking rip-off cos they were released under the NO banner. EVERYONE who bought them was shelling out for a new spin on a strong NO track, and this wasn't it. The strange thing about Rest Of is exactly half the mixes were OK but it was the half that'd already been released as singles (TF, Rep, BM 95). The 'new' ones were half-arsed repeats (EGG, AOC, Touched) or DJ ego trips (Temptation, Confusion, BLT). It's amazing that between their very public split after Reading and their very pubic return, we were fobbed off with 12 rehashes... Yet they remain respected. If Simply Red pulled such a cunning stunt, they'd be massacred. 93 Spooky 94 TF, Best Of UK 95 1963, Best Of US, BM, Rest Of, LWTUA, Permanent 96 EGG Advent 97 Heart and Soul, Video 586
Michael Monkhouse wrote:
Ken Doherty wrote: Ruined In A Day (the K-Klass remix)
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? That was the only decent thing about RIAD. It was even used for TOTP and Radio 1 Top 40. RIAD was probably the beginning of the end for the collector. The Factory takes tended to be true to the original and if they didn't, they tended to be worthwhile and the band sometimes used them live. Think GTM Groove or FEB 12"... Even Regret wasn't too bad. Apart from K-Klass, RIAD '''''boasted''''' Radio Edit / Ambient (both acceptable but filler), Sly 'n' Robbie (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhh) and VC (filler but acceptable). Worst of all, London spread them out so punters had to buy all the formats. It pissed me off to hear all this Paul Borely BS about how 'even on a major label, they could do WTF they liked.' I quite liked Vanelli's 1963 but as I've said, I was desperate for new material and this was the closest it got i.e. completely different music AND the full vocal. Can't be arsed with it now.
So, after the kerfuffle above, I listened to it again for the first time in God knows how many years, and yep, its still shite - a bit of subpar 'Balearic guitar' noodling, like something off Now Thats What I Call Cafe Del Mar vol. 73 and some shit, 'will this do?' drum programming, had to switch it off after 30 or seconds.
THREE likes and WHAT a comment... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdGHwdZ8rkQ I guess he's right, this IS the best on the 2nd CD, but that's a bit like being asked which member of League of Gentlemen you'd most like to bone. Does he really say 'Wit me wet dream an me wumman'? I forgot the even worse Phased and Dazed RIAD on https://www.discogs.com/New-Order-The-Remix/release/7706942 - at least Bogle DID something; this just washes the plodding original from one earphone to - that's right. In fact I didn't even consider it as it can't possibly be an official mix - just the CD compiler's way to con hard core fans by persuading them there was something unique on the purchase. Cack, cack, cack.
This opinion might be rare, but I thought Sly and Robbie did a good job on the Ruined in a Day remix and I enjoy the Bogle mix. Never-the-less, I thought it was a terrible idea to fill a CD with 5 nearly identical versions (no pun intended) of the same remix and I think that affected many people's opinion of that mix. I also thought the Hawtin remix of Blue Monday was pretty good too; it would have been great to have it included on the 12" for the 1995 re-release instead of the '88 version.
I'm not sure what New Order's worst remix was, but I thought there were WAY too many remixes of Spooky. The Fluke edit, 12" and dub versions were good, but they went way overboard with the remixes on the limited edition CD and only one or two of them are decent. I prefer quality over quantity and liked the way singles were marketed in the 1980s where you had just a 7" with edits of the a and b sides, a 12" with extended versions and maybe a 2nd 12" with an outside remixer.
OUCH! You're right, though. maybe if there was just one Sly 'n' Wobble mix on the 12", people light've accepted it more easily. Paying for 5 versions was the real rip-off. Hawtwin BM bored me shitles. Again, it was a con cos it was the only exclusive on the 95 BM remix LP. Always had a soft spot for Spooky Stadium - what the original should've sounded like without Hague's NICE production. Minimix was good too, but maybe it was done to death with Max and Mouli.
Can't believe that the Martin Buttrich remix of EGG hasn't been made commercially available. Well, actually I can believe it. I think it's one of their best remixes in years. It sounds like Barney re-recorded the vocal too.
It's the same mentality that puts Freebass' The Tower on Myspace for a billisecond, but makes that horrible EP easier to find than an alcoholic student.
From the above comments (especially Alexey Fyodorovich's), I'd say the real issue with Shite and Bobbie is how London milked 'em. People in this digital free-for-all age forget, but back in 1993 there was a real sense of commitment and excitement in being a completist: traipse around record stores, track down rarities, lovingly unsheathe the produce and place it on the machine: in the case of RIAD CD 2, it just wasn't worth it! Maybe if they'd just had 'Dance Hall Groove' on the 12" B-side, the fans would be more kindly disposed: it's no one's favourite, but no worse than most of the bollocks London were churning out in 1995 either. At least it's a radical reworking (unlike the 94 swindles) and has the full vocal (95's)...
EmileStrunz wrote: Can't believe that the Martin Buttrich remix of EGG hasn't been made commercially available. Well, actually I can believe it. I think it's one of their best remixes in years. It sounds like Barney re-recorded the vocal too.
^^^^ THIS. It's my favorite proper remix they've ever done.
I love that the current live version of Bizarre Love Triangle is the one Stuart Price did at the same time. Wish they'd put EGG back in the set based on this remix.
*scurries off to youtube*
*scurries back, smiling*
This is another fine example of why these boards cannot be allowed to die.
I'd never picked up on this brilliant old remix & had also missed out on the Richard X BLT until they put it in the live set, as I'd neither the money to buy nor facility to play 12x12 back in the day.
I'm definitely going to be listening to this new EGG for the next few days - thanks for the tip.
Glad to be of assistance. I think that remix is so good - and is almost like an alternative version, rather than a remix, and as Music Complete rightly proposes, if they were to bring EGG back in to the live set, they should use this version.
Martin Buttrich is a fine techno artist in his own right, but what he did here was so respectful, yet funky and hard. The mix also has loads of space - some remixes through the kitchen sink in. This doesn't.
