Archive for the ‘remixes’ Category

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Epo Depot

Sunday, March 24th, 2019

Epo
Performance (Overture)
Shang-Hai Etranger
Tibetan Dance
Tibetan Dance (Edited Version)

I posted some Epo tracks a while back.

She’s fun.

To be honest, I really don’t know what else to say about her. She’s just…fun. Bubbly upbeat synthpop with a sound so “1985” that it’s gone from hip to dated to retro to dated to retro to hip three times over. Epo was incredibly prolific (a common trait I’m finding in 80s J-pop), releasing a whopping 13 records between 1980 and 1992. Her early stuff is much more “city pop,” that funk/soul/pop hybrid style that vaporwave artists are always drawing their samples from. But by the time the mid-80s rolled around she traded in that downtempo jazz for some uptempo 808s and went to work, releasing several fun albums during that period.

I’ll be honest, every Epo album I’ve bought to date has been a little uneven. Even the best of the bunch that I’ve found, Hi-Touch Hi-Tech, was a little touch and go, with slow ballads dragging it down just when it was getting good. Ditto goes for Pump! Pump! an album far more sedate than it’s double-exclamation point title would suggest. Harmony, the album from which tonight’s tracks are pulled from, suffers the same fate. Just when it gets the blood pumping with some upbeat bangers, a plodding mid-tempo ballad or a forgettable filler track slams the brakes on the whole thing.

But the bangers are bangers, man. I feel like I should point out that Epo is not just a “pop idol,” meaning a pretty face put in front of a microphone. She was a singer/songwriter, often writing the majority of tracks on her albums. Usually working with her was Nobuyuki Shimizu, a musical ubergenius who played with just about everyone of note in Japan. The back cover of Harmony proudly proclaims that Shimizu plays “all keyboards, guitars, bass, drums and many other instruments” on the album. The same goes for a lot of other albums he worked on at the time. He’s like the Jack Antonoff of Japanese 80s pop music.

Like I said, Harmony is an uneven affair, but when it’s on fire damn its on fire. The opener “Performance (Overture)” melds disco string melodies with driving electronic beats like its taking the best of “On The Radio” Donna Summer and “I Feel Love” Donna Summer. “Shang-hai Étranger” is another high point, with how it combines traditional Japanese melodies with some truly radical synthesizer work. Feels like it could be a YMO b-side.

The album’s true highlight, however, is kind of a ringer, it’s a cover of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Tibetan Dance,” which first appeared a year earlier on his Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia album. However, calling it a cover is a bit of a misnomer. It’s straight up the track that appeared on that album, with a bit of edits and overdubs, including Epo’s vocals. The back cover just flat-out says that the backing track for the song is taken from the Sakamoto album (with permission, of course). I wonder how often such things happen, pop singers taking solid instrumental tracks from electronic producers and just singing over them with minimal edits. If it doesn’t happen a lot, why the hell not? Seems like a good, valid shortcut for finding decent backing tracks. In addition to the album version, I’m also including a special edited version that appeared on a 12″ single.

I don’t think that Epo was ever a massive huge artist, but she must’ve been at least modestly successful in the 80s if her non-stop output is any indication. Strange then that so much of her stuff is woefully out-of-print. Some of her records haven’t even been re-released on CD (although all of her best ones have). I feel like this is a common fate for B-level J-Pop acts of that era. There were just so many of them (bubble economy y’all) that some have just gotten lost in the shuffle over time. And unless you were a megastar (Seiko) or found cult success later (Taeko Ohnuki) you kind vanish to the past. Someone really needs to compile this stuff Nuggets style so the world can rediscover the hidden gems that have been lost to Disk Union 100 yen bins.

 

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This blog post is best viewed on a three-monitor display

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

Zuntata
SELF – BIG Beat Remix
Living in Japan has many benefits, amazing food, a fantastic public transit system, affordable health care, no guns, and of course, easier access to limited run special editions of games.

Taito just released the Darius Cozmic Collection, which includes several versions of early Darius games, both from the arcades and home. It comes in a massively-oversized box that also serves as a home for a wonderful book full of pictures and information about the games (albeit entirely in Japanese).

All that stuff is great, and I’m happy that I finally own decent home ports of these classic games. But I’m going to be real, the the main draw for me when it comes to Darius has always been its amazing music, and this collection is no exception. Included in the box set is the Darius The Omnibus II CD, a compilation featuring remixes of several classic Darius tunes, as well as a super-limited edition bonus CD. Most of that CD is dedicated to the soundtrack to PC Engine exclusive Darius Alpha, but it opens with this exclusive remix to the track “Self.” I might be mistaken here, but I think “Self” first appeared on Darius Gaiden. It’s hard to say though. Yo, there are a lot of Darius games.

While this track is impossible to buy without shelling out $300 for an import collection of 80s arcade shooters, it’s worth mentioning that most of Zuntata’s music is not only in print, but able to buy in America on iTunes. Want the complete soundtrack to Darius Gaiden? They got it, as well a soundtracks to deep cuts like Sonic Blast Man, Space Gun, and Kid Kaikai. Credit where credit is due, good on them for making all that stuff easy to get.

ALFH LYRA
Street Fighter II Medley (GMF Version)
Nearly all Street Fighter II music is in-print and easy to come by, thanks largely to Brave Wave and their amazing Street Fighter II re-issue from a few years back. But a few tracks have fallen through the cracks, like this live medley featuring the greatest hits of Street Fighter music. This was originally performed at the 1992 Game Music Festival in Japan, and was included on the CD of the same name.

The Game Music Festival was a thing in Japan for at least a few years in the early-90s and possibly the late-80s as well. The 1990 Game Music Festival CD bills itself as “Zuntata vs SST Band” and holy shit I’m jealous that I can’t track that disc down.

Again, if you like the music to Street Fighter II, be sure to pick up Brave Wave’s absolutely incredible release that features the game’s complete soundtrack, even both the CPS-1 and CPS-2 variations. In a time where so many game music releases are limited releases manufactured with scarcity in mind, it’s important to call out the studios that are doing it right.

 

Posted in Game Music, remixes | No Comments »

Jamma Slamma

Tuesday, February 5th, 2019

I was going to write a super long post tonight about an avant-garde out-of-print synth masterpiece, but I just don’t have it in me. Here are a shitload of Michael Jackson remixes.

Michael Jackson
Jam (7” Edit)
Jam (Roger’s Jeep Mix)
Jam (Atlanta Techno Dub)
Jam (Roger’s Jeep Radio Mix)
Jam (Teddy’s Jam)
Jam (More Than Enuff Mix)
Jam (Atlanta Techno Mix)
Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough (Masters At Work Remix)
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ (Brothers In Rhythm House Mix)
For a short time I would say that “Jam” was my favorite Michael Jackson song. It was the fourth single off of Dangerous, following “Black or White,” “Remember The Time” and “In The Closet.” I dug the shit out of “Black or White” when I was a kid, but I was not big on those other two numbers. “Remember the Time” just felt like a mediocre mid-tempo love song to me, and I just outright hated everything about “In the Closet,” I just thought (and still think) it’s a crappy song.

But I got on “Jam” hard when it came out. The video, which featured Michael Jordon, probably had something to do with that. Like every 12 year old boy in 1992, I was a Bulls fan, often rocking my dope Bulls Starter jacket to school, so to see MJ with MJ (see how they planned that) was just too much for my little brain to take. And the song is just fucking great, even as a kid I preferred upbeat, silly dance tracks to emotional ballads or mid-tempo pop hits. I was ready to get in a groove even then.

I’ve been buying singles for “Jam” for what must be over a decade now. I’ve bought 12″ vinyl singles at least twice, both back in the states and in Japan, and each time they were scratched to high heaven. All attempts to clean them up digitally always failed. Thankfully, I was finally able to find the singles on CD this year, and get not one, not two, but seven goddamn remixes of the song. Word. Score.

But even better than the a-side remixes are the bonus cuts, remixes of MJ classics “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” by the legendary production crews Brothers In Rhythm and Masters At Work. Holy shit.

I’m still amazed that all these fantastic remixes are sitting on a self somewhere, unreleased and unable to purchase in 2019. I get that there are…issues with MJ at the moment (I have no educated opinion on that so no comment from me) but the demand is certainly there. I don’t know how much I’d be down with another album of newly mixed and/or finished MJ tunes that were previously unreleased, but I’d be totally down for the MJ estate to re-release all of Michael’s singles, complete with their remixes. Am I in the minority here? The lack of 12″ mix re-releases by huge artists like MJ, Prince and even Madonna make me feel that maybe the demand just isn’t there. I guess that kind of makes sense, maybe most people don’t need eight versions of “Vogue” and five versions of “Smooth Criminal” BUT I SURE AS FUCK DO AND DAMMIT THEY SHOULD CARE ABOUT ME.

Seriously though, just put this shit on iTunes and streaming services already, what the fuck do they got to lose? Assholes like me are just going to share it all anyways.

Posted in Michael Jackson, remixes | 1 Comment »

Arranged game music for the new year

Thursday, January 3rd, 2019

Capcom
Ghosts ‘n Goblins (Arrange Version)
Commando (Arrange Version)
These arrange versions are both from Capcom Game Music, a collection of tunes from Capcom games that was released by GMO Records in August of 1986 (according to the VGMdb). It was their sixth release overall, and their fourth collection of game music by a single company, following similar collections featuring Nintendo, Hudson and Konami.

While the Hudson collection featured an an entire side of arranged editions, this album copies Konami’s format, with just a pair of re-imagined tracks. Shame, I wish we would’ve been treated to arranged variations of music from games like “Section Z” or “Trojan” instead of ear-grating audio rips from “1942” and “Higemaru.”  Neither of those games feature much music, so their tracks are mostly just raw game audio, and are very hard to listen to.

Like many other early arranged versions featured on GMO releases, the arranged mixes here are by Yoshihiro Kunimoto. Unlike future arrange albums, which often featured full bands or sometimes even orchestras, these are still largely digital affairs with drum machines and synthesizers abound. Very fun stuff though. I always view arranged versions like these as what the game company wanted the music to sound like at the time, if they weren’t limited by game hardware limitations. Both of these are great, but the “Ghost ‘n Goblins” version is better, mostly because it’s just a better song overall, but also because it has plenty of dope synth bass. Said it before, I’ll say it again – I love me that synth bass.

Namco
Pac-Man A Go-Go
Solo Suite Xevious -No. 1-
Main Theme From “Rolling Thunder”
The early GMO releases would usually feature just a handful of arranged versions. The focus was always on the original music. But by the 90s this would change, and more companies would embrace the arranged version as the showcase tracks, even releasing albums comprised entirely of arranged versions. Makes sense to me. If you wanted to hear the original game music, you could always just play the game. These albums gave the companies and the composers more freedom with the music.

Like I said when talking about the Capcom albu, most arranged albums I have feature mixes that are largely still digital and based around electronic instruments.

But This is Namco!, the album from which these tracks came from, is really different. All of the tracks here focus on live instrumentation, and with some really odd choices too. The “One O’Clock Galaga ’88” track reworks the theme music from that game as a big band jazz tune, while “Solo Suite Xevious -No.1-” takes the game’s rather simple melody and transforms it for saxophone (I think – I’m not up on my brass instruments). It’s a really sparse mix too, so raw and quiet that I can even hear the player’s breath between notes and the clicks of the keys.

There are some bold choices here, but overall I think the variety is a little detrimental to the final product. There’s just too much going on, the album has no focus on defined style. Yeah, the lullaby version of Mappy’s music is alright, but it’s sandwiched between the jazzy Galaga theme and a bombastic as fuck 80s-rock take on the music from Dragon Spirit. There’s no flow. And also, some of this music just isn’t all that great or memorable. Maybe I would feel differently I was more familiar with games like The Return of Ishitar and Dragon Spirit, maybe nostalgia would help. But I have no feelings for most of the games on this album, so it’s just a collection of (sometimes not great) versions of music from games I’ve barely heard of.

There are a few standouts though! In addition to the awesome saxophone Xevious theme, the full-on jazz version of the theme to Rolling Thunder is just an absolute banger. It completely nails the suave, suit-and-tie spy aesthetic the game was going for.

Also “Pac-Man a Go-Go” is great. Because Pac-Man is great. And good on them for somehow making an entire song out of what is probably 10 seconds of original game music.

May 2019 bring us more impressively reworked game music, and less white nationalists hellbent on killing us all!

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Radiation for Xmas

Sunday, December 23rd, 2018

Tycoon To$h
Children Of The Radiation
Tycoon To$h was a Japanese musician who started out as a member of the early new wave group The Plastics, but later worked as a rapper later in his career. One of his very first songs was “China Syndrome,” a track protesting Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy, rather prophetically calling the idea of building nuclear power plants in a country prone to earthquakes as something so stupid “even a child can understand.”

To$h sadly passed away from cancer in 2017, but before he left us, he cut one more track. And just like “China Syndrome” it was an incendiary attack on Japan’s nuclear power program. As the title suggests, it’s an interpretation of T. Rex’s classic “Children of the Revolution,” with new lyrics lambasting nuclear energy.

I’m no going to get into the pros and cons on nuclear energy here. I got conflicting feelings about it. But I’m sure as hell not going to debate with a Japanese anti-nuclear activist about it – I feel like their views on radiation are a bit more valid and worthy of attention than mine.

I will comment on this song though, it’s fucking rad. It’s basically “Children of the Revolution” re-recorded with really angry lyrics. Get down with that.

T. Rex
Megarex 2
And it got my in the mood to listen to more T. Rex. You know who was dope? T. Rex.

I bought a strange T. Rex remix album in 2017 called, predictably T. Remixes. It got a lot of shit from hardcore T. Rex fans, who saw it as a shameless cash-in. Yeah, they were probably right about that, but it was a pretty good shameless cash-in. Most modern remixes of classic tracks suck, because they try too damn hard to rework the tunes into EDM club bangers. But that album features remixes in the more classic sense of the term, reworkings that are focused more on creative interpretation of the source material than making a track that’ll light up a dance floor.

Anyways, it wasn’t even the first time that T. Rex got the remix treatment. In the mid-80s, two “Megarex” megamixes were issued on vinyl and CD. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it was an anniversary of some T. Rex event. Maybe it was a shameless cash-in. Maybe it was both. Regardless, just like T. Remixes, it’s not bad, especially as megamixes go. The Japanese version of the second mix, which is the one I have, also had a really rad cover. Check out that cover. See, it’s rad.

Sorry for the rather random and poorly researched post tonight. It’s just been a while since my last post and I wanted to get something out. I actually have something a bit more ambitious planned later this week. Of course, like my massive Steve Hillage post, it features an artist that literally almost no one cares about. Hopefully that literally almost no one and the literally almost no one who reads my blog have an overlap! In the meantime, merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and happy Monday to everyone else.

 

 

 

Posted in remixes, T Rex, Tycoon To$h | 1 Comment »

Pop Rock by Pot Pixies

Thursday, December 13th, 2018

Steve Hillage
Alone (Extended Version)
Kamikaze Eyes (Extended Version)
Timelines
Before The World Was Made

Steve Hillage is a guitarist whose work has spanned over 50 years, but I hadn’t heard of him until this year – when I stumbled upon his work in one of the most backwards ways possible.

Earlier in the year I was in a record store in Kichijoji when I happened upon this. The album is by Daevid Allen, and it’s called Divided Alien Playbax 80. I knew nothing about it when I saw it, but I was immediately attracted to the cover. It had a crazy vaporwave vibe to it, despite the fact that it came out in 1982. I gave it a quick listen, decided that it was properly weird, and at 400 yen (about four bucks) I decided to pick it up.

 

Unfamiliar with Allen when I bought the album, I learned that it’s a remix album of a prior release by Allen’s previous group, New York Gong. That group would breakup after it’s sole 1980 album, but the group (sans Allen) would continue as the influential no-wave dance outfit Material. Turns out I accidentally bought an album with Bill Laswell on it (that happens a lot). New York Gong, as its name would suggest, was a New York offshoot of Allen’s original group, Gong.

From there, I decided to give Gong a shot and ,long story short, several months and I don’t know how many albums later, I have become obsessed with the group. They’re utterly mad, an the most obvious example of “music made on drugs to take drugs to” that has ever been committed to wax. Not too soon after discovering the wonderful world of the flying teapot (look it up) I started to seek out solo albums by members of the group, starting with Allen and then moving onto Hillage.

Allen’s solo work is…something else. Sometimes great, but often a bit too insane for my tastes. But Hillage turned out to be right up my alley. Much of his stuff is spacey drugged out insanity for hippies, no doubt about it, but he shows a bit more restraint than his fellow Gongers. His songs sound like actual songs, and not dug-induced hallucinations set to something that kind of resembles music. I’ve bought nearly his entire solo discography now, and can recommend all of it without reservation, he has something for everyone. If you like spaced-out Hawkwind-style guitar work, then you can’t go wrong with his amazing debut Fish Rising, or it’s excellent follow-up L. But I really think Hillage came into his own with his 1978 record, Motivation Radio, where he expands his sound to include even more electronic effects and influences.  He continued on with that sound for his next release, Green, which I’ve learned most people cite as pinnacle of the man’s 70s work. However, I actually prefer his 1979 follow-up Open, it’s eclectic as hell, and I feel it’s a perfect amalgamation of guitar-driven prog rock and the synth-pop sound that would define the following decade.

As a solo artist though, Hillage would only release one more proper studio album, 1982’s For To Next. I don’t know how his fans responded to it at the time, but I can’t imagine that many of them liked it. While his previous work always straddled the line between pop and the avant-garde, between progressive rock and synth-pop, this album didn’t just jump over into the pop spectrum, it pole vaulted. Hillage’s amazing spacey guitar sound is still there, but as part as synthesizer-heavy pop numbers, many of which could be mistaken for Gary Numan tracks. It goes to show that Genesis and Yes weren’t the only prog acts looking to synthpop to reinvent themselves in the 80s, that’s for sure.

As much as I like For To Next, I do think that’s its probably Hillage’s weakest effort next to his purely ambient 1979 Rainbow Dome Musick, which is too mellow even more my Tangerine Dream-loving ass. It’s simultaneously not synth-pop enough and not prog enough. I feel like he had to move more in one direction. Either embrace his proggy side, or dive head first into pop ala Inivisible Touch.

 

After working mostly as a producer in the 80s, he’s since committed himself solely to electronic music. Today, he releases music as System 7, alongside his partner Monique Giraudy. They have a prog rock side to them, but they’re much more ambient than anything else. Think The Orb. I sadly don’t have much by them yet, but I’m still listening to his solo stuff so much I’m in no hurry.

Anyways, I’ve blathered on for nearly 800 words without even mentioning the songs I’m sharing tonight! These four numbers come from 12″ singles taken from the For To Next album. The original versions of “Alone” and “Kamikaze Eyes” are on the album proper, while the other tracks are B-sides. “Alone” has a good riff, but it’s the weaker of the two. “Kamikaze Eyes” is a banger of a track, I hope it was the lead single for the album, it’s by far the best number on it. Catchy as hell, good beat, good guitar solo, good lyrics. Great all around. Definitely should’ve been at least a minor hit.

Both “Timelines” and “Before The World Was Made” are instrumentals, and good ones at that. Again, while For To Next isn’t the best album, I really wish Hillage would’ve experimented more with this style, he could’ve had something.

Anyways, if you’ve read all of this (congrats) and you want to know a good starting off point for Hillage’s solo stuff, I say you can’t go wrong with L, Green, Open or Motivation Radio (Fish Rising is good too, but a little rougher around the edges). Also, his Live Herald and Dusseldorf live albums are good starting points too, as they both feature a lot of his best work. He was also a member of the group Khan, and their sole offering, 1972’s Space Shanty, is some good prog-ass prog if that’s your scene.

And if you’re thinking about getting into Gong, well, that’s a bit trickier. I’d say either start with You or Flying Teapot. If either of those albums don’t drive you insane, then you’ll probably dig the other stuff by Gong proper. Be warned there are two Gongs. When the band broke up, it was reborn as Pierre Moerlen’s Gong and they are way more jazz fusion than prog. Seriously. You’ve been warned.

Posted in B-sides, Gong, remixes, Steve Hillage | 7 Comments »

Stupid band names and stupid business

Monday, November 19th, 2018

Magic Marmalade
America (America Tribute Mix)
America (Hot Chill Mix)
This song consists of basically four elements:
1. A vocal sample from “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”
2. A chorus shouting “go go up the road again”
3. A dude in a heavy German accent scowling “AMERICA!”
4. What sounds like someone having s seizure on synthesizer

And repeat.

So what I’m saying is, it’s pretty good. Strange how a dude yelling “America!” following by a vaguely menacing melody works as a shorthand to describe how I feel about the state of the union in 2018. Funny or sad. Whatever.

I guess I should talk about Magic Marmalade (sigh…that name) but I really don’t know who they are. Discogs’ profile for the group is literally nothing more than “Italian project.” That’s it. Dudes don’t even get a “An.” The four Italians in the group are unknown to me, but I’m sure if I put forth the effort I could Kevin Bacon at least one of them to a Goblin offshoot in less than five steps. From what I can gather, they never put out an actual record, just a series of singles followed by a compilation. If there are any Magic Marmalade (god…that fucking name) superfans out there and you wanna share a deep cut, let me know in the comments. And if anyone from Magic Marmalade (….) is reading this, let me know what the fuck is up with your name. Cuz damn.

 

John Carpenter
The End (J. Anthony Scratch Mix)
Okay, I’m going to use this opportunity to rant about something only tangentally related to this song. I apologize. Okay, not really, it’s my blog after all and no one is forcing you to read it.

The new Halloween movie came out a few weeks ago, any of y’all see it? Was it good? I heard it was good. I, being a die-hard Halloween fan who even owns the one with Busta Rhymes, really wanted to see it. Only one problem, it never came out in theaters here in Japan. Why? No fucking clue. No one knows. My boyfriend even did a bit of digging in Japanese and couldn’t find anything aside from angry Japanese fans wondering the same thing.

Now, you may be thinking “hey, that’s just how international release dates are.” And you’d be right, if it was 1978. It’s 2018. Shit’s changed. Halloween was nearly simultaneously released in about 40 countries. Forty! You know who got to see Halloween the week of Halloween? The Ukrraine! Sri Lanka! Poland! Kuwait! Turkey! Kazakhstan! What the fuck? You’re telling me that the studio had time to negotiate a release and subtitle the movie in…whatever they speak there (sorry) but not do the same in Japan?

Japan isn’t getting the movie until April. What the fuck they gonna do, rename it Easter and play up the whole resurrection angle?

One thing that I’ve really started to notice ever since I moved overseas is that media companies are woefully behind when it comes to adapting their product and sales strategies for an increasingly shrinking/international audience. They create these artificial restrictions and releases for reasons that no doubt make sense to them, probably financial ones. But they fail to realize that the people who really want to see the movie/TV show/whatever that’s being locked away for whatever-the-fuck reason sure as hell are going to find a way to watch it. Legal or not. And all that means is less money for them.

When MST3K announced a new season, I was hella stoked. I didn’t back the Kickstarter, but I figured I’d be able to watch it easily when it came out, especially when Netflix announced that they picked the show up. To this day, the show has never shown up on Netflix here in Japan. And sure, I get that it would probably be hard to translate to a Japanese audience, but they could’ve just put it up as is, with a disclaimer. It’s not like doing that is going to piss anyone off. I wanted to watch it, so I just fucking stole it. Fuck them. I pay for their fucking service. Why the hell should I feel bad when they withhold their own product from me without giving me any option to view it legally. I stole that shit guilt free. And if they do the same with season two I’ll probably swipe that too.

America is probably already facing a brain drain, if not, it will soon. As more and more Americans immigrate abroad to escape dire political oppression/climate hell, they’re still going to want to consume their favorite media once they settle down in their new home. And if they can’t pay to get what they want. They’ll just steal it. Why the fuck shouldn’t they?

Anyways, “The End” is the theme to Carpenter’s classic Assault On Prescient 13. It was kind of a club hit back in the day, no doubt due to its electro sound that made it well-suited for breakdancing. I had never heard this particiular version though, which I found off of an oddly-named 12″ single that featured it, and a terrible track called “Waiting For A Train” by an act called Moonbase as the B-side. I’m not sharing that because it’s really bad. Seriously. I know I share a lot of “bad” music but even I have my limits. And considering I watched Cannonball Run and Congo this weekend, that’s really saying something.

 

Posted in John Carpenter, Magic Marmalade, remixes | No Comments »

Woke MJ

Thursday, November 15th, 2018


Michael Jackson
Black Or White (The Clivilles & Cole House/Club Mix)
Black Or White (The Clivilles & Cole House/Dub Mix)
Black Or White (The Underground Club Mix)
Black Or White (House With Guitar Radio Mix)
Black Or White (Tribal Beats)
Earth Song (Han’s Radio Experience)
Earth Song (Han’s Around The World Experience)
As much as I lament the lack of protest music in the year 2018, I think the lack of message songs, even ones without an overt political viewpoint, is even worse. Save for the occasional track about suicide, we just don’t get many songs that cover social issues these days. Sure, “We Are The World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” might not be very good, but at least they were trying to raise awareness and support for a serious problem. Where are the songs about civil rights, workers’ rights, the shrinking middle class, the opiod crisis, and so on?

If anyone under the age of 25 is reading this, they might think it’s silly of me to even ask that. But there are plenty of amazing songs that tackle such topics. There’s the entirety of Bruce Springsteen’s back catalog, for starters, not to mention songs from artists as diverse as Phil Collins (“Another Day In Paradise”), Nena (“99 Luftballoons”), Ultravox (“All Fall Down”), and even Frankie Goes To Hollywood (“Two Tribes.”)

Of course, it’s not entirely fair of me to say that artists aren’t making socially-conscious music. They are, it’s just that people aren’t listening to it all that much. Billboard made a list of their favorite protest songs of last year, and the overwhelming majority of those tracks were not hits, save for the Pink song and Jay-Z’s amazing “The Story of OJ.” But it’s hard to say if people don’t want these songs, or of the outlets covering music/the radio aren’t trying hard enough to get these songs out there. Chicken and the egg. I still think that if the song is good enough, or if the artist is big enough, the message can get out there. That’s why it’s a shame that artists like Bruno Mars, Imagine Dragons, and Taylor Swift are fucking up and skirting their responsibilities as some of the biggest artists in the world.

Michael Jackson knew he had the world’s ear, and that’s why he wrote songs like “Man In The Mirror” as these two tracks that I’m featuring tonight. When you’re the biggest star on Earth, you can turn a cry for social justice into a Top 10 single if you try hard enough. “Black Or White” was considered cheesy by some even at the time, but I’m never going to mock a message of peace and racial harmony. It’s a simple song, that’s for sure, ignoring the broader social issues that led to racial divides, but hey, it was a different time. This came out after the Rodney King beating (but before the riots), there were a lot of calls for racial harmony at the time. We were still a decade or so away from more people addressing the larger issues that were keeping that from being a reality. Gotta start somewhere.

“Earth Song” is, duh, a song about the environment, a topic that is crazily barely ever talked about in the media, let alone music, these days. That’s insanity. Literal insanity. The environment should be the number one issue on all of our minds at all times. The world is on the brink of an environmental collapse. Like soon, like, within most of our lifetimes. But you really have to dig deep in the media to even find mention of this, and it’s 100% absent in our pop culture. The pop stars of 2018 could actually help raise awareness about this dire issue. But they aren’t even trying. The world as we know it could end relatively soon. You think someone out there would try to right a fucking song about it.

Can a song literally save the world? I don’t know. But it could at least try.

Posted in Michael Jackson, remixes | 1 Comment »

If Prince really knew about The Future he would’ve warned us

Sunday, November 4th, 2018

The world ended in 1990.

Prince
The Future (Remix)
Electric Chair (Remix)

These tracks are new to me. The original versions first appeared on the Batman soundtrack, which I still haven’t bothered to pick up, one of the more embarrassing Prince-sized holes in my record collection. I found this single for just a couple hundred yen so I figured why the fuck not.

As I’ve never heard the original versions, I can’t compare these remixes to them. If what I’ve read is any indication though, the mixes are pretty different from the album versions, especially “The Future” which is transformed into a straight-up house track thanks to the remix work of William Orbit. Geez, remember that five minutes when he was the hot shit producer? He did some great stuff with Madonna, but I don’t think his work has aged particularly well, especially his solo stuff. Although to be honest, I think a lot of it wasn’t all that great the first time around. I had a friend who kept a copy of one of his albums for years, specifically because there was a song on it that she thought was so bad that it was hilarious. That’s some cold shit.

Anyways, yeah, Prince. He was cool. Fuck. I sure miss Prince. I was just getting back into his music when he died. Yo, Plectrumelectrum is a damn good record. I really recommend it, especially if you dig this remix of “The Electric Chair,” it really reminds me of that album’s groovy guitar funk. I hope Donna Grantis, the guitar player on that album, goes on to do some more work soon. She fucking slays man.

As much as I dig Prince, I remember that Batman was one of the first times I wasn’t 100% up with what he was putting down. I didn’t really dig the Batman movies as a kid all that much, I guess. I mean, I liked them. But they were a little too dark for my tastes. God, if 10-year-old 1990 me thought that Tim Burton’s Batman was too dark, he probably would’ve pissed his pants and crawled into a fetal position if he had seen any of the Dark Knight movies. Burton’s Batman movies are absolutely day-glo happy fun times compared to those flicks, which I have kind of grown to despise because of their grimdark bullshit wankery And even my 10-year-old self could tell that Prince schilling for Batman wasn’t exactly cool. “Batdance” is a stupid, stupid fucking song. And the video is just as dumb. Holy hell, speaking of shit that didn’t age well.

Come to think of it, Batman kicked off my cold spell on Prince. While I dug “Gett Off” (not understanding what it was about) I didn’t like most of the other tracks off of Diamonds And Pearls, and when Prince went full symbol on us all I (along with most people) dropped off completely. Coming back to a lot of those albums now, I really do enjoy them. But I think they would’ve bored grunge-era teenage me to death. Best I avoided them at the time.

Whilst I was complaining that the Michael Jackson estate hasn’t given the fans what the want, the Prince estate seems to slowly getting their shit together. Did you know that earlier this year they put TWENTY-THREE out-of-print Prince albums on iTunes and various streaming services? Yeah, sure a lot of them aren’t exactly great (although Emancipation is fucking rad as fuck) but hey, at least they’re out there now. Prince’s estate even curated a special digital only best of that encompasses his 1995-2010 work, which has historically been very hard to dive into thanks to its eclectic nature. My next vacation I’m going to have to buy all of this and just spend a week in Prince World.

Prince World is great, everyone. It’s all purple (duh) and all the clothes are custom-made to fit out that day, just as Prince would’ve wanted. And absolutely nothing is on high shelves.

Because Prince was tiny.

Posted in Prince, remixes | 3 Comments »

Annie’s not okay, and neither am I – Smooth Criminal Remixes

Saturday, November 3rd, 2018

Last time I posted Madonna. Let’s stay in the 80s for a while longer. It’s safer here.

Michael Jackson
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix Radio Edit)
Smooth Criminal (”Annie” Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Dance Mix – Dub Version)
Smooth Criminal (A Cappella)
I originally posted these nearly a decade ago but if you somehow were reading then and you’re still reading now, well firstly, thanks for not bailing on me like 90% of my audience did. Secondly, you should probably download these versions now. Those old ones were ripped from a scratchy record on a subpar turntable. These are fresh new CD rips, taken from a Japanese single that I scored last week, during the same trip that got me the previously featured Madonna single.

I’ve bought this on vinyl at least twice, and both sounded like shit in the exact same way, even with nearly identical scratches! I can only imagine there was some kind of problem with the original pressing. I’ve had that happen with other singles in the past. No matter how many times I buy “Right By My Side” by the Eurythmics, for example, I have the same problem.

Anyways, that’s a problem no more thanks to the wonders of digital music. CDs are underrated! Seriously! This vinyl boom is getting ridiculous. Why you wanna buy music on vinyl? What’s the point?

I know that sounds funny coming from me, proprietor of Lost Turntable, but I’ve long said that the main reason I got into vinyl wasn’t out of nostalgia, but because a lot of what I buy just isn’t easily available on CD or digitally. Of course, that was much truer when I started this blog 12 years ago than it is now. Truth be told, I buy a hell of a lot more CDs these days. And the vastness of iTunes digital library has literally saved me hundreds of dollars on formerly out-of-print CDs and LPs. Did you know that Prince’s Crystal Ball is on iTunes now?! Thirty songs for twenty bucks! You know how much that fucker goes for on CD? More than twenty bucks, I’ll tell you what.

But these remixes still aren’t on iTunes. Hell, most MJ remixes remain insanely out-of-print. A decision that is just utterly baffling. It’s not like the demand isn’t there. Why they hell are they sitting on these? Are they waiting for another anniversary so they can re-sell us all Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous again? I mean, I’ll buy them, I don’t mind. Assuming the remixes are included and sound good.

“Smooth Criminal” is the best shit. A while back Todd In The Shadows did a hilarious video profiling Alien Ant Farm and their cover of the track. In that video, he posits that, as dopey as that cover is, it helped cement “Smooth Criminal” in the popular lexicon as one of Michael Jackson’s best. He might be right, it certainly gave it a boost. But to me it’s always been one of his best, if not his absolute best, track. Everything about “Smooth Criminal” is just as on-point now as it was all those years ago. Top-notch production, dope AF bassline, and, of course, some of the best vocals that Michael ever graced the world with.

And of course, there’s the video another of MJ’s best. And definitely an early inspiration for my…*ahem*…interest in men in suits. That video just gives me the vapors I say.

All of these remixes are ass-kickular fan-fucking-tastic. Even the dub, which is really just a pure instrumental, is killer. It lets you hear just how dope that bass is. And the “A Cappella,” whilst not really an a cappella mix (it still has the drum beat), serves as an absolutely stellar showcase of MJ’s amazing voice. You put this shit on at a club and people would dance to it. You don’t even need that bassline (dope as it is).

More MJ soon. And some Prince too. Fuck it. Let us worship our fallen 80’s idols so they may be resurrected and save us from our accursed reality.

Posted in Michael Jackson, remixes | 2 Comments »

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