Modern English "I Melt With You"

One of the local stations is playing a different version than the one on my "Valley Girl" CD, possibly longer and in true stereo. Is this remix common on CD?

eriejwg wrote: Memory recalls the band re-recorded the song around 1989 or 1990. I listened to the digitally available Pillow Lips album from 1990 and it may be the recording you heard.

I remember buying the Sire 12 inch circa 1982 and being surprised that is was mono.

There is a true stereo version of the original "I Melt With You", albeit unedited with a missing background vocal near the end.

Andy

AndrewChouffi wrote: There is a true stereo version of the original "I Melt With You", albeit unedited with a missing background vocal near the end.

I've been told -- but do not know for a fact -- that the above is the version originally found on the LP After The Snow, and the version on Valley Girl is the original single version. To reiterate some of what's already been stated upthread, the single version reportedly has some differences in backing vocals from the album version, fades earlier, has at least one edit, and has noticeably less stereo separation (is it literally in mono?). The 1990 re-recording sounds different from either of the original versions.   

At least since the early/mid '90s, when the original single version began to appear on various compilations, it has been by far the most widely available and most heavily played on the radio. There is at least one radio station in my area that often plays the rerecording on its "retro '80s" show, though.

I have no memory of either the 1982 or 1990 releases of this song from when they were new, as they were not successful on the radio formats I was listening to at the time (Top 40 in 1982-83, AOR in 1990). I first encountered the song when I began listening to a local AOR station around 1985, which somewhat oddly had the song in semi-regular rotation well into the mid/late '80s. I don't remember which version they played, but I know that when the song began to get airplay in the '90s after '80s nostalgia began to kick in, it sounded a little odd to me. Since the single version seems to have been the most widely available by that point, I'm guessing that the version I heard on that AOR station back in the '80s was the album version.

MMathews wrote: For U.S. release Sire used the 45 version for the album, and the 12" single.

If the 45 version was the only version available domestically in the U.S. during the '80s, I may have to take back my comment above about that AOR station possibly playing the album version. I guess they could have been playing it off an import LP, but I doubt this station would have done something like that.