Sounds of the 80s 1980-1982

I'm not sure about that disc, but I'm pretty certain "Abracadabra" is just an early fade on the 45. The database states "45 version," but I believe it's one of those cases where Pat chose to use "version" for what I would consider "length." In another thread, Bill also states that the 45 is also sped up quite a bit. That could also be a reason for designating it as "version."

Edited by aaronk

I thought that fades and "very early fades" were supposed to be designated as "length". I just checked Addrisi Bros "Slow Dancin'..." in the database, which is a very early fade, faded to 3:12 instead of nearly 6 minutes, and Pat lists this as "version."

This is very confusing to me. And this methodology will cause a lot of people to buy CDs unnecessarily when they can just fade the songs on CDs they already own.

Pat, for our knowledge - when a song fades early, where do you draw the line between "length" and "version" designations - for instance, if a faded song is 2:00 shorter than its album counterpart it's a "version" but if it's faded 1:59 shorter than its album counterpart it's a "length"?? Wherever the random dividing line is drawn, it seems very inconsistent with what you otherwise describe as a "length" in the database. (Or do you just randomly choose the designation and not have a specific time used as the dividing line, which is even more random)?

For me, Pat, your database is helpful in so many ways, but if a song ever fades early (regardless of how many seconds/minutes early), if it gets a "version" designation, it's just confusing.

EdisonLite wrote: ... do you just randomly choose the designation and not have a specific time used as the dividing line, which is even more random?

We've argued this before, and I'm with you, Gordon. It's very confusing when the database randomly chooses which early fades are considered "versions." There are even instances in the database where a song fades only a matter of seconds earlier, but it still gets a "version" designation, because the full song ends cold.

"We Are The World" is another example of an early fade that is designated as "version," because there are soloists that are not featured earlier in the song. Again, it's very arbitrary, and there are no definite rules as to how the "length" and "version" designators are applied to early fades.

I think it's one of those things that would be too much work to go back and change at this point. What bothers me is that there is not a rule that can be applied to determine "length" vs "version" for early fades. Not having a rule also makes it very inconsistent. For instance, "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" by Yes gets a "45 length" designation; however, you could argue that there is a key change at the end with different lyrics that are not on the 45 and thus should be a "version."

Aaron, thanks for pointing out the lyric change in the longer version of "Owner Of A Lonely Heart". For that reason, I have changed the designation from LP length to LP version in the database.

Originally as I recall, I used a criteria that would automatically warrant a "version" comment if there was 1 minute of additional music on the LP vs the 45.

In the case of "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" even though there isn't a 1 minute difference of time, there is that additional lyric that warrants a "version" designation.

If you come across any other circumstances similar to "Owner Of A Lonely Heart", point them out to me and I will change the designation.