Newcleus - Jam On It

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 NightAire wrote:

 aaronk wrote:

The 45 version for "Planet Rock" is the one 

that starts with the music and runs 5:18 (also available on 

several CDs).

I'm amazed there wasn't a shorter edit for radio, but the 

only promos on Discogs are the same length as the 

commercial 45.

I'd think this one would be easy to chop down to 2 & 1/2 or 

3 minutes, if you wanted...  I'm sure the length didn't 

help it get airplay in '82. 

Yikes! Hacking one of the first electro classics down to a mere 2.5-3 minutes?!? Geez, sometimes I wonder if we collect music to enjoy it or destroy it??? Tsk, tsk. :-) Seriously, while I have no solid proof, I believe this is a case where the song was first released as a 12" single, and when it began to sell extremely well (new genre, after all), Tommy Boy issued it on 45 more or less as an afterthought, and thus didn't want to shave it down any further than to (5:18), even for radio. (In Billboard, it first cracked the 12"/dance chart on 05/15/82, then the r&b chart on 06/12/82, before finally hitting the "Hot 100" on 07/17/82.) While not a huge pop airplay hit, "Planet Rock" was one of those big r&b/crossover sellers a la Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" the following year (1983). And while aaronk suggests an "LP version/mix" in his post from 29 September 2007 above, there actually was no parent album for the song back in '82 - although the label did eventually release a compilation that it titled Planet Rock - The Album four years later, in 1986 (Tommy Boy 1007), which I've owned on cassette since the late '80s, and features an even longer (7:30) version of the title track...