Naked Eyes on Living In Oblivion

Santi if I have the first pressing of the "Naked Eyes" vinyl LP, then my copy features the drum intro to "Always Something There To Remind Me".

My wife's copy of the LP she bought as soon as the song
came out, so i'm pretty sure it was a first pressing, as
was my 45 of "Always..." - i too bought it upon release,
before the song peaked.
I've run across many many more LP copies with the common
"drums intro" so i i'm fairly sure a lot more of those
were pressed.
I never made note of which version of "Promises, Promises"
was on her LP, and sadly it is long gone 15 years ago.
MM

More incremental progress for "Promises Promises".

I found four different tempos for the song, three of which pretty much have to be wrong.

The first CD appearance for "Promises Promises" was on the 1991 Best Of disc, where it ran 113.4 BPM. The same analog transfer was used for Priority's Rock Of The '80s Vol. 6 (1993, added a little extra compression as well).

The next CD appearance was on Rhino's Just Can't Get Enough Vol. 10 (1994), where it ran 114.1 BPM. The same analog transfer was used for Time-Life's Sounds Of The Eighties Vol. 11 1983-1984 (1995; differently EQ'd digital clone), Simitar's Number Ones Eighties Rock (1998), and on Time-Life's 2-CD Modern Rock Vol. 8 Early '80s (2000; digitally exactly 2 dB quieter than Sounds Of The Eighties).

Next, it appeared on EMI's Living In Oblivion Vol. 5 (1995), running at 111.7 BPM. This is actually the tempo of the 12 inch single, which is denoted as the Tony Mansfield 12" Mix on the Everything And More CD from 2002.

The version that I think is actually closest to what was released is on Promises Promises The Very Best Of (1994), where it runs 115.7 BPM. There's a version on The A List Disc 17 (1994) taken from vinyl, which runs 115.5 BPM.

To further complicate matters, it appears that since Jellybean was credited with editing the intro to "Always Something There To Remind Me", he was also given a shot at doing a 7" mix and a 12" mix for "Promises Promises" for release in the US. EMI must not have liked them, because they didn't release them at the time, and instead released the Tony Mansfield mixes. Both of the Jellybean mixes run at 113.9 BPM, and both were included on Everything And More (2002).

The longer UK version, which seems to have been on early pressings of the US LP, runs 112.6 BPM on Promises Promises The Very Best Of (1994).

Got all that? I'm unsure how all of this actually happened, especially on the Living In Oblivion and Just Can't Get Enough series, which I highly regard.

If anyone has a dub of the 45 or the LP version, done on a Technics 1200 or other turntable that has superb pitch control, I'll be happy to figure out a tempo from it. That takes me all of 10 seconds.

Edited by crapfromthepast

How about passing aloong the matrix number of this vinyl LP which you think is the first pressing?

Ed's 45 dub of "Promises Promises" also runs 115.5
BPM, just like the vinyl dub on The A List.

Thanks, Ed!