Hollies-Bus Stop
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
Forum Name: Chat Board
Forum Description: Chat away but please observe the chat board rules
URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3155
Printed Date: 19 April 2025 at 3:02pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.07 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Hollies-Bus Stop
Posted By: Robert
Subject: Hollies-Bus Stop
Date Posted: 24 February 2008 at 9:32pm
| I don't know if this has been covered, but the (DJ) 45 of this song is not the same as the stereo version that appears on CD. Check out 2:20-22, the line, "...Bus stop bus goes she stays love grows..." In the CD stereo version, the line ..."busgoes" is sung together; on the 45 it is sung in rhythm. The rest of the song seems quite close, if not identical, but this makes me wonder. So far I've not seen this version in any of the CDs I own; might some of the mono appearances be this 45 version? Maybe this version should be an alternate stereo vers? |
Replies:
Posted By: Pat Downey
Date Posted: 27 February 2008 at 9:38pm
| Much to my dismay, I do not have the vinyl 45 of Bus Stop but you may be on to something here Robert as I pulled out the only cd where Bus Stop appears in mono (Classic Masters) and sure enough it is not the same as the stereo version that appears on all other cd's. So until I get my hands on the original vinyl 45 I would say there probably is a 45 and LP version of Bus Stop. |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 02 March 2008 at 10:09pm
|
Robert, you nailed this one. I listened to the 1966 commercial 45 (Imperial 66186), the 1967 mono LP The Hollies' Greatest Hits (Imperial 9350) and the rechanneled track on the 1975 LP The Very Best Of The Hollies (United Artists 329) and all three have the "bus goes" from 2:20-22. The UA LP has "Stop, Stop, Stop," "Pay You Back With Interest" and "I Can't Let Go" in true stereo, yet "Bus Stop" is (E.) Does anyone have the stereo 1966 "Bus Stop" LP on Imperial to see whether or not the title track is in true stereo and has the "bus goes" at 2:20?
I then dug out the Epic Hollies Greatest Hits CD, along with several EMI CDs with the old stereo mix. All were the "busgoes" version at 2:20-22. The backing track sounded normal during this verse. Next came the remixed track from the 1993 30th Anniversary Collection, and what a revelation! The backing tack has a booming bass line that reverberates a bit between the two channels from the beginning of the track up through the instrumental break. Immediately following that, the reverberating bass continues through the first syllable of the word "every," with the last tambourine sound from the break over the second syllable of "every." From the next word "morning" at 1:46 all the way to the 2:41 mark following the last words of the song, the backing track is in mono, and the bass no longer reverberates between channels... Except for the short segment that begins at the very tail end of the "a" of the word "umbrella" at 2:20! The reverberating bass suddenly reappears at that point, and continues through "bus stop, busgoes, she stays, love grows..." with the bass returning to mono in the middle of the word "grows" at 2:23.7. This makes the word "grows" sound a little bit garbled. The segment from 2:20-2:23.7 is copied and pasted from the same segment at the beginning of "Bus Stop" from :14-:17, where the line is sung "busgoes" on all versions, including the mono Imperial 45. Pat, I think you're on the right track with 45 and LP version designations. |
Posted By: bwolfe
Date Posted: 03 March 2008 at 11:16am
|
The version of "Bus Stop" mentioned by Robert is also available on a Canadian made "Capitol Special Market" disc called The Best of British Rock.
Its a twelve track disc of British Invasion stuff. Peter and Gordon, The Seekers, Manfred Mann, etc. I found the disc in a rack of discs we used on air many years ago when we played 60's tunes in our mix. Great find Robert! ------------- the way it was heard on the radio |
Posted By: Pat Downey
Date Posted: 10 March 2008 at 8:41pm
| I just obtained the "stereo" Bus Stop LP and Bus Stop is rechanneled on this LP and contains the mono 45 and mono LP version with the bus goes version. So the true stereo versions that appear on almost all cd's are really an alternate stereo version. |
Posted By: davidclark
Date Posted: 11 March 2008 at 1:21pm
|
Does anyone have the mono 45 MP3d, either from the single or that Classic Masters CD? I'd like to hear the "bus goes" version to compare with my other versions.
I agree with Yah Sure that the 2:20-2:23.7 segment was copied from the :14-:17 on the 30th Anniversary CD. The bass gives it away. ------------- dc1 |
Posted By: jcr102
Date Posted: 11 March 2008 at 2:09pm
| You can hear the Parlophone 45 of Bus Stop at this Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMb5yV9lPUw Sure enough, there's a difference when you get to "bus goes" late in the song. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 13 March 2008 at 12:12am
|
I know I'm late to the party, but I just compared the mono version of "Bus Stop" on the Hollies Classic Masters CD to the stereo version on the Greatest Hits disc and, sure enough, Robert has uncovered an amazingly subtle, yet significant difference between the two... A very astute catch indeed!
Some questions immediately come to mind... 1) Why would the Imperial record label have elected to go with an electronically rechanneled mix of "Bus Stop" on the parent LP? Wouldn't they have had the multi-track session tapes handy to do a true stereo mix? 2) Why would the audio engineer who later mastered the commonly-found-on-CD alternate stereo mix of "Bus Stop" have gone through the trouble of copying the :03 "busgoes" segment from earlier in the song and splicing it in at the 2:20-2:23 mark? Why wasn't everything just left alone? Was this done to mask some kind of problem or error? On a side note, I'm very glad I decided to hold on to the Hollies Classic Masters CD. Not only is it one of the very few places to find the correct 45 mix of "Bus Stop" on CD, but it may also well be the best single disc collection of the Hollies' Top 40 hits in the U.S. Back in the early 2000s, Capitol issued a number of its other catalog artists under the Classic Masters series, but I recently rid my collection of nearly all these discs. Even though these CDs state "24 BIT DIGITALLY REMASTERED" on the packaging, I'm here to tell you the sound quality on this series is mostly dreadful. The audio is grossly overmodulated and severely compressed, often to the point of distortion. The Hollies disc is pretty much the only one on the Capitol Classic Masters line I've found at least somewhat acceptable. |
Posted By: Bill Cahill
Date Posted: 13 March 2008 at 5:08pm
|
I can confirm that even the mono Bus Stop DJ LP has the same mono mix Robert described. So does the Capitol re-issue of Hollies Greatest on vinyl, which clearly states on the bottom of the back cover, a monophonic recording.
As far as why use an electronically simulated version for the Bus Stop LP, Greatest Hits, etc, Imperial was probably too lazy, ignorant, or cheap to ask for the stereo tape. I think later United Artists inherited the distribution rights and didn't bother to get the tapes either. |
Posted By: MCT1
Date Posted: 13 March 2008 at 8:36pm
A couple of thoughts on this: --Because the Hollies were British, and were signed to different, unrelated labels in the UK and US, Imperial may not have had ready access to the tapes. If Imperial had been sent a mono master for the single, they may have felt that was good enough, and were too lazy/cheap/whatever (see Bill's post) to request a stereo master. --It's very possible that a stereo master didn't even exist, so requesting one might have been problematic (or at the very least, may have involved Imperial shelling out some money to have one made). In the '60s, British singles were often not included on any contemporaneous album, so a stereo master might not be made until it was needed for a compliation album somewhere down the road. I don't know if this was the case with "Bus Stop", but it's a possibility. (FWIW, the Hollies discography on Wikipedia shows an American album released in 1966 called "Bus Stop", but no British counterpart.) There were a number of Beatles singles where this type of thing happened. IIRC, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "I Feel Fine" are a couple of examples. Capitol wanted to include these songs on LPs, but they had been non-album singles in the UK, so no stereo master existed. Rather than pay to have one made, Capitol released the song in fake stereo -- and kept making the album that way for years, even after stereo masters had been made for use on compilations released in the UK or elsewhere. And in the Beatles' case, the US and UK labels weren't even unrelated -- they were under common ownership (EMI). |
Todd Ireland wrote:Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 13 March 2008 at 9:00pm
|
I agree. Although Imperial was likely responsible for the rechanneling job, that label never had any Hollies session tapes; those belonged to EMI (and we all know how erratic they were when sending mixdowns across the pond.) EMI may have taken a "this is what you're getting, and that's it" approach. In light of Pat's statement that the Imperial Bus Stop album included a rechanneling of the mono 'bus_goes' version, I also agree that the song was likely mixed to stereo some time later. It didn't appear in the US in stereo until the 1973 Epic Hollies' Greatest Hits LP. Perhaps the multis were damaged when the stereo mixdown was done.
Lest we forget, "Happy Together" was the only track on stereo copies of the similarly-titled Turtles album on White Whale to appear in rechanneled stereo. Was the title track not yet mixed to stereo in time for inclusion on the LP? The Turtles Golden Hits LP on White Whale did have "Happy Together" in true stereo a couple of years later. Todd, thanks for the heads up regarding the quality issues on the Capitol Classic Masters series. Unfortunately, "Bus Stop" and its flipside, "Don't Run And Hide," were left off of EMI's 2004 A's B's & EP's 24-track mono Hollies CD. Oddly, both sides of "Bus Stop" 's follow-up 45 ("Stop! Stop! Stop!" / "It's You") are included (the "Bus Stop" 45 hit #5 in both the US and UK in '66.) I bought the Seekers CD in the A's B's series in order to get the mono mix of "A World Of Our Own," with its prominent guitar intro that gets buried under the autoharp on the stereo version. The sound quality on that track and the others is excellent. Although the A's B's series was originally issued with copy protection, the copy of the Seekers disc I bought new last year no longer had it. Speaking of EMI's haphazard approach to sending tapes to America, has anyone heard whether or not Caroline's new Gerry & The Pacemakers boxed set You'll Never Walk Alone contains the US version of "I'll Be There"? This set is described as having " some recordings issued only in the USA and Canada," but I can't find any particulars. It's due out March 25th. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 14 March 2008 at 9:10am
Wasn't even that long. The first GH LP came out in late '67. I remember getting it for Christmas that year. |
Posted By: MCT1
Date Posted: 14 March 2008 at 12:49pm
I found a page with a detailed UK Hollies discography. I do not see "Bus Stop" on the tracklistings for any albums released around the time it was out as a single. Its first UK LP appearance seems to be in 1968 on the album "The Hollies' Greatest". I'd think it likely that the stereo mix was not done until at least then. http://www.proweb.co.uk/~rhaywood/records/albums.htm |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 23 January 2025 at 10:55pm
|
Graham Gouldman was on tear in 1966, writing a flood of hits for the Yardbirds, Herman's Hermits, the Hollies, and others. He was just 19 when he wrote "Bus Stop", which is still amazing to me. He definitely has a gift for songwriting.
Hit mono version The 1966 hit was mono. The song wasn't mixed to stereo when it was a hit. You have exactly one choice for finding the mono version on a US CD: Capitol's Classic Masters (2002). As far as I know, it's not on a UK CD, either. It runs 2:52 here. It's mastered a little loud for my tastes (a bit of clipping or compression/limiting), but overall the sound is fine. The EQ is nice, and I don't hear artifacts on the fade from any added noise reduction. It might even be a very nice dub from vinyl - do I hear a little low-frequency turntable rumble on the fade and maybe a tick or pop? Not sure. But vinyl dub or not, this CD is all there is and I'm greatful that it exists at all. I assume that the 45 represents the full performance of the song, without any editing or rearranging (can't confirm, but I think it's a pretty good assumption). At 0:16, Allan Clarke sings "bus stops / busgoes" with the words bus and goes being squashed together like we're used to hearing. At 2:22, Allan Clarke sings "bus stops / bus goes" with the words bus and goes being sung on the beat, which sounds a little stiff to my ears because we've never heard it sung like that before. (Unless we lived through hearing it on the radio in 1966.) At 1:09, you can hear an edit in the vocals on the word "true". It sounds like the engineer is switching from one vocal take to another take at the edit. I don't hear any edit in the instrumentation at 1:09 (although it's hard to hear behind the vocals). The edit is between beats. If you want another CD with the full performance, it appears in dreadful fake stereo on JCI's Rockin' Sixties (1988). It runs 0.9% slower than Classic Masters. The tail of the fade is about 4 beats shorter than Classic Masters. If you use only the left channel, apply a whole lot of EQ correction, speed up the track by 0.9%, and pretend the fade runs 4 beats longer... it will still likely sound like mud, but you'll get a good idea of what the full performance sounds like. Non-hit 1968 stereo version Parlophone UK did a proper stereo mix in 1968 for the Hollies' Greatest vinyl LP, two years after the song was a hit. If the CD copies of this mix are to be believed, the drums are panned mostly left, and the vocals are panned mostly right. The panning isn't 100%, so there's a little bit of drums on the right and a little bit of vocals on the left. Maybe there's a version out there with a wider soundstage that has complete panning, but I haven't encountered it on CD. I believe that the first CD to include the stereo version was EMI UK's 2-CD All The Hits And More - The Definitive Collection (1988). It runs 2:53 here. The tail of the fade is about two beats shorter than the mono 45 version. Sound quality is quite nice, with seemingly low-generation source tapes, great dynamic range, nice EQ, and no evidence on the fade of any added noise reduction. I'm more impressed with the sound on this disc than I expected to be. At 0:16, Allan Clarke sings "bus stops / busgoes" with the words bus and goes being squashed together like we're used to hearing. But at 2:22, Allan Clarke sings "bus stops / busgoes" with the words bus and goes also being squashed together, which is different from the mono 45 version. At 1:10, you can hear the edit in the vocals on the word "true", just like the mono 45 version. Because the vocals are pretty well confined to the right channel, you can isolate the point where the vocals are edited. There's no corresponding edit in the instrumentation in the left channel at that point. The edit occurs between beats, at the same location as on the mono 45 version. I A/B-ed the vocal tracks between this stereo version and the mono 45 version, and I can't find any other differences aside from right around the 2:22 point. The following CDs use the same analog transfer as All The Hits And More - The Definitive Collection:
Finally, a complete surprise: Simitar's Love Rocks - In Love With Love (1998) seems to use the same analog transfer as All The Hits And More (or both use the same source from EMI), but runs 2 beats longer than All The Hits And More! Plus, it has a very slightly wider soundstage than All The Hits And More! I don't know what source Simitar used from EMI, but it's a winner! Non-hit 1993 remix Ron Furmanek and Mike Jarratt remixed the song in very nice stereo for EMI's 2-CD 30th Anniversary Collection (1993). It runs 2:55 here, and about 6 beats longer than the stereo mixes listed above. The 1993 remix separates the double-tracked vocals into the left and right channels, respectively, so each vocal track is isolated in a single channel. It still has the vocal edit during the word "true" at 1:09, but only in the left channel! The right channel's vocals go on just fine at the word "true". To deal with the 2:22 stuff, Ron Furmanek and Mike Jarratt repeated the portion of 0:13.7 to 0:17.6 at 2:20.0 to 2:23.9. It's literally the same 0's and 1's, cut-and-pasted from the first instance of "busgoes" to the second instance of "busgoes". This is not the case with the 1968 stereo mix (I checked it). Not sure why they did that, unless the vocals that were used for the 1968 stereo mix at 2:22 were unavailable for some reason. My recommendations For the hit mono version, go with Capitol's Classic Masters (2002). For the non-hit 1968 stereo version, go with Simitar's Love Rocks - In Love With Love (1998). If you can't find it (or we can't identify what mastering this Simitar disc is really based on), EMI UK's 2-CD All The Hits And More - The Definitive Collection (1988) and Rhino's British Invasion Vol. 3 (1988) are both much more common and sound about the same as the Simitar disc. For the non-hit 1993 remix, go with EMI's 2-CD 30th Anniversary Collection (1993). ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: davidclark
Date Posted: 25 January 2025 at 5:24pm
|
In fact, the first stereo mix from that Hollies' Greatest LP was indeed wide - I
have it on 1987 CD "20 Golden Greats", which is a CD issue of the 1978 LP. I bought it in Canada, pressed in W-Germany. https://www.discogs.com/release/3976472-The-Hollies-20-Golde n-Greats The wide mix has been narrowed for many if not most CD issues, including on Rhino "The British Invasion: The History Of British Rock Vol. 3". ------------- dc1 |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 25 January 2025 at 10:57pm
|
Woo-hoo!
It turns out that the Simitar disc is a level-shifted digital clone of EMI UK's 20 Golden Greats (copyright 1978, CD released 1987)! 20 Golden Greats is now my go-to for the 1968 stereo version. Well done, dc1! ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |