ROMANTICS - "What I Like About You"
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Printed Date: 03 April 2025 at 1:05am
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Topic: ROMANTICS - "What I Like About You"
Posted By: abagon
Subject: ROMANTICS - "What I Like About You"
Date Posted: 03 November 2008 at 7:19am
|
ROMANTICS - "What I Like About You"
The actual 45 running time is (2:38), the listed time is "2:56" on the record label. (Nemperor ZS9 7527) |
Replies:
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 03 November 2008 at 7:26am
| What's edited out of the 45? (album version is 2:56) |
Posted By: abagon
Date Posted: 03 November 2008 at 8:25am
Hi, AndrewChouffi. I don't have the vinyl LP "Romantics", however I have the CD "More Of The Big 80's (Rhino)". I have compared the 45 with the Rhino CD. The commercial 45 speed is unbelievably VERY VERY faster than the CD track. The 45 is never edited down, and doesn't have an overdub. There is the final voice "Hi" at 2:37.541 on the 45.
--abagon |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 03 November 2008 at 10:16am
|
Just for giggles, I sped up my digital copy of the song. Raising the pitch to 110% to get it to end at 2:39, it almost makes the song sound unlistenable, lol.
I've got to believe there has to be some sort of edit. Either that, or the 45 in question may be a faulty pressing, possibly. |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 11:43am
|
I finally acquired a stock 45 for this. Abagon's crazy timing is exactly what I
got, too. It is *not* an edit. It is in *full* chipmunk mode, from start to finish. Totally unlistenable. My deadwax is a handwritten "AF-ZS9-7527-3." Does anyone happen to own a promo 45 for this? Unfortunately, it is one of the very few db promo 45s from 1980 that I am missing. They just couldn't have serviced radio with the crazy stock 45 version all of us seem to own! |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 11:55am
|
That's insane! Why would anyone want to pitch up a song
that already blasts along at 160 BPM? Although, if radio really was serviced a ridiculously pitched-up version of the song, it would explain why this wasn't a hit in 1980. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: TomDiehl1
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 3:48pm
|
I do have this one on a promo 45 but it is in storage. It even comes with a promo-only picture sleeve. I've never seen another... unfortunately when i bought mine on ebay the seller shipped the 45 inside the sleeve and it split the bottom side.
I don't remember offhand what it times out to, however, I decided to check out the "chipmunked" track speed off of an mp3 of the 2:56 version sped up to 2:38.... I know with absolute certainty that the promo 45 does NOT sound this fast..... but now I am curious about it and will go to my storage locker tomorrow if I can, to go dig it out. ------------- Live in stereo. |
Posted By: MMathews
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 4:07pm
|
Wow, i too just sped it up to match that time .. and holy
crow! I never heard it that way, ever, thankfully. It was huge hit on rock radio so i assume they played it off the album, and the album is what i bought in 1981. (was already a party staple by then.) I have to conclude for myself that this 45 pressing is a critical mastering error. MM |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 5:51pm
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I just timed out my promo, and it times out to 2:54
(listed time 2:56). |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 6:19pm
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Thanks, Steve. Could you please provide deadwax info for your promo 45?
That way, those of us hoping to locate a stock 45 at the correct, promo 45 speed can use your 45's deadwax as a possible tipoff, before buying another bogus (2:38) stock copy. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 8:04pm
This may be the most comical understatement I've seen all day. :) If someone would send me an mp3, I'll gladly run a quickie test to find out exactly how fast it is. If it's seriously pitched up by 10%, that's an inconceivable amount, and is WAY too large to be an error. To give you a sense of scale, some of the radio stations (like WPLJ in New York) used to pitch up their music by 2%. At 2%, something sounds a little off to the untrained ear. Some of the '50s and '60s-era pressings of 45 can be off in pitch by 1% or 2%. A semi-tone (like from a C to a C sharp) is about 6%. A Technics 1200 turntable has pitch control of +/- 8%. In practical use during beat-matching, I've never pitched up or down the full 8%. The old Otari reel-to-reel decks that all my old radio stations used had a pitch control of +/-7% or +/-8% (I forget which). So to pitch up by 10%, you really have to work at it! (Seriously - please, somebody send me an mp3 of a 45 dub...) ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com - Crap From The Past . |
MMathews wrote:Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 8:09pm
|
Is it possible that the cutting head was running too slow when the tape was being played back at the normal speed? Still, you think they would have caught this after playing a test pressing. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: TomDiehl1
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 8:17pm
|
Perhaps someone saw the time of the song on the flip side of the stock 45 and sped the A side up to match it? Makes me wonder, then, was the B side of the stock 45 slowed down to match the label time of the A side? ------------- Live in stereo. |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 18 June 2013 at 8:37pm
|
Ron, within a week, I promise you that you will have your (2:38) 45 dub.
Please then provide us with your frightening speed numbers/other data breakdowns! |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 5:39am
Sure thing. Hand etched T1 (or I) AC-ZS9-7527-3 (the final dash almost looks like =). About 180° away is machine stamped (in tiny type) what looks like N17y315 preceded by an indecipherable character. Weird. Since promos are at more-or-less the correct speed at least some stampers were OK. |
Posted By: abagon
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 8:59am
|
Thanks, Jim! I'm deeply grateful that you've acquired the crazy 45.
F.Y.I. The LP actual running time is (2:55), the listed time is "2:56" on the LP record label. (title "Romantics" Nemperor PZ 36273) The LP speed is not crazy. --abagon |
Posted By: 80smusicfreak
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 9:26am
Maybe so, but it's worth noting that your LP is actually a re-issue, as indicated by the "PZ" prefix you give in the catalog no. As printed on the label of your 45 further up, original LP pressings carried a "JZ" prefix... |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 9:46am
| Our commercial 45 copy states a time of (2:56) and actually runs (2:54). Deadwax: T1 AD-ZS9-7527-3. |
Posted By: abagon
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 10:40am
Thanks for the info, 80smusicfreak! By the way. Are all the "PZ" prefix re-issue items in the CBS releases? --abagon |
Posted By: 80smusicfreak
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 12:18pm
This is kind of a tricky question, as first pressings of some CBS albums in the mid '70s did actually start w/ a "P" in the prefix. But if the LP was originally released in 1978 or later (and of course, in the case of the Romantics, it was), then yes, a prefix of "PC" (Columbia), "PE" (Epic), "PR" (Portrait), or "PZ" (CBS Associated) would indicate a re-issue in the CBS catalog. However, during this period, here in the U.S. CBS was also notorious for sticking leftover first pressings of albums (w/ the original prefix) inside re-issue covers, so it's always important to check both to see if the prefixes match up (if that kind of thing matters to you as a collector, that is)... |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 10:04pm
|
On a somewhat related note, it's my understanding that commercial 45 copies of Herb Alpert's "Rise" were accidentally pressed (or played) at the wrong speed in the U.K. and as a result a much more sped up version ended up becoming a hit there!
As for The Romantics' "What I Like About You", I wonder how many people bought this 45 and then returned it to the store thinking it was defective? No question, this may have negatively impacted sales and would at least partially explain how a song so heavily played at sporting events, weddings, and on radio today achieved such a disappointing #49 Billboard Hot 100 chart peak in 1980. Out of curiosity, do these super-sped-up 45s play more "normal" at 33 rpm speed? |
Posted By: abagon
Date Posted: 20 June 2013 at 8:22am
Thank you very much for the detail about the CBS album prefix, good teacher 80smusicfreak! I use the advices as a reference for my LP collecting. --abagon |
Posted By: abagon
Date Posted: 20 June 2013 at 8:28am
I played the 45 at 33 rpm speed. The actual 33 rpm running time is (3:34). It's too slow to listen to it. The voices are... As if Steve Miller sings, duet with Bob Seger! --abagon |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 20 June 2013 at 7:33pm
|
I managed to get in touch with the band, and got a
response from lead singer Wally Palmar: "Wally is not aware of this unless it was a pirated copy and not the original pressing. He has not heard of that issue before." In the '80s, this song was impossible to find on CD, so we DJs had to play it off vinyl. I'm pretty sure my copy was a rerelease on Rock N' Mania, and the speed was just fine. I knew some CD-only DJs who resorted to the inferior cover version by Michael Morales; I'm still convinced that the CD unavailability of the Romantics version on CD was what led to the Michael Morales version being a hit. I'll have to check around town and scoop up any 45 copies I can find. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 20 June 2013 at 9:08pm
Thanks for checking, abagon!
Hmmm, interesting... |
Posted By: cmmmbase
Date Posted: 21 June 2013 at 12:32pm
| My stock copy runs 2:55 with the deadwax of AA-ZS9-7527-3. |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 22 June 2013 at 11:31pm
I've heard that this was because 12" singles were typically pressed at 45, so when UK DJs got US imports (pressed at 33), they played them at the wrong speed. Normally, vocals would indicate the wrong speed but an instrumental cut doesn't give that clue. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 23 June 2013 at 3:11pm
| Looks like at least a couple folks here do have a commercial 45 pressing of "What I Like About You" that plays at the same speed as on the LP. Thus, I'm inclined to believe the ultra fast 45 pressings were manufacturing errors. But then this raises questions... Just how common are these errant pressings? And how did the quality control division at the manufacturing plant allow them to make it onto retail store shelves? |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 23 June 2013 at 3:46pm
Thanks, eric_a. I remembered reading something about this in Fred Bronson's The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. I just pulled out my copy for reference and it confirms all the details in your story. |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 23 June 2013 at 4:53pm
|
Todd, errant pressings were more common than one might think. Unless the label had just finished mastering the latest Chipmunks release prior to the Romantics miscue, one might assume that a screw-up of this nature would have been pretty inexcusable at CBS. Was it just one batch from one plant that managed to fall between quality control checks? Who knows? Was anyone at CBS even aware at the time that they'd forgotten to disconnect the helium tanks?
Let's say they were aware of the glitch. In that case, who would have been contractually responsible for eating the cost of the mispressings? Was this particular job done through an independent mastering house or was it included in Nemperor's manufacturing & distribution pact with CBS? If the former was the case here, CBS might have been contractually bound to utilize the metal parts they'd been provided by Nemperor, mastering error or not. Here's another ponderable: if the mastering error did lie with Nemperor, could the label afford to replace the consequential defective pressings? I've seen an example on Private Stock where comical amounts of tape slippage should have been caught by even someone with a tin ear, yet both the mono and stereo sides of the DJ 45 - pressed by Columbia Terre Haute - went out exactly like that, rendering them completely unusable to radio. The stock pressing was correct, and yet Private Stock made neither the effort to re-service a corrected promo 45 nor authorized the shipment of stock copies to replace the defective promos. Unsurprisingly, the record tanked, so it probably wasn't one the label had any intention of working (promotionally) in the first place. Considering the vast number of records pressed at CBS's plants for both their own records group and their numerous custom clients, it's amazing that many more mistakes didn't fall through the cracks. If the plant employees played the blooper pressings at their holiday parties, there must've been some real lulus! One can only imagine what the mental states of the press operators must've been during those shifts immediately following said parties. :) |
Posted By: NightAire
Date Posted: 23 June 2013 at 9:36pm
|
Re; Herb Alpert's "Rise" at 45 RPM
I just sped up the album version of "Rise" to 65.64% which I believe is equal to 33 RPM going to 45 RPM... and I am STUNNED the DJs didn't think, "boy, that bass player is playing way up at the top of his range... and the xylophone players are playing at top speed... and why are the laughs the laughs of children?" Run time becomes 4:49, FWIW. It would have been fun to see the dance floors for this one... :-D ------------- Gene Savage http://www.BlackLightRadio.com - http://www.BlackLightRadio.com http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage - http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage Tulsa, Oklahoma USA |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 27 June 2013 at 6:53pm
|
So... for "What I Like About You":
I compared a dub of the pitched-up 45 to the version on Cosmopolitan Vol. 9 (1994), and the mispressed 45 is... 10.2% faster than the CD version. That's an insane pitch error; I still can't wrap my head around how an error could be THIS far off. No luck finding any copies of the 45 in town... ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 29 June 2013 at 7:47am
|
Ron, my second recent eBay commercial 45 purchase has just come in. Turns
out it is another "10.2% Too Fast Special." I've been trying to locate a stock 45 pressed with the correct speed. You seem to want one of the ones I have. Find me a correct one, and we'll trade, OK? |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 29 June 2013 at 9:25am
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I'll keep looking! ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: TomDiehl1
Date Posted: 01 July 2013 at 5:11pm
Finally was able to find this one in my storage locker. My pressing is exactly the same as the first part of your matrix info, except that 180° away is machine stamped the word STERLING, nothing else. the listed and actual time is exactly the same as yours as well. ------------- Live in stereo. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 20 August 2013 at 6:57pm
|
Nothing new to report on the crazy-fast 45 front...
Instead, I caompared the CD masterings for this one; not as definitive as I'd hoped. The first version on CD was probably a German CD called Mixed Masters Vol. 4 (1989), which is undoubtedly extremely expensive today. It was part of a six-CD set that featured some true gems, including the 12" versions of "Talking In Your Sleep" (never seen that one anywhere else) and the 12" of the Jacksons' "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)". Most, but not all, tracks saw the light of day on the Club Columbia and Club Epic discs here in the U.S. The Mixed Masters discs had very nice volume levels, no noise reduction, and reasonable EQ, but tended to use source tapes that weren't first generation. For "What I Like About You", it wasn't a big deal, since the song would reappear shortly on many other discs. By the way, it ran about 0.2% slower here than most of the discs that followed. One year later, Epic released What I Like About You (And Other Romantic Hits) (1990). I never got around getting this disc, but I think I have a pretty good idea what the track sounds like here; the cheapie Romantics collection Take Two (2003) is almost certainly a digital clone of this disc. It sounds very nice. And now it gets a little hazy; it may very well be that all the later discs use the same analog transfer as What I Like About You (And Other Romantic Hits). They all track very closely. There are some discs that I'm certain use the same analog transfer as Take Two (2003), and (I assume) What I Like About You (And Other Romantic Hits):
Sedated In The Eighties Vol. 1 (1993) sounds OK; its waveform is a little asymmetric for some reason. The same analog transfer is used on Razor & Tie's 2-CD Totally '80s (1993; cuts off the first 0.06 seconds - avoid!) Cosmopolitan Vol. 9 (1994) has boosted bass compared to the others. The same analog transfer is used for Big Ear Music's Only In The 80's Vol. 1 (1995). Sony's Club Epic Vol. 5 (1996) is a little loud, but sounds OK. Which to choose? There are EQ differences, but not much else. I can vouch firsthand that Take Two (2003) sounds great, and I'd guess that What I Like About You (And Other Romantic Hits) (1990) sounds just as good. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 12 October 2013 at 1:32pm
|
Found a copy of What I Like About You (And Other
Romantic Hits). Can confirm that Take Two is a differently-EQ'd digital clone, as I'd guessed in the previous post. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 02 April 2015 at 2:09pm
|
I finally acquired a 1980, Nemperor 7527 promo 45 copy. Both sides state
stereo, "AA-AF", "ZS9 7527-3", and a listed time of (2:56) on the label. Actual contents? Something I wasn't expecting: One side runs (2:55), with deadwax of "AE-ZS9-7527-3". The other side runs (2:38), with deadwax of "AF-ZS9-7527-3". So my promo copy has the best and worst of both worlds! I'm afraid this might now mean that the (2:38) "Chipmunk Version" qualifies as an official radio edit! Makes me wonder if either Steve's and Tom's promo copies are the same, and they just happened to play the correct-speed side first, or if their copies included the correct speed versions on both sides. Other than playing them/reading the deadwax info, there's no way to tell which side of my copy is which speed, going by just the labels. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 02 April 2015 at 2:51pm
Mine has the correct speed on both sides. |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 25 May 2015 at 11:14am
Jim, does this mean your label specifies a 1980 copyright date? I noticed that my WLP copy says 1979, although I have no idea when this was actually released. Like Steve and Tom's copies, mine is marked -AE on both sides, ZS9 7527, and runs at normal speed. If I am inferring properly, it sounds like there may have been a second push in 1980 at radio for this single. Anyone have the story? |
Posted By: TomDiehl1
Date Posted: 10 June 2015 at 2:11pm
With my copy now in storage, it's hard to say what mine actually has, but I believe I had played both sides and that they were both at the normal speed. I see a listing on 45cat for the promo 45 which gives 1979 copyrights on the labels but has AA-AF on them and a label time of 2:56 on both sides... perhaps this has the chipmunk version on both sides. ------------- Live in stereo. |
Posted By: LunarLaugh
Date Posted: 20 January 2022 at 8:05pm
|
The http:///www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqnw5IfbZOU - music
video for the song that is forever burned into my memory whenever I hear this song due to many hours glued to MTV and VH-1 also had the track running faster than the LP. ------------- https://thelunarlaugh.bandcamp.com/ - Listen to The Lunar Laugh! |
Posted By: TimNeely
Date Posted: 22 January 2022 at 4:29am
|
After seeing this thread, I checked my own
stock 45. Like Paul Haney's early in the thread, it says 2:56 on the label but plays closer to 2:54. The label has the title on two lines (WHAT I / LIKE ABOUT YOU). The trail-off is AB-ZS9-7527-3 with STERLING also stamped in the wax and what looks like a stamped P for CBS's Pitman, NJ pressing plant to the left of the matrix number. |