The Alan Parsons Project - "Old and Wise" (808's Extended Mix)

This song always had sentimental value to me. Of course, it was the third single off of the Alan Parsons Project's fantastic Eye in the Sky album from 1982. And with it being Halloween (or Samhain), the subject matter of facing one's own mortality seems to ring true here. This song's lyrics are very haunting.

Well, when fellow blogger Dreamtime came up with their own extended mix for the title track off this fantastic album, I felt I had to contribute my two cents in. So this is my result ... to explain, it helps to know a bit about the Alan Parsons Project and how they operated musically.

The Project had a habit of bringing in outside vocalists (besides core member Eric Woolfson of course) to sing their songs, and a vocalist named Colin Blunstone does an awesome job on this one. On many occasions Eric Woolfson (who was the Project's in-house vocalist) contributed to the majority of the Project's biggest hits, including of course "Time" (which I have extended mixed on this blog) and "Eye in the Sky". Well, I did some searching, and it turns out that there was a demo version of this song, with the same instrumentation, but with Eric Woolfson singing the lead vocals instead! This gave me an intriguing idea ...

The mix features both versions of the song, Colin's and Eric's. Colin starts off singing for the first half of the mix, then after his last verse, there is a nice crossfade over into Eric's version, which is more stripped down and only has piano, drums, and bass, before a final crossfade and flange into the terrific ending with an awesome saxophone solo.

This mix clocks in at a glorious 8 minutes and 39 seconds.

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Billy Ocean - Loverboy (808's Extended Mix)

Another classic track from 1985. This one has a special meaning to me. This was of course the second single from Billy Ocean's "Suddenly" album, and I think the strongest single from that album.

In making this mix, I used both the original 12" mix, and a dub mix which was on the B-side of the 7" single. The arrangement of the parts I used in this mix, were inspired by a similar arrangement that was used in an exclusive mix which used to be played on KISS FM 99.9, a radio station out of Asheville, NC, which played a lot of exclusive 12" mixes back in the day. That mix is still burned in my head, and I duplicated the arrangement as closely as I could, adding some extended material to the ending, and doing crossfading between the two mixes instead of just straight edits.

The result, I think, is a true 12" mix which stands out uniquely from the official 12" mix release, it's a lot more interesting to listen to. As with the original mix, the running time is 8 minutes and 6 seconds.

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Kim Wilde - Kids in America (808's Extended Retromix)

And once again, another classic New Wave track which sadly never got the extended 12" mix treatment. This is probably Kim Wilde's signature track, and indeed became a New Wave anthem. Even today, this track sends chills up my spine.

I may be mistaken, but apart from an Ultrasound (UltraTraxx?) extended version, there has been no true extended remix done of this track. There was a dance mix made of this in 1994, but I saw it as sacrilege. They took this track and tried to make a techno-dance number out of it, which I think totally destroyed the feel of the song.

I did this mix, using only the album cut of the song, and I had to do a lot of work! First off, I was able to take the opening bassline, copy it, pitch shift parts of it to match the original bassline of the song, and then progressively use that bassline and other bits to gradually isolate the vocals from the song. Once I had the vocals isolated, I again matched these iso vocals against the song to create a sort of instrumental mix. You can still hear faint echoes of the vocals in this instrumental mix (which you hear near the opening of the song) but it just adds to the feel of the song.

In addition, I decided to add extra percussion to the song, and I wanted it to sound as retro as I could, so I used samples from classic drum machines of the period, including a Roland TR-606 (for the kick and cymbals) and the Korg KPR-55 for the snare (also known more popularly as the Depeche Mode "Speak and Spell" snare). These sounds augment the drum sounds already in the song. The result is a bonafide 80's style extended remix worthy of this classic track.

The mix clocks in at 6 minutes 36 seconds.

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Eurythmics vs. Empire State Human - Love is a Stranger (808 versus mix)

This is a special treat. One of my all time favorite tracks from Eurythmics was "Love is a Stranger" from their self-titled 1983 album, a followup to their "Sweet Dreams" single.

Fast forward to 2009. Empire State Human is an electro band from Ireland, indeed musicians I have had the pleasure of collaborating with. Aidan Casserly, the singer of this band, has even contributed to original material of mine, which I recorded under the name of Synthetik FM.

Well, it turns out ESH's american label, Ninthwave Records, were releasing the third installment in their "Electricity" synthpop series, so ESH decided to do a cover of the above Eurythmics track, and they did a smashing job. It sounds so much like the original, yet updated. So, I decided to compare the two, by blending the two tracks together in a versus mix. You can't tell where one ends and the other begins! Enjoy!

Running time: 3 minutes 53 seconds

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Official ESH video for "Love is a Stranger"

Alan Parsons Project - Time (808's Extended Mix)

It's funny, but this song was always one of my favorite APP songs of all time (with the possible exception of "Eye in the Sky"). I always liked the wistfulness of the lyrics, and the gentleness of the melody. This is truly a wonderful and beautiful masterpiece.

I was partially inspired for this mix, by the Dreamtime mix of "Eye in the Sky". I did some looking around, and managed to get ahold of a demo mix of this song, so I added in elements from this demo version (which is piano, drum, and bass only) and crossfaded it with the original track.

The running time for this masterpiece is a glorious 9 minutes and 53 seconds of pure bliss.

I will be posting another Alan Parsons Project mix soon. Stay tuned.

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Duran Duran - The Reflex (808's De-flexed Mix)

"The Reflex" was always one of my favorite tracks from the Duran Duran album "Seven and the Ragged Tiger". However, when it came to single release, I have to admit, the single mix and accompanying 12" mix really annoyed me.

These versions of the song suffered from many problems: The annoying "fle-fle-flex" and "why-yi-yi-yi" edits, which were mildly annoying in the 7" mix, but went absolutely irritating in the 12" version. There is also a gradual pitch and tempo shift throughout the mix which I found grated on my ears. And in the 12" mix, the second verse of the song is completely missing! Instead, we get treated to absolute "fle-fle-flex" and "why-yi-yi-yi" nonsense, and some odd noise which sounds like someone farting in a bathtub, underwater. :)

Well, I went back and re-did the mix, using some of the less annoying elements from the 12" mix, and relying more heavily on the far superior album cut of the track. I had to go through and seperately beatmap at least 7 sections of the 12" mix in ACID, to ensure everything is finally at the same pitch and tempo. All the annoying vocal edits are gone, or at the very least downplayed, the second verse has been restored, a few flange effects and rapid fire edits have been added, and a semblance of sanity has been restored to what has to be considered one of the classic Duran Duran tracks of all time. This is "The Reflex", the way it should have been from the beginning.

Running time for this mix is 8 minutes, 9 seconds.

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Naked Eyes - Promises Promises (808's Cup of Tea Mix)

This is a very special mix! This version utilizes no less than five different versions of the song: The Tony Mansfield 12" mix (which is mostly like the original 7" version except longer), the US 7" mix, a UK album mix (which has a different second verse), a mix by Jellybean (which has a spoken word bit by Madonna) and an instrumental version.

A bit of background on this song will help: The song was recorded in two different versions originally. In the UK, the second verse has different lyrics, including "You keep saying you and me are not your style, your cup of tea". Record execs in the USA thought American listeners might not catch the reference, so Naked Eyes recorded a different second verse for that release. In this mix, I have presented the rarely heard UK verse as the song's third verse, changing the first line from "second time around" to "this time around", as it seemed to make more sense in the context of the song.

When disco producer Jellybean was remixing this song for the 12" release, he was dating an up and coming singer at the time called Madonna. He was trying to expose her as much as possible, so he got her to do some spoken word bits on his mix, during the instrumental break. You will hear her saying phrases like "I'll always love you, now and forever. You can trust in me, it's going to be alright."

What I have done, is use the instrumental mix, inverted it and used it to source acapellas for all three versions (including the UK second verse and the Madonna spoken word bits), and overlay them on the instrumental mix. I've also included bits from the two 12" mixes, and added some rapid fire edits (using the intro of the US 7" version at one point) and airplane flanging at strategic points throughout the song, especially during the guitar solo. And for good measure I added the acapella for the chorus over the opening instrumental bit too.

The mix clocks in at 7 minutes 48 seconds.

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Don Henley - The Boys of Summer (808's Extended Remix)

My first installment, is an extended remix of probably the most popular track off of Don Henley's "Building the Perfect beast" album in 1985. Sadly, this song never got the proper extended 12" remix treatment when it was released, so this is my attempt to make up for this oversight.

I only used the 7" version for this mix, but I used many tricks and manipulations in it. First off, I managed to isolate the vocals from the song, and use them to add some reverb to the main vocals. I isolated other track elements and mixed them into the song, using airplane flange effects. I also used similar effects on the hi-hat pattern at the beginning, the vocals on the third verse and on the ending. These modifications, I believe, give this mix a genuine 80's extended remix feel.

Total mix running time: 6 minutes 37 seconds.

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