This is still one of my biggest pet peeves. It goes way back in the day when I was just wee lad and I would hear my favorite songs on the radio and I would always get so pissed off because parts were taken out of the song.
I understand that some radio edits are completely different versions than the album versions, which I guess is ok, BUT if someone hears a song on the radio, runs out and buys the album and it is a different version, THey are going to be pissed!
What really irritates me is when I hear a song on the radio and it is obvious that a good 10-15 seconds of the song has been edited out. Whats the point??? Are you really going to gain more listeners for taking that whole 15 seconds out??? Z100 back in the mid 90's was NOTORIOUS for doing this Crap and I just couldn't figure out why. I would hear a song on Z100 than 2 weeks later I would hear the same songbut now a good chunk of the song was missing. Unless a song is SUPER long than I don't see any reason for editing songs.
K-hits used to play the awful edited version of "Sweet Emotion" By Aerosmith for the longest time. I'm sorry but that song has been played million and millions of times, playing the hacked version of that song is just dumb! It is not a cool radio edit, It is a song that has the intro removed from it. Very Lame! Thank god they fixed it.

Damn You radio stations for ruining my listening enjoyment!

Is there any songs that you can't stand because the radio edit is always played, or was there a certain song that was heavily edited when you heard it on the radio?

Also I never buy "greatest hits" albums unless That is all they have.
"Greatest Hits albums" are crap and are usually the "radio edit" versions. Thats why I try to stick to the full length albums when i buy my music.(And yes I still buy music) I hate downloading music, and I don't do it unless I only like one song from the group. I still enjoy going to the record store and buying my music. I want the cover and It looks better in my collection. I own over 2000 cd's. I think i actually have more than that but it takes too long for me to count them all.

"living without great music, is not worth living" -Timberfake

We had a really interesting discussion here a few months ago about how radio edits are created. Somebody pointed out that in a number of cases, it is people working in radio who suggest how the song should be edited.

From the listener's point of view, this is a case of expectations. If the listener first hears the edited song on the radio, and the radio edit sounds very "to the point," his first impression of the album version would likely be that it self-indulgently goes on and on and on. Of course a few listeners might be pleasantly surprised to discover the "extra" parts to the song. If the listener first hears the album version and really likes it, then the radio edit will sound as if it had been butchered.

What is different today as opposed to 30+ years ago is that when 45 RPM singles were available, consumers had the opportunity to buy mixes and edits of songs that were like what was played on the radio. With the transition to cassettes and eventually CDs, consumers were stuck buying entire albums.

"One Night In Bangkok" by Murray Head is one example of a song that might qualify as being heavily edited. The radio version had a completely different intro. I don't like the album version. You probably wouldn't want to play the album version at a party because you can't dance to the intro, and most people who were around in the 1980s would remember the radio version of this song.

In the mid 80's when I was at KMJK, Greg Lee of Warner Bros. Records asked me to edit the 12 inch extended version of Force MDs - Tender Love (an R&B ballad). The 12 inch version had a hotter mix than the regular single, but was very long. After I did the edits, Greg asked for some copies to send to some San Francisco and LA stations.

Sometimes it's the record company rep wanting a custom radio edit hoping for more radio airplay.

Thats interesting Steve! I wonder how many other stations did editing themselves! With todays technologies its got to be really simple to edit music at the station. Just throw the song on Pro Tools and chop off the parts you want taken out! But as a radio listener it pisses me off big time!
If I was a PD, I would be a stickler on radio edits. Unless it was absolutely necessary I would not be editing the music that is played. I remember back in the day When Z100 was playing that Alanis Morisette song "Uninvited" this was back in the late 90's. Z100 played the song for a good month, than all of the sudden I hear it and the entire ending of the song was removed. I could not believe it. I was so bugged I called up Stacey Lynne(who was doing Middays on Z100 at the time) and complained to her about the ending of the song. Now that I look back, I realize that she had no control over this, she was just the jock. The real person I should have bitched at was Matt Jones! Didn't know who he was at the time.
Matt, Matt, Matt- How could you??
I guess I'm just a purist when it comes to music, I don't like listening to heavily edited music.
Thank god Rock radio and Classic rock stations don't do this CRAP! Editing Classic rock songs is the ultimate sin in radio. You try playing an edited version of a Zeppelin song and your listeners will come out and castrate you!

We production people get asked to make song edits all the time. It was not Matt's fault.

It's not a new practice by any means.

Oh I know Chris, and I was being slightly sarcastic when I was blaming Matt. For some reason that song always stuck out like a sore thumb to me because every time I heard it, I couldn't stand the newly edited version that Z100 was playing.

> With todays technologies its got to be really simple to edit music at the station
> Just throw the song on Pro Tools and chop off the parts you want taken out!

You don't even need software as powerful as Pro Tools to do this. Even the most basic waveform editor program can make editing a snap, compared to razor blade editing of tape.

In the late 1990s, I was at a college station that was cobbling together a very crude automation system. I ended up editing the beginnings and endings of a lot of songs to help make the transitions smoother, as the automation software just played the mp3s one after another, without any crossfading capability. For some reason, unlike Charlie FM, we didn't use liners and station IDs after every song to avoid train-wreck segues. We might have, at the time, thought that it would be too repetitive and annoying to hear a liner after each and every song, as three song sets had become the defacto standard in that station's sound.

While putting together the mp3 library, I ran across Radiohead's "Karma Police," which was in our new music rotation at the time. I loved rich vocals and arrangement of the song. However, the last minute of the song had a "what the Hell is that?" quality about it. In that last minute, there are no lyrics; the singer just hums and umms, and the melody repeats over and over. Around :40 to the end of the song, this grating electronic sound, like that of a 1980s vintage home computer data cassette (remember those?) fades into the music. By the :05 to the end of the song, the music has been completely overcome by the electronic noise, and in the last few seconds of the song, the electronic noise quickly slows down to silence (like a record being stopped). In my radio edit I let the melody repeat for a couple of bars, until the electronic sound starts to become audible. At that point, I faded the song to an early end. One day, the automation was running with this song playing, and one of our resident Radiohead fans was at the station. The early fadeout left a very perplexed look on her face, but she didn't know what to say....

A common practice in Top 40 radio, at least in the past, was to "test the waters" with a shorter 45 version, then if a song became popular switch to the longer LP cut. Doing the reverse would seem like a poor practice.

Alfredo sez: "In that last minute, there are no lyrics; the singer just hums and umms, and the melody repeats over and over. Around :40 to the end of the song, this grating electronic sound, like that of a 1980s vintage home computer data cassette (remember those?) fades into the music. By the :05 to the end of the song, the music has been completely overcome by the electronic noise, and in the last few seconds of the song, the electronic noise quickly slows down to silence (like a record being stopped)"

To a Radiohead fan, cutting that off was the equilivant of cutting off the last 20 seconds of A Day In The Life.

Editing makes me mad.
So does censorship.

The song that makes me so mad that I refuse to listen to it when it comes on the radio is "walk on the wildside" by Lou Reed..
"The whole verse about the woman giving head" is now taken out on a lot of stations. HOW MANY YEARS HAS THAT SONG BEEN PLAYED? 30-35 YEARS AND NOW STATIONS ARE STARTING TO TAKE OUT THE ENTIRE VERSE! TALK ABOUT BULLSHIT! HOW F'ING ANNOYING. Kink plays the half assed edited version and it sounds so STUPID that it is almost laughable. Its probably these right wing nut jobs that are complaining about the song because they can't be parents and now they think it is too offensive for their kids to hear.!!
Its very sad, A great song DESTROYED 30 somthing years later after it come out. That is RETARDED!! And I have no problem calling up stations like Kink and bitching at them for playing the Now defunct version of "walk on the wildside."
Kink fm- "true to censorship".
If you're going to destroy a classic song, PLEASE DON'T PLAY IT AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was "Stroll On The Safeside" by Clear Channel.

I'm Alfredo, and I butcher the songs.

>>The song that makes me so mad that I refuse to listen to it when it comes on the radio is "walk on the wildside" by Lou Reed..
"The whole verse about the woman giving head" is now taken out on a lot of stations. HOW MANY YEARS HAS THAT SONG BEEN PLAYED? 30-35 YEARS AND NOW STATIONS ARE STARTING TO TAKE OUT THE ENTIRE VERSE! TALK ABOUT BULLSHIT! HOW F'ING ANNOYING.<<

Blame it on Janet and Mr. Timberlake.

Nope! I'll blame it on certain Pd's, and certain stations, BECAUSE I've heard the unedited version still played on a lot of stations. Infact I believe NRK is playing the unedited Version. Kudos for NRK for standing up to censorship.
I thought "True to the music" meant that they don't edit or talk over the intro of their music, they respect their music!! Well they have now been caught in a lie! I think for Respect to Lou Reed, Kink should remove the song since they have already destroyed the song. I think It will offend more people by editing a classic that we have heard a Million times (Unedited) Than playing the half assed edited version that Kink is playing. CENSORSHIP AT ITS WORST!!!!!!

How about the commercial using Iggy Pop's (D. Bowie) "Lust For Life."

Somehow the edit/loop misses the entire foundation of the message, instead revising the song into a yuppy mantra:

Here comes johnny yen again
With the liquor and drugs
And the flesh machine
Hes gonna do another strip tease.
Hey man, whered ya get that lotion?
Ive been hurting since Ive bought the gimmick
About something called love
Yeah, something called love.
Well, thats like hypnotizing chickens.

Well, Im just a modern guy
Of course, Ive had it in the ear before.
I have a lust for life
cause of a lust for life.

Im worth a million in prizes
With my torture film
Drive a gto
Wear a uniform
All on a government loan.
Im worth a million in prizes
Yeah, Im through with sleeping on the sidewalk
No more beating my brains
No more beating my brains
With liquor and drugs
With liquor and drugs.

Well, Im just a modern guy
Of course, Ive had it in my ear before
Well, Ive a lust for life (lust for life)
cause of a lust for life (lust for life, oooo)
I got a lust for life (oooo)
Got a lust for life (oooo)
Oh, a lust for life (oooo)
Oh, a lust for life (oooo)
A lust for life (oooo)
I got a lust for life (oooo)
Got a lust for life.

Well, Im just a modern guy
Of course, Ive had it in my ear before
Well, Ive a lust for life
cause Ive a lust for life.

Here comes johnny yen again
With the liquor and drugs
And the flesh machine
Hes gonna do another strip tease.
Hey man, whered ya get that lotion?
Your skin starts itching once you buy the gimmick
About something called love
Love, love, love
Well, thats like hypnotizing chickens.

Well, Im just a modern guy
Of course, Ive had it in the ear before
And Ive a lust for life (lust for life)
cause Ive a lust for life (lust for life)
Got a lust for life
Yeah, a lust for life
I got a lust for life
A lust for life
Got a lust for life
Yeah a lust for life
I got a lust for life
Lust for life
Lust for life
Lust for life
Lust for life
Lust for life

Absolutely pathetic. I used to play the song on the air way back when it first came out. 30 years later it's in a financial commercial. What?

Other edited versions that piss me off:

Inna Gadda Da Vida ... you just can't turn a 17:02 minute creative masterpiece into a 5:18 pop hit.

Won't Get Fooled Again ... puhhhhleeze.

Billy Joel sings in the song "The Entertainer:"

I am the entertainer, I've come to do my show
You've heard my latest record spin on the radio
It took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life
If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to 3:05

Note to editors: It takes a lot less talent to fuck up a great song and turn it into a promotional vomit than it does to create a decent song. If you think writing 3 verses, a chorus and a bridge is easy, try it some time. One of the most eye opening lessons I learned in radio is that the more mainstream the format is, the less respect is given to the artist/song. Top 40 and CHR stations treat the music like dogfood to be dished out to an audience caught up in popular culture, not decent music. Also, the best production wizards in broadcast are musicians themselves. They have a better feel as to how to cut up a song and leave the rhythm and changes intact. It is an art. Most of what I hear is hack work.

Another song I can't take edited is "November Rain" by Guns N Roses. Yes, It is a long song, But it is a classic! A Classic that is played un-edited on every rock station in the country. So Why is Charlie Fm giving us the half assed version. Don't you think people are going to notice that Slash's best guitar solo is removed from the song Charlie??? Kufo and Kgon always have been playing the full length version of "November Rain" Why isn't Charlie? If Dan Persigal has any respect or integrity for the music on his station he will play the full length version. The edited version Og "Novemeber Rain" they play on Charlie IS CRAP! Charlie doesn't edit the longer Zeppelin songs they play, Yet they play the half assed version of "November Rain." Go figure!

> I thought "True to the music" meant that they don't edit or talk over the intro of
> their music, they respect their music!!

The marketing guys strike again!!

JT: Glad I waited for Matt to get the first shot on editing... LOL When I was at Z in the mid 80's, there were a few edits I put together, but that was because many times the radio edit was so weak, like "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco. Chet liked it and usually would only play it in the evenings.

Having used to spin at clubs in the late 70's and early 80's before radio, mixing was my thang, so continued on when called for. For example, for anybody who went to the first BIG event in Pioneer Square which I titled Video Bash 84, they enjoyed a mix of radio edits, 12" singles and video! That was mixing at a frenzy!

Did some others at KUBE in Seattle on the Saturday Night Dance mixes too in the early 90's, but that's the way it went, and never a complaint.

I understand your purist idealogy on it, as I'm the same way on the rock stuff. When I'm listening to all my good ol' stuff, I will NEVER want to cut it up, BUT with the way the labels play around with the other stuff, I figure it's all fair game.

Having worked with Matt, ALWAYS loved his edits!!! Now duck Matt before more missles come in.. LOL

Art aside, I just heard "Susan" by the Buckinghams, a pretty big hit in its time, without the clashing noises toward the end of the song. It made for a much better song and if it had been released that way in the first place, might still be considered a hit today!

What an interesting thread! Since I'm 51, it shouldn't be surprising that my main focus in pop music is the 60s to mid 70s. During this period there were often several different versions...the album version, the usually shorter single version, and in some cases an even shorter promo single version. You can also throw in mono and stereo mix differences. So which of these versions should be played on the radio? I suppose it depends on the station's format. If it's "Classic Hits" you should probably play the stereo album version unless there's a good reason to do otherwise. If it's the format formerly known as "oldies," the default versions should probably be the singles, since those versions were by definition "the hits." But of course with every rule there should be room for exceptions. The funny thing is, even if you want to play the single versions it's often next to impossible because it seems invariably the only version you can get on CD is the stereo album version! It may not sound like a big deal, but have a close listen to the awful stereo mixes of songs like "I Saw Her Again" by the Mamas & Papas or "Daydream" by the Lovin' Spoonful. The mono mixes of those songs are fabulous! They had to be because they were the mixes that sold 45s. I'll bet almost nobody reading this has ever heard those songs the way they were really meant to be heard. And they're just two examples from an endless list of songs where the far superior sounding hit version is MIA on CD.

As far as edits go...what about "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam? That song has NO business being 4:08! But the 2:59 promo edit is pretty good!

I just found this site where a guy is posting needledrops of his 45s. Of particular interest is the 45 of "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf. Give it a listen and hear how different it sounds from the stereo LP version, which is what we've all become used to hearing since it's the only version still in print. At the very least, the lead vocal is a different take!

http://scratchy45s.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html

It looks like I singlehandedly brought this thread to a screeching halt a few days ago, so let me add a couple more nails to its coffin. I found a couple of custom radio edits that I did years ago and they're up on Divshare for your amusement. The first one is the KYTE edit of "Layla." When we were carting up the oldies library for the "New KYTE" I tried to talk PD Mike Davis into using the LP version instead of the dreadful early fade that was the single. We compromised and he let me add this 3:35 custom edit instead:

http://www.divshare.com/download/4679283-975

The other file I just posted is the KOIN edit of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon." PD Jack Hayes hated the song for some reason and refused to add it as it was climbing the charts. Everyone gave him a hard time about it, and finally to get us all off his back he said in jest that if we could come up with a version no longer than 2:30 he would add it. So here's the version I made. Jack was a man of his word and believe it or not he added it! We finally swapped it for the full LP version when the song got so huge that even Jack couldn't do anything else. By the way, this edit is from the LP. As far as I know the unique single mix never saw the light of day on KOIN. And as I recall both the LP and single mixes of "Rhiannon" and "Say You Love Me" were heard across the dial when they were currents.

Here's Rhiannon:

http://www.divshare.com/download/4679336-67a