Summary: I'll never forget how excited I was when I learned that Arista was releasing a Thompson Twins remix album that compiled all their best twelve-inch singles. I'd been collecting all the vinyl for years, and now we'd have a bunch of the remixes in high-quality DIGITAL sound! Well, now we know that wasn't exactly the case.
"Greatest Mixes" had me worried from the get-go when I saw the ugly metallic cover the record company slapped on it. I noticed the odd-looking track lengths right away while listening to "In the Name of Love 88". I was already coming to terms with the fact that "ITNOL" had been remixed by none other than Shep Pettibone, of whose work I was not the biggest fan. None of the tracks seemed long enough to be the full versions. My fears were confirmed when I heard the butchered edits of my favorite twelve-inch mixes, courtesy of the late Tuta Aquino, Mr. Pettibone's former engineer. I'm not sure, but Tuta might have fallen asleep on the job with this one. Notice during "Doctor! Doctor!" when that spine-tingling three-chord progression that punctuates the song comes in on the wrong bar, crashing into you like a bike messenger who wasn't looking where he was going. "Love On Your Side" is similarly mauled, and we're left to wonder why. The runtime of the finished product was short enough that they could fit TWO bonus tracks on the CD. So why edit the twelve inch mixes in the first place? The whole purpose of the remixes in the first place is to expand the tracks to allow for extended builds and ebbs, so the intentions of Arista Records in editing these back down here remain a mystery to me.
Fortunately for whiny purists like myself, the CD bonus tracks are the unedited remixes for "The Gap" and "You Take Me Up", plus there's an otherwise unreleased 12" mix of "King For A Day" on here. That fact alone makes "Greatest Mixes" essential for collectors, although I don't know why the compilations and "remastered deluxe editions" of Thompson Twins albums that keep coming out seem to be helmed by people who have no intentions of doing right by the fan base. It's like the Human League's revenge or something. |
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