I had a listen this morning. Finally, they chose the right A-side but nearly 6 months after the album seemed a little too late. The single version of "Party Hard" is slightly different to the album version; it is noticeably faster and the vocals are higher in the mix. I'm not sure if this was intentional or just a result of the different mastering. Either way, I'd say that the single version is slightly better.

"We Are the Boyz" is ok but just average B-side material for me. It was bound to happen sooner or later as the previous 3 singles had fantastic B-sides. That said, it was worth spending £3 on this CD as opposed to £15 on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack. It is a great live song though, I've never seen it myself but heard it on a couple of bootlegs.

The "remix" of "The Fear" is simply an extended version. Presumably, it was edited down for the album as per "Live Bed Show". Now "The Fear" is one of my favourite Pulp songs ever so the extra chorus and instrumental work a treat for me. That said, it is the same as the live version which was released on both Finsbury and Glastonbury so arguably, it could have been replaced. We know that "It's a Dirty World" was sat in the vaults so it would have been nice to release it at this point.

The remixes are completely forgettable. Stretch and Vern's goes on for about 3 years (well, obviously not quite that long, but it certainly feels that way) with about 30 seconds of the original retained. I think I mentioned elsewhere that the previous singles weren't suitable for a Motiv-8 style dance remix but "Party Hard" certainly was. It would have been a lot better if they had used the full lyrics rather than just a fragment before veering off into what sounds like a Daft Punk outtake. The I Hardly Part remix, again, drags on forever and for some strange reason reminds me of Fatboy Slim.

Some of the other remixes may have been better suited. For example, the Christopher Just remix is ridiculously funny and the Chocolate layers is a re-jigged, extended version of the original. The Tom Middleton and Brothers in Rhythm remixes are considerably less interesting. Not sure if there are any more out there.

-- Edited by Ian on Friday 25th of August 2023 06:50:27 PM

-- Edited by Ian on Friday 25th of August 2023 06:57:54 PM

Well next week we've got the Sunrise/Trees remixes to look forward to. Then that's the end of the Pulp remixes journey as BCV has none, only covers and 2 originals.

Eamonn wrote:

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Thank fook for that...


Help The Aged and Party Hard only having one CD single each eligible for the charts, I wonder how much higher they would have got had they released 2CD singles that counted.

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I had totally forgotten about CD2 being chart ineligible. I think it was pretty normal for the final 2 singles from an album to reach similar chart positions so I'd say it would have been nearer to the top 20. Also, it didn't help that the covers were pretty similar.

Think he means Help the Aged might have got higher in the charts if theyd released two versions.

They got two TOTPs appearances out of Help The Aged too. Good plugging by Scott(?).

Surprised there has been no social media post regarding the Party Hard release, the other EPs had some good images and little nuggets of info with them?

Ian wrote:

"We Are the Boyz" is ok but just average B-side material for me. It was bound to happen sooner or later as the previous 3 singles had fantastic B-sides. That said, it was worth spending £3 on this CD as opposed to £15 on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack. It is a great live song though, I've never seen it myself but heard it on a couple of bootlegs.

Could have saved £3 getting The Independent giveaway.  Well, thats if you didnt pay for the newspaper and just took the magazine

https://www.discogs.com/release/8385025-Various-Velvet-Goldmine-The-Independent

 

We Are the Boyz is great.

Nice Glam song. But I guess on TIH it was either this or I'm a Man. Similar topic. 

-- Edited by andy on Tuesday 29th of August 2023 08:19:46 AM

No Trees/Sunrise EP today, either, but new videos: Like a Friend (in better quality than I've seen before) and the '94 Babies.

There's been a lot of that... the metadata for lots of the recent reissues has credited Anne Dudley, also seemingly copied from This Is Hardcore. They must be using that as a template!

hawalius1 wrote:

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Like a Friend (in better quality than I've seen before)

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And yet, for me at least, it still looks terrible. The band shots were clearly originally recorded on film (filmising video was pretty crude back in 1998) then mastered as SD video, so the upscaling is trying to recover detail that simply isn't there. Add to that excessive edge enhancement, over-smoothing (adding an unnatural waxy/smooth effect to faces, making them look like an oil painting) and crushed blacks and you're left with an over-processed mess . And the clips taken from the film are horribly soft in comparison, like sub-DVD quality. I'm grateful the band/label are making an effort, don't get me wrong, it's just a pity we don't have a better result.

This video on the subject by Tom Scott is well worth a watch, if you're interested in such things.

-- Edited by Pip on Friday 1st of September 2023 12:45:15 PM