Blank & Jones are renowned trance DJs of German origin. In addition to their many remixes, they have assembled at least eight chillout compilations in their own Relax series since 1995. HERC picked up the first volume of their so8os series for two reasons: 1) the palindormic title which he had been using for his own mixtapes and B) the Extended Version of "Someone, Somewhere (In Summertime)" by Simple Minds. The three discs contain twenty-five ORIGINAL CLASSIC 12" CLUB & EXTENDED MIXES (according to the cover) on discs 2 and 3 while disc 1 is a non-stop mix by Blank & Jones featuring some but not all of those songs.
What you might notice on the rear cover (above) is the running times of Discs 2 and 3 - both are well over the industry standard 80 minute limit. For most collectors of Eighties music, there are a few rarities here and unlike a lot of other mix compilations, these tracks are from original master tapes NOT vinyl rips. As with almost every club mix compilation - with the exception of Ben Liebrand's Grand 12-Inches series - there are mislabeled track or mix names. The collection is Eurocentric so there were a few songs and artists new to HERC.
Originally released in 2009, this collection was re-released in 2011 with updated artwork (above) to reflect that the collection was the first in an ongoing series. As of this writing there have been seventeen[!] different titles in the so8os series in less than five years including the recently released 8th volume of the various artists compilation.
What are the other nine titles? After the 4th volume, there were four consecutive single artist titles from Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark [OMD] (below), Ultravox, Heaven 17 (above) and Kajagoogoo. Then came titles devoted to Hubert Kah, Culture Club, Billy Idol, Sandra and Falco. While most of the tracks on these discs are original remixes from the Eighties or Blank & Jones "reconstructions", some titles are "full length versions" as they appeared on their original albums. With the exception of Sandra, none of the single artists collections are on Spotify USA.
The Spotify version of the album - the playlist at the top of this post - features just 21 tracks and while some tracks from the 25 track CD version are obviously missing, still other tracks NOT found on the CD are included. The running order is slightly different as well. Until HERC can add Local Copies of files from his discs, we'll have to make do with those 21 tracks as most of the missing tracks do not appear anywhere on Spotify. Volumes 2 + 3 are also on Spotify but in similar disjointed fashion.
Besides so8os and Grand 12-Inches (above), HERC wants to know what are some of your favorite Eighties mix compilations? What albums or CDs would you like to see featured here at The Hideaway? Let him know in the comments.
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