We're racing towards the halfway point of the 1984 Hideaway 200. Thanks for taking a break from your shopping, family, work, or whatever you were doing to check in for ten more randomly selected songs. If you have missed any parts of the countdown thus far, click HERE.
11
We have a confession to make. "Relax" was part of the 1983 Hideaway 200. And we made it part of the 1984 Hideaway 200, too. And, spoiler alert, we may include "Relax" on the in-progress 1985 Hideaway 200. You can pull off shenanigans like this when you make these lists. It's your list so it's your rules. The song remains a huge favorite, particularly the 7:20 New York Mix. The mix is a Trevor Horn production masterclass in building anticipation and delivering the payoff. Of the sixteen instances of "Relax (The New York Mix)" here in the HERChives, our favorite-sounding one is found on the 1986 Japan compact disc pressing of Bang! where it's listed as "Relax (U.S. Mix)".
90
INXS has a way with a slithery groove and they always put a little ear candy in their songs to lure listeners in. "Burn For You" has some soft percussion in the song's intro before the bass and drums come beating in. And don't forget the tinkly synths. It's a relentless groove maximized for the dance floor in a 6:05 extended remix but there is also a 3:59 single remix that condenses the elements of the longer version into a more listenable, slightly less danceable mix. Unfortunately, DJPaulT has yet to work his magic on the U.S. promo 12" of "Burn For You". The best-sounding version of the single remix we have is also the only version we have and it is the 2001 U.S. two-disc compilation Shine Like It Does: The Anthology (1979-1997) where it is listed as "Burn For You (Single Version)".
197
We were not immediately enamored of Yes's 90125 album prefaced by the single "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" upon its 1983 release. We were not fans of the group's prog rock past though it's worth noting that my girlfriend at the time could play the acoustic intro to the group's "Roundabout". The album's second single "Leave It" caught our ear with its a capella intro and heavily processed percussion, the same percussion that caught our ear when we heard "Beat Box" by Art of Noise. We had been fans of Trevor Horn's production work on "Video Killed The Radio Star", The Lexicon of Love, and Duck Rock but none of that prepared us for what he had brewed up for Yes and Art of Noise. Did we eventually become fans of 90125? Only as a Trevor Horn production. We still say no to Yes. The album sounds exemplary on our current set-up. Our favorite-sounding version of "Leave It" is on the 2013 high-resolution digital release of 90125 from HDTracks.
144
Over the years, we've discovered more than a few favorite songs tucked away on soundtrack albums. We're talking "Goodbye Goodbye" from Fast Times At Ridgemont High and "Eiffel Tower" from No Small Affair. Another soundtrack treasure is "Savin' The Day" from Ghostbusters attributed simply to Alessi. For years the song has been the bane of anyone trying to stream the soundtrack album to Ghostbusters as it has always been strangely missing. The song has a drivin' groove and, if a firey guitar solo was added, wouldn't feel out of place on a Rocky film's soundtrack album. The Alessi Brothers are alive and well and selling "every version" of "Savin' The Day" on physical media on their website. The best-sounding version of Alessi's "Savin' The Day" is on the original Japan for U.S. compact disc pressing of the Ghostbusters soundtrack.
89
"Rock You Like A Hurricane" hits hard right from the start, all heavy riffs and misogyny which was apparently how we rocked in the Eighties. While 1982's Blackout will always remain our go-to Scorps album, 1984's Love At First Sting remains a not-so-close second. There's just something about those twin dueling riffs and the way the bass guitar and bass drum are in sync that boils up the blood in a great way. Since its release, we felt the track lacked a certain oompf! in the bottom end though once we heard what would become the best-sounding version of "Rock You Like A Hurricane" we've ever heard on the 2012 compilation The Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years we knew they fixed it in the mix.
85
We have been aboard the Kenny Loggins bandwagon since "Whenever I Call You Friend" in 1978 though we really flipped our lids when we heard "I'm Alright" in Caddyshack followed by the rockin' little Steve Perry duet "Don't Fight It" in 1982. And then "Footloose" blew us away with that punchy opening and that winding beat. Kenny's "Footloose" vocal performance is exuberantly upbeat, like a smiley-faced drill officer. Our favorite version of "Footloose" here in the HERChives is found on the 15th Anniversary Collectors' Edition Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) of Footloose from 2001.
35
Queen's "Radio Ga Ga" is one of several songs on the 1984 Hideaway 200 performed during Live Aid. It is a song we're very familiar with after listening to it repeatedly through the past five decades. Another thing we're familiar with is the neglectful handling of Queen's back catalog through the years. Incomplete collections and inferior mastering have been the norm thus far although we have a tiny glimmer of optimism now that Sony has purchased Queen's music catalog for a little over a billion dollars. I've read that Disney will continue its administration of the group's catalog in North America so we'll see how it plays out. The best-sounding version of "Radio Ga Ga" to our ears can be found on the 1984 red-faced Japanese pressing for the U.K. of The Works on compact disc.
41
"All Night Long" is a terrific album-opening track and also served well as a concert opener when we saw Squier on his Signs of Life Tour in the fall of 1984. Of the two tracks we've included on the 1984 Hideaway 200 from Billy Squier's Signs of Life album, "All Night Long" is definitely our favorite. From the massive sounding intro, the runaway guitar riffs that drive the song along, to the dizzying breakdown and squealing guitar solo that sets the song off and running again, it's almost all too much. Our favorite-sounding version of Billy Squier's "All Night Long" is on the 1995 U.S. pressed compact disc of the compilation 16 Strokes: The Best Of Billy Squier.
133
We never used the ability to start playing songs from a point other than the beginning in iTunes until we added Dwight Twilley's "Girls" to our library via Volume 13 of Rhino's awesome Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80s series. We set the song to begin nine seconds in to effectively edit the really quiet "interpolation of some Maurice Chevalier music" (according to Twilley) out. Once the song gets going, it rocks at a decent pace and, on the chorus, Twilley sings the song's title then the unmistakable voice of long-time friend and former labelmate Tom Petty responds with a line. It's a really cool effect. The best-sounding version of Dwight Twilley's "Girls" in our collection is the first one we bought, Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits Of The '80s, Vol. 13.
68
The 9:00 12" version of the song "Smalltown Boy" is the one we enjoy listening to the most. It takes a couple of minutes to get going, allowing Jimmy Sommerville's plaintive lyrics to be clearly heard before the irresistibly danceable backing track kicks in and that's all we need. This is a dancefloor filler of the highest caliber all the more amazing because it was the group's first single. Our favorite-sounding version of Bronski Beat's epic "Smalltown Boy" remix is found on an undated (somewhere between 1984 and 1992) Canadian compact disc pressing of The Age Of Consent.
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We're 45% through the countdown. At the end of the next post, we'll be halfway through the 1984 Hideaway 200. Thanks for all the positive comments and feedback. Just a reminder that we don't publish anonymous comments but we read 'em all. To the two people who suggested we list all the source material we listened to in our shoot-outs rather than just our favorite or best-sounding, that's an excellent suggestion and something we'd love to read in a similar post but we didn't think of it during the creation of the 1984 Hideaway 200 and it's way too much work to review our notes and then go back and edit twenty posts, effectively super-sizing them. To the guy who has written in three times now complaining about our use of the term "best-sounding", we get it. What sounds best to us and our ears on our systems may not sound the best to you and your ears on your system. It's all subjective, right? Feel free to share which versions you feel are the best-sounding if they differ from ours. While we are content with our equipment, we are always on the lookout for optimal-sounding masterings of our favorite songs. Maybe that's the term we should have been using all along. Optimal-Sounding? As always, those of you playing along at home should check your cards against the ones below. It appears at least two BINGOs are imminent: 200-191 and 140-131.
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