Difference's between album versions vs single versions

[drzubritsky]

Originally Posted by MacShadowsBall

I'm intrigued by the differences between an album version of a song vs the single versions of the same song. Perhaps its more of a generational thing growing up in the 90's, but I don't get why you change up/remix the song for the single release. What's the reasoning in changing the song up for the release of a single?

Take "Say You Love Me" - 2 versions album version and the single 45 version. Though I do prefer the single version of SYLM to the album version.

I suppose other artist do/have done this, but it just seems strange to me.

Are there FM songs where you prefer the single version over the album version or vice versa?

Different mixes for 45 versions of songs was pretty common back in those days. Having a strong radio hit was very important and a big driver of album sales. The reason for remixing songs for single release was usually to provide a punchier sound that would increase the song's chances at Top 40 radio. Sometimes 45 mixes were just a different balance of instrumentation with a bit more compression in the mix to make it sound more like a "hit", while in other cases (such as SYLM), new instrumentation was added to the 45 version.

I can only surmise that for the SYLM 45 version, they were trying to "rock it up" a bit for rock radio airplay, hence the prominent electric guitar. This is one of these cases where I actually prefer the album version, as I felt the additional guitar sounded tacked on and never really gelled in the mix.

Of course, the other 2 singles from the White album are pretty heavily remixed as well. For those, I like both the album and 45 versions equally as well.

"Sisters Of The Moon" and "Think About Me" aren't as dramatically different, although the cold ending on the 45 of SOTM is interesting.

45 edits are a different story. Those were done just to make the songs shorter and tighter, to be more in line with the length of most top 40 songs. FM didn't have too many 45s that were straight edits. "Sara" is the only prominent example I can think of. "Gypsy" was sort of an edit in its 45 version, but there is actually a brief section toward the coda that is not present on the album version...this version has never been released on CD.