| rhyeking 15.04.2013 22:52 |
Okay, so I'm listening to the Barcelona Special Edition and Ensueno comes on. I'm not hearing any orchestral backing and since it's been a while since I gave the 1988 album a listen, I put its version of Ensueno on for comparison. Hmm... I put the two into Audacity and line them up, then played over top of each other. Here's what I've found: They're the same. The music is exactly the same. So are the vocals. Both are identical. That doesn't really bother me, since if there was nothing to replace synth-wise on Ensueno, adding an orchestra would be pointless. Here's what does sort of bother me: The 4 disc Special Edition set has a disc of the instrumental orchestral versions. Except that Ensueno there is the 1987 Exercises In Free Love piano backing track. AGAIN! It happened on The Solo Collection boxed set and appears again here. 12 years later, same mistake. Thoughts? |
| pestgrid 16.04.2013 05:16 |
Ensueno and excersizes in free love are the same song..just different singers.....so the backing track would be the same...so no error.... |
| rhyeking 16.04.2013 08:38 |
pestgrid: "Ensueno and excersizes in free love are the same song..just different singers.....so the backing track would be the same...so no error.... " Actually, no. You are incorrect. This was discussed at length a while back. Exercises In Free Love was recorded twice: Originally by Freddie, which appears on the B-side of The Great Pretender single (and later on The Freddie Mercury Album and on The Great Pretender album). It was later completely re-recorded by Montserrat and that version appeared as the B-side of the Barcelona single. After the Barcelona single, Lyrics were added and it was recorded as Ensueno. Each of these versions, while similar, are different recordings of the backing track, here are some examples: Exercises In Free Love (Freddie): 3:58 - starts with a single piano note Exercises In Free Love (Monsterrat): 4:04 - starts with several piano notes, as a flourish. This piano performance is different from the Freddie version. Ensueno (1988): 4:21 - starts with a similar flourish of notes and is a longer, different piano performance. So, as I was saying, The Solo Collection mistook the Freddie Exercises In Free Love backing track for the longer Ensueno backing track on the Instrumentals disc. The 4 disc Barcelona Special Edition did the same thing. Ensueno 1988 (4:22) and Ensueno Special Edition (4:21) are identical recordings, though the original has one extra second of silence at the end Ensueno Special Edition Instrumental: 4:01 - Identical to the Freddie Exercises In Free Love piano performance, starting with a single note (no flourish), same audible length (just some extra silence at the end). This is the same performance as appeared incorrectly as the Ensueno Instrumental on the The Solo Collection (4:00). Listen to the different tracks and you'll hear exactly what I'm talking about. |
| joesilvey 16.04.2013 09:06 |
You're absolutely correct, Rhyeking... I noticed it was the wrong instrumental version again as well, and share your frustration! |
| rhyeking 16.04.2013 09:41 |
I'm glad I'm not the only one who spotted this. It's curious, given the level of attention Stuart Morley gave this project, that this mistake would be made again. Like I said, I understand perfectly why Ensueno wasn't changed from 1988 to the SE. There're no synth parts that need replacing on the 1988 recording. It might have been a case of whomever compiled the SE Instrumentals saying, "Well, Ensueno wasn't re-recorded, but we need the Instrumental version anyway to complete this disc. Oh, here's the Instrumental already made for The Solo Collection! Perfect!" Except that he didn't realize TSC version was incorrect. Or something like that happened. Once again, denied an Ensueno Instrumental! |
| pittrek 16.04.2013 09:41 |
Very interesting rhyeking, thanks, this is the kind of posts I miss here. Could you post a link to the version which you consider "correct", e.g. on youtube or whatever ? |
| rhyeking 16.04.2013 09:55 |
Here are the tracks: Exercises In Free Love (Freddie): link Ensueno (1988 Original Version): link Ensueno (2012 Special Edition...Exactly the same as the 1988 Original Version): link At the moment, I can't find the Montserrat version of Exercises In Free Love on YouTube, but just listening to these, from first note, it's noticeably different. Here's the Instrumental version mislabelled as Ensueno (it's actually Exercises In Free Love [Freddie Version]) from The Solo Collection: link There's no example to share of the *actual* Ensueno Instrumental, as it's never been released. The two opportunities they had to release it (The Solo Collection and the Special Edition 4 disc set) both used the Freddie version of Exercises In Free Love's Instrumental. |
| dave76 16.04.2013 09:56 |
Information on Queen and solo tracks are always a pleasure to read. pittrek is right. there should be more posts like this. |
| cmsdrums 16.04.2013 15:27 |
It's unforgivable for this error AGAIN after it was pointed out, and acknowledged by Greg Brooks etc after the Freddie box set. |
| GratefulFan 16.04.2013 16:10 |
I wonder if intimate knowledge always reveals quality control problems, or if Queen is notably bad at it. Is there some kind of regression to a quality control mean once music is old enough or the history muddied enough? I don't know enough about any other band to judge. |
| rhyeking 16.04.2013 16:51 |
I have a friend who's heavily into Elvis and he says these kinds of things and worse happen with The King's catalogue, too. Apparently re-issues have used the wrong takes on some releases, or edited the master differently from release to release. Apparently, it's very frustrating for fans trying to keep track of what the correct version is on the different releases and even attempts to remaster albums get mixes wrong, as in the wrong mixes get used. I'm also a big Mike Oldfield fan, too, and his back catalogue has some odd moments of re-releases and re-issues throughout, though overall it's been pretty consistent, at least as far as the correct version of the tracks used (though there are some exceptions). |
| inu-liger 16.04.2013 17:26 |
GratefulFan wrote: I wonder if intimate knowledge always reveals quality control problems, or if Queen is notably bad at it. Is there some kind of regression to a quality control mean once music is old enough or the history muddied enough? I don't know enough about any other band to judge.There were at least two Michael Jackson albums (Off The Wall and Bad) I believe that had alternate mixes switched in place of the original mixes as time went by. The latter album I think had 3 songs affected by these changes. |
| Pim Derks 17.04.2013 10:24 |
Almost every act with reissues seems to have these problems. Just look at the Beatles, they put out folded-down stereo mixes as the mono-mixes a couple of years back on The Capitol Albums boxset etc. It's a shame fans/experts aren't consulted about stuff like this. However, what I hate even more, is putting out remasters with new material/mixes, like the "fixed" version of Jealousy, the remixed version of Who Are You by The Who, Morrissey removing tracks from the tracklist and adding unreleased demo's instead (not as bonustracks, just in place of). |
| Wilki Amieva 18.04.2013 09:37 |
To the best of my knowledge, the used version is the only one in which piano and vocals were recorded separately. The others were (edited) live takes, so a proper instrumental would be difficult to accomplish. |
| cmsdrums 18.04.2013 12:54 |
But with this, the official archivist was picked up on the error first time around with the FM box, but then it happens again! |
| matt z 18.04.2013 18:30 |
Thanks for the in depth, rhyeking. Now I gotta pick up the single b side |
| joesilvey 19.04.2013 07:05 |
Wilki Amieva wrote: To the best of my knowledge, the used version is the only one in which piano and vocals were recorded separately. The others were (edited) live takes, so a proper instrumental would be difficult to accomplish.----------------------------------------------------- very interesting, Wilki... certainly a plausible explanation. Perhaps GB could confirm this for us? |
| rhyeking 22.04.2013 21:29 |
If it's not possible to create a proper instrumental of Ensueno from the Barcelona sessions material, that's one thing. I can fully accept and understand that situation. The issue is that the Exercises In Free Love instrumental was called the Ensueno instrumental. Either this was an honest mistake or, if someone was aware that Ensueno could not be made into a proper instrumental, someone tried to pass one off as the other. I prefer to think it was a mistake. If it was deliberate, why even bother? It was a boxed set with plenty of room to explain the situation in the notes. And it's not like fans were expecting the entire Barcelona album in instrumental form (more on that in a moment) or would be disappointed by the lack of Ensueno. Only a few Mr. Bad Guy tracks were given the instrumental treatment and that was not a problem for the compilers or the fans. They could have included the Exercises In Free Love instrumental, called it what it was, even put it in Ensueno's place on the instrumental disc with the explanation, and I'm sure nobody would've had a problem with it at all. If it was a mistake, what has to happen now, because we can't change the past, is that whomever is in charge of these things has go and fix all the internal labels on every relevant recording and file to avoid it happening again. This way, the next person (or the same person) doesn't just think Freddie's Excercises In Free Love instrumental is the Ensueno instrumental. As I was saying about the Barcelona instrumentals, even if they had the Ensueno backing track, they wouldn't have had the full Barcelona album in instrumental form because Barcelona excluded the intro (it's the single version instrumental, not the album version) and Overture Piccante is absent altogether. Since Overture Piccante is a mix of other tracks, a proper instrumental was probably not possible. Likewise, the intro to the album version of Barcelona comes from the earlier Extended Version, which I suspect was retained for the album because it *is* very cool. |