I’ve always been a sucker for 12” singles since buying my first one, Fun Boy Three’s ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, at the age of 13 from Rockers Records, Birmingham. There was something special about the (obviously!) larger artwork and the extended / remixed / mysterious wonders within. Sometimes they would contain extended versions without any different ‘version’ name in brackets after the title (Momus’ ‘Hairstyle Of The Devil’ would be an example); other times you would be expecting a remix to find the tracks the same as the 7” version (Visage’s ‘Fade To Grey’, for instance). ABC’s ‘That Was Then But This Is Now’ went a step further and actually had a printed statement on the cover: “This record is exactly the same as the 7” version. The choice is yours”. Guess what? I went with the 12”.
And then in more recent times there have been a number of excellent 12” compilations, including the 12”/80s series (around a dozen released between 2005 -2014) and nowadays we have the ongoing Now… series of 1980s 12” singles collected by year. These are all irresistible to me. However, this extraordinary 4CD set released under Cherry Red’s ‘Cherry Pop’ banner takes matters even further and really delves into the alternative 12” mixes available at the height of the “Let’s release another version to keep it / get it in the charts” way of thinking that was prevalent in 1980s record company strategy. As someone who was on cloud nine in 1988 after finding the rare ‘Absolutely Immune II’ 12” by Act (more of whom later!) in Reddingtons Rare Records (also Birmingham), for the princely sum of 50p (it had a totally different mix!), I can really get behind this idea.
But who could pull off such a mission of compiling a set like this? Step forward Jan Burnett, who actually has released a lot of records himself as part of Dundee indie band Spare Snare AND runs Chute Records, but is modest enough to mention neither in his totally charming sleeve notes. This is clearly a huge labour of love for Burnett, who talks of the joy of finding alternative (as in different versions rather than a genre!) 12” singles in the chart return shops of Dundee – the logic being that those shops whose sales contributed to the charts were more likely to be supplied with the exotic, rarer wares that might impact an artist’s chart position. This all adds up to a compilation where a lot of the tracks have been sourced for CD (directly from the master tapes) for the first time. Burnett has also gone to the trouble of naming all of the producers and remix engineers too, even when their credits have been lost in the digital age and the original records are needed to get them.
The collection is sequenced really nicely; it really flows and listeners to Radcliffe and Maconie’s 6Music show could find a few adjacent tracks here that would be good links for their never-ending ‘The Chain’ series, where the next song chosen has to relate to the previous one. For example, Pet Shop Boys’ sublime ‘Dance Mix’ of‘Love Comes Quickly’ (definitely in their Top 3 greatest moments!) is followed by Electronic’s ‘Getting Away With It (Extended’), which features Neil Tennant and onward into New Order’s ‘The Kiss Of Death’, taking Bernard Sumner as the common denominator.
There’s a wondrous Claudia Brücken hat-trick starting with Act (her short-lived duo with synth genius Thomas Leer) and their ‘Snobbery and Decay (That’s Entertainment)’ into her previous band Propaganda’s ‘Des Testaments Des Mabuse’ into her one-off collaboration with Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory in the shape of ‘When Your Heart Runs Out Of Time (6’20” mix)’. Three very different tracks that show the versatility of Claudia Brücken, but all are essential. I would go as far as to say that the Propaganda track is not only a perfect example of how to put a 12” single together, but it could also lay a reasonable claim to being the best ten minutes of recorded music in history. Really. Those three were all courtesy of the iconic ZTT label, who were the ultimate masters of the ‘alternative’ 12” – indeed, the first copy of ‘Dr Mabuse’ that I bought (a different version, naturally) was labelled with ‘Side Three’ and ‘Side Four’. It’s assumed here that permission to use a Frankie Goes To Hollywood track was sadly refused, though that is an assumption on my part.
There are so many tracks here that I probably shouldn’t have waffled so much at the start of this review, but I was especially pleased to see ‘Cccan’t You See… (French Extended Mix)’ by the enigmatic Vicious Pink and a great mix of a-ha’s Number 1 single ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’ that differs significantly from the regular 12”. Francois Kevorkian is a master of the 12” remix format who first came to my attention via the ‘New York’ mixes of The Smiths ‘This Charming Man’, which (at least some of) the band have always claimed to hate and would almost certainly not have agreed to their inclusion here – but Francois K (as he is also known) has his excellent ‘High Plains Mixer’ of Thompson Twins’ jaunty 1984 smash ‘You Take Me Up’ amongst the tracks – in fact it kicks off the whole set. There’s the alternative 12” (‘The Cutback Mix’) of Simply Red’s hit cover of The Valentine Brothers’ ‘Money’s Too Tight To Mention’ (the original actually only itself released three years previously).
It’s one of those 80s mysteries why When In Rome weren’t bigger – see also Win – whose ‘The Promise (Ollie North Mix)’ and ‘You’ve Got The Power (U.S. Dance Mix)’ respectively get onto the tracklist – the former described in Burnett’s notes as a ‘Holy Grail’ of 12” mixes. Scarlet Fantastic’s superb hit ‘No Memory’ has aged very well and is represented by its less familiar ‘Deconstruction Mix’, which is more of a dub version than the regular 12” but still manages to showcase that incredible vocal courtesy of Maggie K De Monde. Giorgio Moroder’s genius is here applied to Limahl’s ‘Never Ending Story (12” Mix)’, which struck me as a bit saccharine at the time but now simply sounds sweet in a good way.
A controversial opinion perhaps, but Talk Talk’s 12” Remix of ‘It’s My Life’ always struck me as a bit muted and didn’t quite capture the majesty of the original, never quite somehow getting going, whereas the opposite applies to the ‘Extended Mix’ of Simple Minds’ ‘Speed Your Love To Me’, which is one of the mightiest mixes you are ever likely to hear. There is some Stock, Aitken and Waterman action here too, with their own ‘Roadblock’ in its ‘Rare Groove Version’ and Princess’ at the time ubiquitous ‘Say I’m Your Number One’ , though of course it’s the ‘Alternative Version’ (and very good it is too). Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Success (Extended)’ bore the legend Sputnik / Aitken / Waterman on its sleeve (and is one of several tracks on the collection mixed by the highly talented mixer Phil Harding).
It’s refreshing to see Burnett’s inclusion of ‘less cool’ acts too; he’s not afraid to throw in Blue Mercedes or even Mandy Smith, whose ‘I Just Can’t Wait’ was actually the first release on the PWL label – if it was released in a cover with Saint Etienne on it instead of Smith’s name, it would be considered a classic. It’s a similar story for Nick Kamen, his ‘Each Time You Break My Heart (Dub)’ sounding pretty great after a near 40-year break from it! I can’t quite personally endorse Wet Wet Wet and their ‘Metal Mix’ of debut hit of ‘Wishing I Was Lucky’ but don’t let that put you off this highly inventive set. With further winners from The Human League, Re-Flex, Fancy, Secession, Freeez and even Nitzer Ebb, (and many more,) this collection is a varied but somehow also very coherent achievement, and I am already keenly anticipating a potential Volume 2.
Extended Stimulation: 12” Pop Adventures On The Dancefloor 1983-1988 is released by Cherry Pop (through Cherry Red) on 24th October 2025.
