Single Remixes vs. original album mix

jebsib wrote: Not certain if this trend was spurred on by a desire from the Record Companies to extend the interest of long-running album cycles or it was just the 'thing to do'... at kicked this off?

I always assumed it was to get people to buy the single when they already owned the album, in order to boost the song's ranking on the Hot 100.

Edited by Brian W. - 18 May 2025 at 11:48am

EdisonLite wrote: But with SO many single mixes being made - as we all know - I always wondered why the labels accepted poorer mixes in the 1st place from the producers. If they thought the production was sub-par, they should have asked the producers to mix it better or to be more exciting, etc. I'm sure there are counter-arguments to that theory, such as the label didn't know what was going to be the singles at the time. But still...

My take on this is as follows:

An album is submitted to the label; the label thinks it's quite good - maybe it's even got an obvious choice for a first single.

The first single takes off, it propels album sales and select other cuts were possibly sampled on certain radio formats (e.g. AOR in the 70s & 80s).

The record company wants to help ensure the potential second single doesn't stiff (and stifle momentum) so the producer either devotes special attention to creating a standout mix for the radio, or hires a top engineer to remix it (Chris Lord-Alge, Humberto Gatica, Mick Guzauski, et al.) or commissions a hot club remixer such as John "Jellybean" Benitez.

A couple of early examples of this are Richard Podolor & Bill Cooper with Three Dog Night. The albums were well produced when they came out with NO advanced singles (with the exception of "Shambala" on LP 'Cyan'). Most of the singles when they were released were tweaked from the album version.

Another classic example was the 'Fleetwood Mac' album. They were known as an Album Band when it was released in 1975. "Over My Head" was released as a remixed, augmented single a coupla months after the LP gained traction on AOR. The next two singles were also improved upon for CHR play by producer Keith Olsen. But nobody thought the album mixes were second-rate when the LP first came out - they just had a bigger budget now and could refocus on select consensus tracks...

Andy


Edited by AndrewChouffi - Yesterday at 5:05am

All these different takes are good. I'll bet for different singles released, each of these reasons have been used for making a single mix.