Tiffany "Could’ve Been"

Ron S wrote: I am sorry that my posts about finding a song on a particular CD is bothering you. And btw I am a paying member and fairly new to the board and trying to figure things out. Thanks!

Ron, it's great to have you on board. Had it not been
for my discovery of this forum in 2007 through an
article posted about '45 versions' and 'DJ edits' I'd
still have all LP versions for songs prior to 1994!

Hykker - I talked to Shannon Lynn (he remastered the '70s-'80s AT40 shows) a while back, and I think he tried to use the proper edits/versions when he could. I've heard some song abbreviations (especially in the year-end shows) that were undoubtedly AT40 in-house edits, and it sounds like Shannon preserved or re-created those edits whenever he could.

But I don't know how deep his knowledge base was. For example, I was in radio in the late '80s, and I didn't realize that "Could've Been" had a dedicated 45 mix until I found it here on the forum. If I didn't know about it, I can't imagine that he would have realized it, either.

Rebroadcasts of old episodes of American Top 40 have been distributed for a number of years. There are two series, one with episodes from the '70s, one from the '80s. A couple of weeks ago, the featured episode from the '80s series was from February 13, 1988. That's probably what Ron S. heard on the radio.

Agreed with the comments above, that 1) the people who remaster these shows are sensitive to songs having differing versions, and try to match what was in the original broadcasts, but that 2) they aren't perfect in that regard, and in a case like this, where the differences between the two versions are relatively subtle and probably not very well-known, who knows if they even realized that there is a difference. Ideally, of course, they'd be hanging around on this discussion board....   

Earlier this evening, I was listening to a recording I have of the show from January 30, 1988, two weeks before the episode that Ron S. heard. (My recording is from the 21st century rebroadcast series, not the original broadcast from 1988.) I popped in here because I had a question about the #1 song, "Need You Tonight" by INXS, and was surprised to see a thread on the front page about the #2 song, which was "Could've Been".

I went back and listened to "Could've Been" again, and it is the album version. The "monstrous echo" referenced upthread on the line "just about to die" is definitely present. As with the episode Ron S. heard, it's conceivably possible that this isn't what was played on the original broadcast.