Worst/most jarringly obvious edits in songs?

2.36 in this is a shocker (as noted in Steve Wright's introduction)



any others?

 

The beginning of Rael.

 

Yer Blues.

 

You beat me to it. It's only on the mono mix, but how that was allowed out is still mind-blowing. It's not even close!

 

The title track of Budgie's In For The Kill. The mid-section I'm convinced was part of another song originally, the sound of the recording even changes for that part. I think it was Frankensteined in the studio. Still a cool song, but it always throws me off.

 

"She Loves You" obviously!!

 

Most obvious edit: On the original vinyl The Who Sell Out, the part of "Rael" where it goes into the riff that would later become "Sparks" on Tommy.

I also can't help but hear the edits on the Majors' "A Wonderful Dream." They clearly cut the a cappella intro and break separately and edited them into the main song. The change in tonality is obvious to me.

Then there's that part of the Beatle's "Little Child" where they return from the harmonica solo with a distinct thud. And that grafted on guitar outro to "Any Time At All."

Also, there are so many weird edits on the mono version of Frank Sinatra's Point of No Return, I don't know where to start. On some songs his voice goes from bassy to trebly to bassy again depending on the line.

 

Where is it at? Not jesting, just never noticed it.

 

The single edit of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by the Vanilla Fudge splices the 1st line of verse 1 to the last line of verse 3, destroying the rhyme.
The single edit of the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun"has the shortened instrumental break coming in abruptly on the wrong beat of a measure.
The single edit of ELO's "Roll Over Beethoven" is one of the sloppiest hatchet jobs ever.
The unedited versions of all of the above are great.

 

It's at 3.17 where the drum fill cuts the guitar solo short.

 

There are several jazz albums from the 50's and 60's with abrupt edits I could mention but the top prize goes to Charles Mingus's Tijuana Moods.

 

Wedding Bells is obviously a "pastiche edit" in keeping with the Motownesque feel of the rest of the song. Typical Godley and Creme in-joke kind of humour. It always made me laugh anyway!

 

I could mention the live version of Rocks Off by The Rolling Stones, which appears on Live Licks Disc 2.
Likewise, the UMG remastered version of Star Star on Goats Head Soup, which is edited/censored, yet they still use the naughty words on Love You Live, which was remastered at the same time.

 

If you can find something worse than this I want to hear it:

The US single edit of David Bowie's Young Americans cutting down a 5mins 13 to 3mins 15.


Listen between 1 minute 58 seconds and 2 minutes 5 seconds.

Brutal.

 

Fabs, "This Boy", the jarring cut between the middle part and the final verse.

"...That boy, won't be happy, Till he's seen you cryThis boy wouldn't mind the pain..."

 

Oh wow you reckon? If so, makes me ashamed I didn't take it in the spirit it was intended. It would be a perfect example of their sense of humour is true. But were Motown particularly known for their poor edits?

 

Various points in the unaccompanied solo on Zep's "Heartbreaker."

 

More Beatles, the end of The End (!) after the "love you, love you" section everything stops and the staccato A maj piano chords that appear are getting on for a quarter tone sharper than the preceding music. Does anyone else notice this or am I imagining it?

 

I noticed it, yes.

Similarly in the edit from "Baby Let's Swing" to "The Last Thing You Said" from Todd Rundgren's Runt album the two songs are not in tune with each other.

 

Well of course as soon as I wrote that I thought I'd better come up with some examples of bad Motown edits, which I am still failing to do! Perhaps it was just a retro thing rather than specifically Motown, or perhaps I've just always heard it wrong - there was no humour intended and it really is the worst edit in the history of popular music! Knowing Godley and Creme though, I somehow doubt that....

 

Crimson & Clover. To make the LP version an instrumental jam was spliced into the original 3 minute song. Not only is it obvious but the spliced insert plays slower.

 

I don't know if this is a hatchet job but I always thought something changed in Philadelphia Freedom when Elton John sings ".. heart beating for someone.." It seems like his voice speeds up a little. I always hear that when I hear the song.

 

This was fixed on the Rhino CD.

 

Genesis - Stagnation, huge edit on the original version where the quiet flute passage comes in straight after the loud organ solo climax, all the reverb just cuts off dead. Of course on the remaster this is just covered up by more reverb they added...

 

That was the first thing that came to my mind as well, in any genre - you can practically hear the sound of a rusty razor blade and ham fist (presumably belonging to Mingus himself).