Re-edits: Queen - Radio Ga Ga (Irregular Disco Workers Edit)

Friday, September 13, 2013

Queen - Radio Ga Ga (Irregular Disco Workers Edit)

Definitely a Queen favorite of mine, both in music og lyrics. Also my very first encounter with the band when it hit the charts in 1984.

Apparently this song was the result of drummer Roger Taylor playing with his new tech toys; a Roland Jupiter 8 and a Linn drum machine.
Irregular Disco Workers has replaced the trademark arpeggiator bassline with a slapbass (much like Camille Jones "The Creeps"), but it works surprisingly well. A little filter on Freddie's sparse vocals and a little extra kicks, snaps and cowbells. We love cowbells!
Nice!

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About this blog

This blog is dedicated to music re-edits.
No remixes. Just re-edits.
Like Eddie Murphy, I got some rules when I throw down:

Re-edits can only contain elements from the original recording.
No new melody or elements must be added, e.g. extra instruments or vocals. That would make it a remix.
Then again: a little kick and a snare to mark things up never hurt nobody.
It's OK to fade, reverse, cut, loop and add delay/reverb/phase fx etc. to the mix.
It's OK to included any version available of the recording: extended, dub, a capella, instrumental, perc-apella, live etc. as long as it is the same artist.
The re-edit must work better than the original. Else it's pointless, Tess!

Feel free to submit your re-edit to the Soundcloud group at the top. If I like, I'll post it here.

Note: Any mp3s are for listening purpose only. If you DL, please delete afterwards and go buy the record.

Re-edits history

Re-edits (or later extended versions) are altered versions of an existing song with repeated and reordered arrangement.

The re-edit was born because pre-disco DJs like Francis Grasso and Walter Gibbons and music aficionado Tom Moulton saw the advantages of longer versions; dancing people are responding to specific instrumental parts of the song (often a drumbreak or breakdown) and they want to stay in the groove for longer than just the usual 3:20 the single could provide.

At first they mixed two identical records on the spot, but later they would use reel-to-reel and cassettes. Eventually, when the record companies saw the sales potential, the DJs took it from the booth to the studio. Since, the art of re-editing has been refined by people like Danny Krivit, Tom Moulton, Walter Gibbons, Yam Who?, Todd Terje Dimitri from Paris and Pilooski.

(Wiki about re-edits)

(Brewster & Frank Broughton: "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life - The history of the disc jockey", Headline 1999)