We all talk about it in the CD era, what a record that woulda coulda shoulda been if they just had someone around with the balls to honestly tell them to just pick the best 10 to 12 songs, the ones that really flow together, instead of including all of those extras that should be relegated to a future b-sides collection, and the obligatory single the record company wants that doesn't fit at all. Throw it all on the wall and see what sticks.

One of those for me is the debut of one of my favorites of the last decade, Augie March. The year was 2000, country Australia, fantastic collection of talent, but somewhere along the line they decided to make a beautiful CD called Sunset Studies that went beyond the maximum standard at the time of 74 minutes, even had to get special media imported to do it. Crazy and misguided. Fortunately, we music listeners, who of course always know best, have the means and the technology to remedy the mistakes of our music idols. So I was playing around with the tracklisting, because I do really love this record, and wound up doing a search to find out if there were thoughts on this in the computer world, and sure enough, some blogger using the Mindless Munkey handle comes through with a trim of about 15 minutes and some minor rearranging, and it does really make it a much better record ...

the mindlessmunkey edit of Sunset Studies:

1 ~ The Hole In Your Roof
2 ~ Maroondah Reservoir
3 ~ There Is No Such Place
4 ~ Tulip
5 ~ Men Who Follow Spring The Planet Round
6 ~ Believe Me
7 ~ Sunset Studies
8 ~ Heartbeat And Sails
9 ~ The Offer
10 ~ The Good Gardener (On How He Fell)
11 ~ Here Comes The Night
12 ~ Owen's Lament

Total run time: 1:02:16


So, any cool recent listens you'd like to mention in the spirit of Tunesday Tunes, or big favorites you'd like to trim and rearrange? I remember a thread about the Cure's Disintegration, that's another big favorite that I trimmed, though in that case it was because I came to know it via the vinyl which omitted 2 of the songs and gave it a decidedly different flow, and a much better record for me. So after getting the CD years later, I decided to edit it to match the shorter vinyl. Sacrilege, I know. The life of a music geek in the computer era