I’ve never seen this clip of Elvis Costello & The Attractions playing “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” before. It’s from a 1980 appearance on England’s Kenny Everett Show. I’ve never heard this version before. Is it an outtake or recording they made especially for lip-synching on the show?
We ran the following clip, also from the Kenny Everett Show, some time ago. If memory serves it was another video-only mix. I’d love to find a straight audio clip of this version of Nick Lowe‘s “So It Goes”:
I know we’ve also seen some Rolling Stones videos with the boys lip-synching to alternate mixes. What’s the story behind these mixes? Does this practice still happen? Has anyone ever begun compiling a list of such videos? Does anyone know where we might download audio of these alternate, video-only mixes? Is this a job for Rock Town Hall?
The video of Robyn Hitchcock’s “Madonna of the Wasps” opens with an extra introductory verse that’s not on the official mix.
See, THAT’S what I’m talking about!
When RealPlayer prompts me to download videos that are available on YouTube, I’ve discovered that I can separate the audio into a separate file. I’m not sure how they (or I?) get away with this.
Mmm…. [Twirls wax mustache.] I’ll have to try this.
Yeah, this is a weird phenomenon to me. Brand new mixes just for a TV show, sometimes with a half-hearted or just plain intentionally bad lipsync. I think a previous RTH post may have pointed me to a Kenny Everett show clip of the Police. Sounds to me like a it could be a new lead vocal over the original tracks mixed completely differently. There is no attempt made to do a convincing mime. (Skip to 1:00 past the intro…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0KW-_48Cc
This one is a wholly different recording of XTC doing “Senses Working Overtime”. It’s almost believable mime compared with the one above. I wonder if the point of something like this was to get a new but clean audio recording in the TV studio ahead of time, and then when the audience is there do a single take without worrying about audio or mistakes. The “live fade-out” is always ridiculous, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J5GVVz0gjA
I also recall that the video for “Into the Great Wide Open” is a sort of extended mix, with some extra little parts/sections where Tench and Campbell throw in some extra licks. Probably to fill out the long-form video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqmFxgEGKH0
Can’t remember if I posted this here before but I love this video of Squeeze on TOTP for “Up the Junction”. Since they were not allowed to play live they all switched instruments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7DRq7_5sQs
My hunch is that they had mime versions of songs that sounded different enough from the released version as to lead the viewer into more easily believing that they weren’t miming.
http://vidtomp3.com lets you put the YouTube url in and it creates an mp3 download link for the audio. Standard” or “High” quality options. Then it allows you to share!
Mod- Ask and you shall receive. Go here to download So It Goes. And you can download it right into iTunes!
http://www.vidtomp3.com/download.php?video=k3jiCi7aFZE
Many times it has to do with european union laws. The show wants them to lip sync, but they are not permitted to use their actual record. I guess that’s why we have all that BBC stuff as well.
Tom Petty they did that to work with the longer video. There is an extra organ vamp in the middle.
I have a Def Leppard comp that used the “Video Mix” verisons of a few songs, but I think it’s like a “single” mix for the song.
Real Player’s free version will let you capture YouTube Videos and save them in multiple formats (including MP3). I made a 3-disc MTV Era video comp DVD by capturing Videos as MP4 and then importing into my movie maker software (like one you would use for home movies) It was the hit of our Christmas Pary (also my 40th Birthday) with many people contacting me asking for a copy of the set. The PAID verison of Real Player will let you burn DVDs from your playlist of captured youtube videos. worth the $29 if you dont have other software.
Thanks, all you techno-wizards! I just downloaded the audio for these two videos as mp3s. Maybe they’ll make an appearance in a future episode of Saturday Night Shut-In or on my stereo at my next dinner party. Someone’s gonna be impressed one way or another!
The Tom Petty video was the first thing I thought of when I saw this post headline. More recently, the video for Broken Bells’ “The Ghost Inside” has a longer intro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVxTsXRjNTw
The Stones videos are the first ones that come to mind, also some of the Ziggy-era Bowie videos had live (or at least, different) vocals and canned backing. See, for example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWGXagA1MI&feature=fvsr
But the Nick Lowe video, which is fantastic, is not only a different vocal but a whole different mix or take, isn’t it?
As a sidenote, there are some music videos where they’ve added dialogue and sound effects to go with the action on the screen and I HATE THAT.
Yeah, that Lowe one is a holy grail. This technology opens up a new vista of nerdy rock downloading. Thank you, Rock Town Hall.
Yeah, I DON’T think I’ll be downloading thoses videos! 🙂
I will have to check to see if this “alternate version” is on the 2-cd version of Jesus of Cool.
Hello by Lionel Ritchie – remember that one? had the dialogue of the “story” playing with the music? As a kid they would broadcast the audio part of the top video countdown on the radio and I would tape the songs I liked. it was great, no DJ talking through the songs! Then stupid Lionel had to have his blind lady gabbing through his song … grrr!
Bruce Springsteen – Brilliant Disguise. He is singing live to the backing track there are no background vocals at all. I think he did the same thing for Streets Of Philadelphia video.
Blind lady? She was blind? You mean…Oh….!
This isn’t really an alternate mix, but this new technology will allow all of you finally to own the audio of that live version of Eminence Front from the Who video that’s such an RTH fave.