In 1990 this was going to be the album that was going to change the game. A band from Liverpool that were going to eclipse the Madchester scene and would dominate music. This single was released and it was good, though it sounds like early Stone Roses rather than the next stage of musical evolution. The band spent so long fiddling with the album that the record company drew a line and just released it.
The group were furious and it was the end of them. The album gets mentioned on lists of the best indie albums, but it was not a classic and definitely not a gamechanger.
It does not just happen to new groups, sometimes bands do it to themselves. U2 had a tour booked and had to complete the album Pop before it started. Every track from that album was remixed when they released their greatest hits.
U2 had form with this. When they reinvented themselves in 1990 and released Achtung Baby they had Paul Oakenfold remix Even Better Than the Real Thing, which was a single in its original and remixed versions. Some U2 tracks exist in up to 20 different versions.
Before he was a superstar DJ Oakenfold was a superstar remixer and he was not the only one from the early 90s. Plenty of indie and rock bands were jumping on the Madchester bandwagon and wanted dance mixes of their tracks. Some DJs were given impossible tasks and basically recorded new tracks using samples from the original.
When I first became interested in music 12 inch singles were becoming really popular (as opposed to the 7 inch standard singles). These were for fans and would either feature an extra track (or tracks) or an extended remix. In some cases there would be a different b side on the 7 inch that was not on the 12 inch to persuade fans to but both (when CDs arrived compilations of b sides for groups were a good money spinner, but in those days if you missed a track then it was incredibly hard to get).
Duran Duran were big on extended dance remixes in the early 80s. Their first number 1 was Is There Something I Should Know? Which had remixes of the a and b side on the 12 inch that were nothing like the 7 inch versions (and the b side, Faith In This Colour, is no classic, to put it mildly) but it was their first number 1, going straight in at the top. A sure sign fans were double buying.
The ultimate extension of this was the Shamen releasing En-Tact with bits of their music on that home music fans could put together to make their own versions.
The other way of boosting sales were picture discs. Literally a picture on the vinyl, another version for fans to get. Of course these were far too valuable to ever play and can now be sold for significant amounts.
The La’s only had one classic track, but it is a thing of beauty.
There She Goes
Five Miles Out 