Tag: 1986

Men At Work – Down Under (Extended Mix) (Australia 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1986

NEW 2023 Transfer
NEW Meticulous Audio Restoration

Originally posted January 23, 2013

AN 80s AUDITORY ICON

“Down Under” is a song recorded by Australian rock band Men at Work. It was originally released in 1980 as the B-side to their first local single, “Keypunch Operator”, released before the band signed with Columbia Records. Both early songs were written by the group’s co-founders, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert. The early version of “Down Under” has a slightly different tempo and arrangement from the later Columbia release. The best-known version was then released on Columbia in 1981 as the second single from their debut album Business as Usual (1981).

The hit song went to number one in their home country Australia in December 1981, and then topped the New Zealand charts in February 1982. The song topped the Canadian charts in October 1982. In the United States, the song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on 6 November 1982 at No. 79, and reached No. 1 in January 1983. Topping the US Billboard chart for four non-consecutive weeks, it eventually sold over two million copies in the US alone. Billboard ranked it at No. 4 for 1983. In the UK, the song topped the charts in January and February 1983: the only Men at Work song to make the UK top 20. The song also went to No. 1 in Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland, and was a top 10 hit in many other countries.

“Down Under” is perceived as a patriotic song in Australia; it remains popular and is often played at sporting events. In January 2018, as part of Triple M’s “Ozzest 100”, the ‘most Australian’ songs of all time so far, “Down Under” was ranked number 2 behind Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh”.

Colin Hay told Songfacts: “The chorus is really about the selling of Australia in many ways, the over-development of the country. It was a song about the loss of spirit in that country. It’s really about the plundering of the country by greedy people. It is ultimately about celebrating the country, but not in a nationalistic way and not in a flag-waving sense. It’s really more than that.

This 12″ was released in Australia to promote the band’s first Greatest Hits package, “81-85, ” issued in November 1986.

SIDE A:
Down Under (Extended Mix) 5:29
Engineer – Ian MacKenzie*
Mixed By – Greg Ham
Music By – Strykert*
Words By, Music By – Hay*

SIDE B:
Sail To You (Extended Mix) 5:50
Mixed By – François Kevorkian
Producer – Colin Hay, Greg Ham
Written-By – C. Hay, G. Ham, R. Strykert*

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

U.S. CHART HISTORY:

Year Single Chart Position
1982 Down Under U.S. Billboard Hot 100 #1
1982 Down Under U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks #13
1982 Down Under U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play #33
1982 Down Under U.S. Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks #1

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: CBS – BA 12229
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM
Country: Australia
Released: 1986
Genre: Electronic
Style: New wave, Synth-pop

CREDITS:

NOTES:
Limited Edition

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

THE GEAR:
Turntable: Technics SL-1200MK7
Cartridge/Stylus:  Ortofon 2M Black PnP MkII
Turntable Isolation Platform: ISO-Tone™ Turntable Isolation Platform
Platter: Pro Spin Acrylic Mat
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
Phono Pre-amp: Pro-Jec Tube Box DS2
Tubes: Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7 ECC83/B759 Gold Pins Vacuum Tube – Matched Pair
DAC: Alpha Design Labs GT40a USB DAC
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Epson Workforce WF-7610 Professional Printer/Scanner

SOFTWARE:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling/Dither: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!


Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.



George Michael – A Different Corner (Japan 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1986

NEW 2023 Transfer
NEW Meticulous Audio Restoration

Originally posted September 25, 2013

AN 80S AUDITORY ICON

“A Different Corner” is a song written and performed by George Michael that was released on Epic Records (Columbia Records in the US) in 1986.

“A Different Corner” was written by Michael while Wham! were at their peak as a duo, and during a low point in his life:

“I felt like shit. I went in and recorded exactly the way I felt, and that’s the way it sounds. It was partly Wham! and partly the end of a relationship. It was the farthest I’d ever fallen and in a very short period of time. I had to get rid of it somehow, I had to write about it. That’s a really perverse side that I’m sure a lot of writers have—’I feel like shit, but maybe I’ll get a good song out of it.'”

Michael admitted that “A Different Corner” was the “most honest” and personal song he had ever done. He elaborated further on the song’s meaning:

“That was about a very quick relationship, a here today gone tomorrow one. It’s amazing how emotional you can get in a short period of time and how long it can last. Someone can really shake you up and it takes you a long time to get yourself back on your feet; that was what that was about.”

According to Michael, the song took roughly 14 hours to write and record from beginning to end. The synthesizer textures were created with a Roland Juno-60 synthesizer.

At the time of its release in March 1986, Michael was still a member of pop duo Wham! (the song is included on Wham!’s album Music from the Edge of Heaven only released in Japan and North America, as well as their compilation album The Final, released worldwide), though he and partner Andrew Ridgeley had announced that they would split in the summer after a farewell single, album and concert. Michael had already enjoyed a solo number one on the UK Singles Chart in 1984 with “Careless Whisper”, which was credited as Wham! featuring George Michael in the US.

After radio DJ Simon Bates first aired “A Different Corner” on Radio 1, he rated the song so highly that he immediately played it again from the beginning. Michael went back to the top of the UK chart with “A Different Corner”, becoming the first solo act in the history of the UK chart to reach number one with his first two releases, although he was hardly an unknown or new act on either occasion due to his previous hits with Wham!. The song reached number 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100, thus becoming the first single credited solely to Michael to become an American top-ten hit which was enough to make American executives at Epic Records confident that Michael would be viable as a solo artist and helped get the gears in motion for his solo album debut Faith. It was the first song to reach number one in the UK charts to be written, performed and produced by the same person.

The song was also remixed for his compilation Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael. This version omitted the guitar and Michael’s background vocals during the instrumental break.

SIDE A:
A Different Corner (Single Edit) 3:57

SIDE B:
A Different Corner (Instrumental) 4:13

BONUS TRACK:
A Different Corner (Full-Length Version) 4:30

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint
ONI: Near Mint
Insert: Near Mint

CHART HISTORY:

Year Single Chart Position
1986 A Different Corner U.S. Billboard Hot 100 #7
1986 A Different Corner U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary #6

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Epic – 12-3P-740
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM
Country: Japan
Released: May 21, 1986
Genre: Electronic, Pop
Style: Downtempo, Synth-pop

CREDITS:

NOTES:
Comes with OBI Strip, and Gatefold Lyric Insert.

“This record is dedicated to a memory”

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

THE GEAR:
Turntable: Technics SL-1200MK7
Cartridge/Stylus:  Ortofon 2M Black PnP MkII
Turntable Isolation Platform: ISO-Tone™ Turntable Isolation Platform
Platter: Pro Spin Acrylic Mat
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
Phono Pre-amp: Pro-Jec Tube Box DS2
Tubes: Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7 ECC83/B759 Gold Pins Vacuum Tube – Matched Pair
DAC: Alpha Design Labs GT40a USB DAC
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Epson Workforce WF-7610 Professional Printer/Scanner

SOFTWARE:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling/Dither: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!


Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.



Robin Stanley – Get Ready (US 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1986

Despite the “Death Of Disco” at the end of the 1970s, the desire for a different type of dance music was being demanded by the gay clubs in the U.S. and the U.K.. Hi-NRG dance music filled that need and became all the rage in the mid to late 1980s. One of those records that I remember dancing to at an after-hours club called The Wreck Room in Oklahoma City was”Get Ready” by Robin Stanley a cover of a Motown song written by Smokey Robinson, which resulted in two hit records for the label: a U.S. No. 29 version by The Temptations in 1966, and a U.S. No. 4 version by Rare Earth in 1970.

Robin Stanley’s 1986 version is a 138 BPM floor-filling Hi-NRG dance track released on the legendary Oak Lawn Records label based in Dallas Texas. “Get Ready” was the only single Robin Stanley ever released there is not much information about her or the recording available.

SIDE A:
Get Ready (Club Mix) 6:28

SIDE B:
Get Ready (Yahney’s Dub) 5:10
Remix – Scott Yahney

Get Ready (Instrumental) 6:29

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Oak Lawn Records – OLR-122
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 33 ⅓ RPM
Country: US
Released: 1986
Genre: Electronic
Style: HI-NRG

CREDITS:

NOTES:
138 BPM

Recorded At – Sound Lab Studios, Brooklyn, NY

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

THE GEAR:
Turntable: Technics SL-1200MK7
Cartridge/Stylus:  Ortofon 2M Black PnP MkII
Turntable Isolation Platform: ISO-Tone™ Turntable Isolation Platform
Platter: Pro Spin Acrylic Mat
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
Phono Pre-amp: Pro-Jec Tube Box DS2
Tubes: Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7 ECC83/B759 Gold Pins Vacuum Tube – Matched Pair
DAC: Alpha Design Labs GT40a USB DAC
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Epson Workforce WF-7610 Professional Printer/Scanner

SOFTWARE:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling/Dither: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!


Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.



Olivia Newton-John – Toughen Up (US 12″)

Burning The Ground Exclusive 1986

NEW Meticulous 2023 Transfer!
NEW Audio Restoration!

“Toughen Up” was the second single taken from the thirteenth studio album “Soul Kiss” by Australian singer Olivia Newton-John on MCA Records. Written by Graham Lyle and Terry Britten (What’s Love Got To Do With It) “Toughen Up” had originally been offered to Tina Turner but was rejected.

“Toughen Up” failed to make a dent on the U.S. Billboard charts but was quite popular in dance clubs due in part to a 12″ dance remix by John “Jellybean” Benitez. “Toughen Up” did chart in Australia peaking at #69. The song includes a guitar solo by Grammy-winning guitarist Lee Ritenour.

The music video opens showing a topless Olivia wearing riding pants and holding a riding crop. In the video directed by David Mallet Olivia plays the part of a headmistress for a girl’s school where she teaches her female students to “Toughen Up” against the men that have done them wrong.

Neither track has appeared on CD or digitally.

SIDE A:
Toughen Up (Dance Remix) 8:04

SIDE B:
Toughen Up (Instrumental Remix) 5:16

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: MCA Records – MCA-23606
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 33 ⅓ RPM
Country: US
Released: 1986
Genre: Electronic, Rock, Pop
Style: Reggae, Synth-pop

CREDITS:

NOTES:
Management By Roger Davies Management Inc.
From The Olivia Newton-John LP “SOUL KISS”

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
burningtheground.net

THE GEAR:
Turntable: Technics SL-1200MK7
Cartridge/Stylus:  Ortofon 2M Black PnP MkII
Turntable Isolation Platform: ISO-Tone™ Turntable Isolation Platform
Platter: Pro Spin Acrylic Mat
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
Phono Pre-amp: Pro-Jec Tube Box DS2
Tubes: Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7 ECC83/B759 Gold Pins Vacuum Tube – Matched Pair
DAC: Alpha Design Labs GT40a USB DAC
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Epson Workforce WF-7610 Professional Printer/Scanner

SOFTWARE:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling/Dither: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!


Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.