The Version Everybody Knows: A rant about music discovery in the streaming era.

A while back, I was looking for an alternate version of Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny” that appeared in Rock Band 3, but every time I tried to look for this version, it kept giving me the original version from 1981’s Tommy Tutone 2. Even with putting in the album name (Tutone-ality) and “re-record” into my searches, it kept coming back to the original album version and not this unique re-record. That made me sad, because I genuinely want to listen to this version of the song in a way where I don’t have to hear game sounds from Rock Band 3.

This surprisingly happened a lot with songs in music games. Either the masters were lost to time, or legal issues between the band and record label have necessitated a re-record – similar to the Taylor’s Version fiasco – thus they either got the current lineup in the studio to make a similar-enough sounding version to the original, or they’d opt for a cut from a Live album instead.

One thing that really irks me about the streaming world of Spotify et al is that if you wanna find a classic rock or pop hit, they’ll just give you the most popular version. Usually that’s the version featured on the original album. Which, hey, if you’re just looking for that song to listen to, that’s great, you’ll be happy, end of story.

The thing is that it leads to a problem I’ve called The Version Everybody Knows. You hear about a song, you wanna listen to it, places like Spotify or Apple Music give you the original version. But sometimes, especially in the days before the internet, that may not have been the version that was the hit. That isn’t to say the album version wasn’t popular, but it clouds the history of the songs a little.

For me, I have a softer spot for alternate mixes and radio edits. This was incredibly common in the 1970s, where there would be a song from a hit album of which they’d speed up and edit it down for radio airplay. This continued after the age of album-oriented radio, but usually would be relegated to special remixes and 12” mixes that would be played at clubs. Most of the time they’d play the original song from the album, perhaps cut down so the radio station can get more songs and commercials in.

Here’s a few examples. Example one: Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street.” You search for that, you get The Version Everybody Knows from his 1978 album City to City. A smooth, catchy 6 minute jam with that famous Raphael Ravenscroft saxophone lick.

However, the version that charted in the Billboard Hot 100 was a completely different mix, featured above: It’s a little over 4 minutes, it’s moved up one key, a bridge or two taken out to immediately get to Hugh Burns’ guitar solo. This might sound weird to your ears if you’re used to the album version like I was, but for folks who were around back then when it was new, this is likely the version they remember.

Example two: Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise.” You know the song, you’ve probably remember the Geico ad from the 2010s that had him singing “Two Tickets to Paradise” to a family while running his own travel agency. Funnier than the gecko, for sure.

The Version Everybody Knows is that album cut from his 1977 self-titled debut. But there was a single version released a year alter that had a much richer mix than the original, with more guitar licks during the pre-chorus despite the shorter length.

Outside of a Japan-only compilation, this version only appears on “Playlist: The Very Best of Eddie Money,” a compilation that came out in the late 2000s. Every other Eddie Money compilation will likely have the album version. A shame, because that single version feels a lot more intense than the album version, and I love it a lot more because of that.

Example three: Bee Gees’ “Nights on Broadway.” The Version Everybody Knows is the one from Main Course. Slow jam that starts out the album. But there’s an alternate version on Tales from the Brothers Gibb, a compilation album from 1990 that has a significantly different mix! Joseph Brennan wrote about this on his website “Gibb Songs,” which chronicles everything recorded/written by the Brothers Gibb:

 ‘Nights on Broadway’ was edited for radio by removing the slow section, just to bring it to a more acceptable length of 2:52. It was also speeded up— or was it? The version on Tales from the Brothers Gibb is also faster than the album, and fades a little later despite a 4:25 running time. That appears to be the correct speed. If so then ‘Nights on Broadway’ was slowed down for the album, presumably to make ‘Jive Talkin’’ sound faster by contrast.

It’s interesting, because as much as I don’t mind the slightly slower album version, I kinda prefer this version more, it feels more… authentic? People clowned on the Bee Gees’ high falsetto vocals but I think it fits more in this faster pace.

While all my examples so far have come from the 1970s, it isn’t exclusive to that decade. Here’s one from the eighties: Daryl Hall & John Oates’ “Adult Education,” from 1984. The version of the greatest hits compilation Rock n’ Soul Part 1 and the one featured in the music video are different mixes! I figured out how to tell the difference is if I heard Hall repeatedly say “Adult” several times while a synth drum beat starts playing before the opening riff.

The music video uses a version called the “Special Rock Mix” done by the amazing Bob Clearmountain and Nile Rodgers. This drove me nuts when Hall & Oates compilations bounce between the version featured on Rock n’ Soul Part 1 or this Special Rock Mix. The Rock Mix is superior in my book because of that same “intensity” that’s missing from the album version.

One more example: Billy Joel’s “Sometimes a Fantasy.” The original album release on Glass Houses fades out after 3:40, whereas the single version goes over 4 minutes, complete with a jam session and Billy giving his best “Helter Skelter” tribute. It’s longer. Though I get why it was cut it down for the album, it really has that “band keeps going and has no real good way to end it” vibe to it.

I could honestly go on, as I thought about Foreigner’s Cold as Ice just as I was finishing this up. But we got enough examples here.

As someone who listens to a whole bunch of music – which can have dozens upon dozens of mixes and edits – these particular alternate versions of songs become The Version I Remember, which is often different than The Version Everybody Knows. Thus you and I could have completely different experiences about the same song, because we could be listening to different versions of the same song.

I’ve had this happen a few times while using Spotify: I’d favorite the version of “Nights on Broadway” from Tales of the Brothers Gibb, yet after a while it would defaulted me back to the original featured on Main Course. Looking at the comment sections for some of the songs I linked, you can see people going “now this is the version of the song I remember!” so I’m not alone on this. Even someone I know on a Discord server was bemoaning the fact that she couldn’t find a specific version of an Alkaline Trio song from 2004, and that’s a more recent example!

This whole thing’s exacerbated by the Apple Musics, the Spotifys and so on just funneling the average listeners to just The Version Everybody Knows. Which may be okay for most, but for others they might feel a Mandela effect, where they start wondering if this alternate mix they remember hearing even existed.

It’s a shame how some music isn’t well preserved in the streaming era. It really depends on the artist and the record label in question, but these alternate versions may not even be there, or buried off in the dregs of the library in lieu for The Version Everybody Knows. It means you miss out on stuff like how KISS has re-recorded/remixed their work countless times. (An article by a KISS fan that bemoans the remixing of their hits for a Greatest Hits album from the 80s is one of my favorite dives into this kind of stuff.)

Moral of this story: Seek out alternate versions. Alternate mixes, official or fanmade – a friend of mine will praise DJ Disco Cat’s “Disco Purrfection” mixes of 70s classics, and I can concur that these are pretty good! – Single mixes, 12” mix versions. Hell, I’d even consider mashups a part of this same phenomenon. You might suddenly find a version of a song that you love more than The Version Everybody Knows, that it becomes The Version You Remember more. Listen beyond The Version Everybody Knows. Cause Spotify definitely won’t help you on that.

As of this writing, I still haven’t found that 2010 re-record of “867-5309/Jenny” featured in Rock Band 3. You think if I ask Tommy Heath from Tommy Tutone about this that he’ll give me a copy of Tutone-Ality?

Is there any songs of which you prefer an alternate mix or version compared to The Version Everybody Knows? I like discovering stuff like that.

(I will note this really only applies to older songs from the pre-iTunes/streaming era. Newer songs might already have rules like this set in place so you can find specific versions or mixes, but this can still be a problem even for newer songs, as the anecdote I shared proves.)

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