Heard The Bug on the radio yesterday, and it's one of those tracks I dislike like Walk Of Life, etc...
I'd even forgotten it existed - I never owned On Every Street - the obly Straits studio album I never brought home, actually - and I never did bring On The Night either. Maybe I should reinvestigate.

Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
But the third time through I knew there was something different here and sure enough... All the songs on side 1 are between 1 and 3 minutes longer on CD than on LP. Isn't that weird??! I realize this was the dawn of the CD era and bands and producers were trying to figure out what to do with the extra length of CD. But these are pop songs and the extra minutes don't help much, or maybe it is just not what I was used to?

I don't know of any other LP that did this, except for maybe as a "bonus" track on a remaster (cf., Caravan Golf Girl). Did any other albums do this upon initial release? ever?
Never heard about this really. I did buy the vinyl when it came out, but by the time I crossed the pond, and fi nally got into CD, BIA was not a priority, so I finally did buy some 15 or 20 years ago, the vinyl's track lengths had left little memory, but I seem to remember that the tracks on the flipside were generally longer than on the A-side. But since MM, Straits always had longer tracks anyways (especially in an 80's decade where longer tracks were frowned upon), especially comparing to their 70's albums.

BTW, I just checked on RYM and Discogs and indeed it is the case (not easily fiound, the track lengths on the vinyl) and thankfully not WoL.

As for changing track lengths to fit an Lp or cassette, I only remember the change of track order/sequence for an easier fit on cassette, which I thought sucked (it was reminiscent of those ugly 8 tracks), because having a few minutes blank on on of the cassette's side was only a problem when auto-reversing.

Quote Originally Posted by Kai View Post
As for Brothers in Arms, my first contact with it was on cassette, so I only learned about the shorter LP versions much later. And it wasn't that the songs were extended to fill the CD, but that the intended versions had to be edited to fit the LP. Love Over Gold already had a lot of extended soloing and playouts, so it was the direction that Knopfler had chosen. Whether it works is debatable. Personally, I find the extended playout of "Why Worry" to be really atmospheric and really better than the actual song.
So the cassette and CD have the same track lengths, then??

I personally wouldn't have minded in the tracks on nthe flipside had been extended , rather than those on the A-side.