Thursday, 21 March 2013

Pet Shop Boys - Violence (Unreleased Hacienda version)

I've been meaning to post this one up for a few days. Whilst doing research for my previous post on the Please version of Violence, I stumbled across this mix on Youtube. I had never heard it before and had no idea if it was an official mix or fan-made or whatever. The skeptic being that I am opted for the latter though. I did some research online, and on the ever reliable Geowayne.com it stated that there is a mix called Extended Hacienda Mix that is indeed official but it's unreleased. According to the same site the mix can also be known as the 12 inch master too. I can only assume that this must be a very rare mix - I have quite a number of Pet Shop Boys bootlegs containing rare mixes (both official and unofficial) on my hard-drive but this one is not contained in any of them. Nor have I ever seen it on any other bootleg mentioned in fact. I'm not even sure if it was the first version recorded and they disliked and decided to modify it or anything. I know literally nothing about it really. I've never seen either Neil or Chris mention it in interviews either. Anyhow - it's a pretty decent mix. Truth be told, my favourite version of the song will always be the released Hacienda version that served as a B-side to I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kinda Thing. The unreleased version is a bit more of a standardized club song of the era - I could imagine it being used in the Hacienda nightclub actually. Honestly I do think the arrangement kind of clashes with the lyrics - it doesn't feel as natural as the released version in my opinion. It's pretty cool to see this unreleased mix, although I prefer the released version hands down!

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