The box is currently marked down to $60 on Amazon - North America only.

LINK

That's marked down to $100

There was lots of dscussion about the Michael Johnson '88 (vocal) remix that was released in 2024 back on pages 5 & 6 of this thread.
I notice that Ivan X (the NO Versionography website guy) did a post on FB in a NO group in the last couple of days where he had a lightbulb moment of "The BM '95 vocals are actually the '88 (Johnson mix) vocals".

I nearly started a new thread, but really it's covered in this one. So I'm just postng the videos for a bit of comparison.

Here's the Michael Johnson remix that was released 8 months ago. At 2:30 Bernard sings "ah, tell me how does it feel? ah tell me now how do I feel?"


Those little "ah"s weren't in the original '83 version, as you probably know. I'll stick it under the spoiler in case you want to listen. 2:32.

Here's the Hardfloor mix.
Jump to 2:23 for "ah, tell me how does it feel? ah tell me now how do I feel?". The same as the Johnson '88 mix above.



And here's the Brain mix with the added Sunkist lyrics from 4:55. Jump to 2:32 for: "ah, tell me how does it feel? ah tell me now how do I feel?" Again the same as the Johnson '88 mix.
This track is speeded up but if you hit the settings cog on the video and reduce the speed down to 0.9, the vocal should be about the right speed.
The fact that that the Sunkist vocal seems to fit with the rest of the vocal seems to further confirm that the Sunkist vocal and the '88 BM vocal were recorded at the same time. And that the '88 vocal is the '95 vocal. If you jump back to pages 5 & 6 here, you will see that Carey Raflle from the ad agency for Sunkist said it was 1988, so that all seems to fit.



So it's probably safe to say that:
1) They re-recorded the vocal in '88 for BM '88. But Potoker or Quincy preferred the '83 take (who doesn't?).
2) They recorded the Sunkist vocal at the same time
3) Only Johnson used the new vocal in '88, so we didn't get to hear a BM '88 with the new vocal until 2024.
4) The "new" '88 vocal was sent to remixers for the '95 version, complete with Sunkist in there, cos it was probably just on the same tape (same recording session).
5) Quincy hated the new vocal so much that he would only allow the dubby Beach Buggy version from Johnson to see the light of day (ok, this is pure speculation!)

Edited by user 04 June 2025 13:44:28(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The reason the 1988 vocals were used later is because the transfer of the multitrack that has been used/sent out post 1988 is a 48 track one, featuring 24 tracks from the original, and 24 tracks of material added in 1988. Any remixers would have the option of using any part of it.

That's really interesting Johnny. Never thought about the practicalities of them adding extra tracks to the original (or a copy of the original?) multi-track master tape for subsequent vocal takes and remixes.

Whilst we have your attention Johnny, any news on when the Bizarre Love Triangle, State and Touched digital reissues will be put online? It's been nearly seven months since the Brotherhood box, so concerned these may never make it onto streaming/download stores, even though later singles like True Faith and Blue Monday 1988 already have. Can you give the band/management/label a nudge at all?

Also, sure it's still early days, but what's the progress and possible release dates for the Technique box? Any gossip you can share?

Thanks!