Desperado; why remixed

[350hunny]

My second question to Richard was this song remixed for Interpretation.
My question:
In Interpretations- UK and Japan releases, Richard explains about remixing
Desperado, saying something like you did it for things that would bore the
listener.
Well, why so? I'm just dying to know why and so I beg you to please put down
more of your input for any release as much as its space and your energy
allows you to. If that's impossible due to space on a linernote, I think of
your website that I can turn to.

The reply:
Regarding "Desperado" - This was remixed because the hormonica goes up quite high and there was distortion at the end of it, especially on vinyl. Even on CD, there is a ripping sound when Tommy Morgan goes up high. That's why it was remixed.

I have to listen to it carefully again.

 

[andywithaz]

Yes, the harmonica part is very noticeable. It almost ruins the whole song. But I don't understand why the piano was brought up in the mix and the drumming down, and vice versa. The quad mix is the best mix IMHO.

 

[350hunny]

Thank you for your response, Andrew. I dug out my Japanese pressing and US one of Horizon and listened to Desperado. I can live with that kind of 'distortion' and have always thought that it is usual with the harmonica.

Many artists seem to enjoy listening to other people's music but not to their own and leave their works as they were and add to no changes or reworkings, though they self-cover.

While Richard enjoys other kinds of music, he seems to be concentrating on improving his past works, which is impressive to me.

Listening to this newly recorded track, I think this is the best possible sound that he would like to achieve. I can live with that, too.
Still, it takes a lot of getting used to it.
As Andrew pointed out, some elements in this mix sound a bit too prominent, which makes me wonder if this is inevitable and in harmony with each element.
I've been feeling that something is wrong with the way songs are remixed down or sweetened replacing the old obscure instrumentation with newly recorded elements since Richard started to put out Yesterday Once More 2 disc-set.

I feel that every remixed track is noticeable with added sounds so Karen's lead vocals along with the duo's choruses seem to back obscured due to the new noises. I guess Richard focuses on something else now because in one of his past interviews he said he woud demand Karen's lead be more up front while his engineer insisted over and over that they were already up front enough.

Though all the remixes are very interesting, their past recordings intact sound as good as ever.

Incidentally, I found a little interview with Richad:
Q:We understand there are songs included here remixed by yourself in '94.
R:'Sing' is one of them. Though the label requested 5 hit singles for inclusion, I would have come up with a compilation of 21 songs coming from our different albums. A hits compilation is supposed to be a collection of hits born over the years. But from the label's marketing point of view, they insisted the release include 5 singles at least. And one of them was 'Sing' so I remixed it. Its original mix was quite good but Roger and I thought we could produce greater sounds by remixing it. 'Desperado' had intermodular distortion with high harmonics, only for which I remixed the song. 'Without a song' was of course, originally recorded for TV so we had to remix it. The recorded stuff for TV in those days was mostly monaural so we wanted it heard in stereo by remixing it. There might be one more song but I don't remember it.

 

[GOODY4SHOES]

Besides the harmonica, the tom-toms are way too loud and they are also distorted. "Solitaire" has the same problem.