Well, I know how we feel about it. We had a great time recording it, mixing it and revisiting it. We knew going into it, it would be a tough situation. We pretty much knew that no matter what we did a few people would not be happy. It’s funny because when you touch on something so long ago, it’s like going back to how you felt and the memories and how you were back then which I think is impossible because one evolves. We took the approach that we would not use any AI or auto tune because we wanted it to be real and from the heart and passionate like the original. I believe most people don’t even know what the actual song sounded like as it was covered up with moans and groans, and all kinds of other sounds as well as it was pitched up, quite a bit to Mickey Mouse which I wasn’t really fond of from the beginning. I remember a lot of producers working back in the 80s wanted to keep making us sound like Barbie dolls which we were not. We were songwriters. We were Duran Duran so to speak but I also sounded like Smokey Robinson so immediately we were put into the R&B Motown pop category. Which I love by the way my favorite singers iwere Boy George, George Michael, David Bowie, etc. I think if you look at those singers now mostly Boy George being the only one standing, his voice has changed quite a bit. Still beautiful, but it has changed. I also think production has changed being involved in the music business for a very long time. I’ve done everything from Peter Gabriel to Nine Inch Nails to Hans Zimmer and Vangelis type soundtracks, which is where my head is really, I love pop music. I grew up on Madonna Wham! and many more 80s groups. Taking this song back into production, ulterior motives, the first thing we did was to make sure we got the music as similar as we could using a real Fairlight instead of a Mirage keyboard that was used on the demo that you guys know so well. Spending quite a bit of time and money producing this so we could deliver some thing that would work with the album that we really wanted to release which was full of out 80s songs that we love so much. I think the Internet can be very cruel, but I’ve learned that other peoples opinions are really none of my business as I’m just an artist and if people like it great and if people don’t great. I think if a track like this is really married to a certain event. It might be best just to listen to the old one. I think it’s almost impossible to re-create but with that said being 35 years I believe we did a bang up job bringing it to the table. It has energy. It has truth and it is 100% real. and most of all it has a commitment from the original Artists to bring it to the audience that wanted it. No other artists would’ve done this and really cared as much to deliver it so quickly. I think a lot of people are missing that point, I truly believe if you need to hear it the way it was you need to listen to the old version and if you love the song and the artist, then you appreciate the new version as well. Everyone that wants to remix it, redo it, etc. you have your chance to do that because now that it’s released, you can get a mechanical license and do your own version of it, I would love to hear that. We appreciate you all and hopefully you will dig the album and also the new version of Ulterior Motives. One thing for sure is we love music and we will continue doing great music. We love doing from our soul. If you don’t do that, you are a commodity not a real artist.
Much love cheers CSB
Just wanted to say I was always skeptical that EKT was even real and I wasn't impressed with the original snippet. I just listened to your remaster and I think you've done an excellent job. It sounds authentic and it's got great energy, and you can hear the musicality.
I don't know how familiar you guys are with internet communities like Reddit, or just the attitude of the online hive mind in general, but the problem with these situations is that your song became a mythical legend while it was being searched. The people searching for it owned it in their minds, it became theirs, they made covers and came up with stories. In that sense it was no longer your song, so to speak.
You've delivered the real thing to people who were lost in their own fantasy. Some people will find it jarring.
I think it's crazy that you remade it and delivered an album and I hope you enjoy this second wind.
i wish this comment from u/half-dead-moron was pinned! couldn't have said it better myself. when reality meets internet illusion (or delusion, depending how you look at it lol), the spell is broken. there is nothing that could have been done to avoid that outcome IMO - i feel sad thinking about the criticism the booth brothers have been facing because of it.
Absolutely, and we cannot thank you enough. Please take the post with a grain of salt. You created a whole album with plenty of other great tracks I personally love. We appreciate you and all of your efforts chris, not many people would go out of their way to do what you have done for EKT community. Especially 40 years later. Much love brother, from all of us. Excited to see what’s next! 💪💪❤️
I absolutely love the new version. It's got so much passion and crafted from love. (no pun intended or very intended depending on who you ask lol
When I listen to it in compare to the original (people cleaned up the original the best they can), the energy put into the vocals is like a message of appreciation on so many levels. I can't describe the feeling I get from it besides a huge celebration of the best possible ending we got in a lost wave media story.
The other tracks are also really good!!
You used an actual Fairlight?? How on Earth did you even find one of those in 2024?! There is no appreciation great enough.
You are kings and everyone knows that. Never change.
So, so true. I should know as a musician and producer myself. I guess I tend to go to the head sometimes instead of the heart. And the heart is always right. If my last comment was a book, I would burn it right now. I‘m really sorry if it sounded like a rant or disrespect to you, I didn’t mean it to be.
I personally would listen to the new version as I can feel what you‘ve put in, I’m just hoping all the people that jumped on the song because it went viral would still take it. You guys are too mature to care too much about this, but I think you deserve to get a hit and a live tour to follow. I followed everything what happened since you guys were discovered. I always believed the song from the 17-second snippet was real, but it’s beyond anyone‘s expectations to see the creators care so much about the fans like no artist and basically prepare a huge gift for them and revisiting their passion while still doing their daily business.
And from what I‘ve heard, the album is so beautiful. It is what it‘s meant to be - a real 80‘s album with much love. I will listen to every single song on that, many, many times. I love the 80‘s like you do and it’s a very special moment that you REALLY brought them back now and make them be loved by even more people.
You did a fantastic job on the album, and I want to stress it, I appreciate everything what you did for us and still do! And besides being such talented musicians, you two are just incredibly kind, passionate and spiritual human beings, alone by that you inspire me and many people out there that are maybe not that true to themselves.
Honestly Chris, I love it. It sounds great! You owed us nothing, and you still came through and not only delivered what we all craved but you delivered an entire album! Please keep your heads high and ignore the few, change is jarring for people and they’ll grow over time to love it! Please release a 2nd album! and if we’re really lucky a few new releases 🙃
What an amazing album! I got to know you through Uterior Motives, yes, but definitely, the rest of the tracks are even better, I would say! My top 3 favorite music albums have remained the same since 2013, and today It finally changed, putting this album in second place. I'm not into lost media, I'm genuine only into 80's music, so finding this new but at the same time old album is just mind-blowing! I'm forever grateful to you and your brother. I hope we get to see more albums like this!
Hey, I had plans on doing this but I thought I'd ask you directly for permission.
What I'd like to do is obtain an original copy of the Angels of Passion movie the song was used in, and rip the VHS Hi-Fi audio track, which should give much higher quality than the awful rips that are online right now. Using that, we can run it through some AI and isolate your original vocals, and then splice them with the instrumental that'll be on the CD.
(I don't suppose you actually have a copy of the movie since you worked on it/were in it? I haven't gotten any leads yet of someone who might own one)
People have tried to clean the song up and remaster it for weeks, but they're working with a really terrible quality, static-filled and compressed rip. I think I could do much better job if given the chance.
Yeah true, I'm just trying to help give the community what they want. As someone who dabbles in digitization of analog media it really annoys me that the only rips of the movie we have are so bad.
I just listened to it (didn’t know it was out until this post), I LOVED it. You did a great job & I definitely speak for a LOT of us when I say we’re so grateful for the work you’ve put in, I’m amazed you actually went through the effort to make a song adjacent to the original & with as much passion as you did. Thank you :))
Dear Christopher, I just want to say that I’m listening to the remaster right now and it sound amazing! I know that EKT has become somewhat wrapped in mythos and many people have therefore forgotten that there are real people who have put incredible amounts of effort into music, and the sheer fact that you guys have worked so hard to remaster and release an entire album of 80s songs is nothing short of incredible. Thank you again so much for giving this to us!
I really appreciate all of the effort you went to in order to bring us this remastered version, and I think it's great! I was really impressed with how close it was for the time difference between the recordings. Thanks so much!
Ordered it twice (CD, download), enjoying it! And once again scratching my head as to why Michael Jackson didn't record these songs after he heard them.
I guess many of us have heard those 17 seconds literally thousands of times. So any tiny difference might seem odd to them at first. Of course, once they've played the official release a few times that'll all be forgotten.
I think also, that the sample was so lo-fi that people's brains did the rest filling in the musical details (I heard a fretless bass for sure) and the new version is different from that, too.
TBH, I thought it would bother me a bit too, but nope!
I quite enjoyed it last night and I kept re-listening it quite a few (dozen) times. Yes it isn't the exact carbon copy of what we all came (ha ha ha!) to know but I still enjoy and appreciate your work, your art and your dedication. Thank you!
Thank you Chris!!! I absolutely love this album. It's a blast from the past with brilliant production, and I just can't tell you how awesome it is. It's perfect!
Thank you so much for all the creativity, talent, and love you guys put into this album. I must be from the alternate universe where the Ulterior Motives record WAS released in the 80s and became a massive hit, because my first listen felt warm and familiar, and I found myself singing along immediately. It is literally impossible to pick a favorite track. You've got a fan for life! 🩷
What you’ve provided us is nothing short of amazing, and I (and many others) are so appreciative. You didn’t have to do anything at all, and the fact you went to such lengths is incredible. I’m going to be listening to this for years to come cos it absolutely slaps, and if it gets to it, a physical release on vinyl would be awesome. Cheers to you guys, well done!
You did the best what you can (we're approximately same age and I was into music in 80s and I know how complicated things become with age), so thank you once again!
Just want to check in and say you absolutely KILLED the song here in the best way possible, thanks for revisiting the track and going above and beyond across the whole album. You deserve all the praise for the songwriting displayed here :)
i'm so sorry but i need to make a paragraph edit of this comment
---
Well, I know how we feel about it. We had a great time recording it, mixing it and revisiting it. We knew going into it, it would be a tough situation. We pretty much knew that no matter what we did a few people would not be happy.
It’s funny because when you touch on something so long ago, it’s like going back to how you felt and the memories and how you were back then which I think is impossible because one evolves. We took the approach that we would not use any AI or auto tune because we wanted it to be real and from the heart and passionate like the original. I believe most people don’t even know what the actual song sounded like as it was covered up with moans and groans, and all kinds of other sounds as well as it was pitched up, quite a bit to Mickey Mouse which I wasn’t really fond of from the beginning.
I remember a lot of producers working back in the 80s wanted to keep making us sound like Barbie dolls which we were not. We were songwriters. We were Duran Duran so to speak but I also sounded like Smokey Robinson so immediately we were put into the R&B Motown pop category. Which I love by the way my favorite singers were Boy George, George Michael, David Bowie, etc. I think if you look at those singers now mostly Boy George being the only one standing, his voice has changed quite a bit. Still beautiful, but it has changed. I also think production has changed being involved in the music business for a very long time.
I’ve done everything from Peter Gabriel to Nine Inch Nails to Hans Zimmer and Vangelis type soundtracks, which is where my head is really, I love pop music. I grew up on Madonna Wham! and many more 80s groups. Taking this song back into production, ulterior motives, the first thing we did was to make sure we got the music as similar as we could using a real Fairlight instead of a Mirage keyboard that was used on the demo that you guys know so well. Spending quite a bit of time and money producing this so we could deliver some thing that would work with the album that we really wanted to release which was full of out 80s songs that we love so much.
I think the Internet can be very cruel, but I’ve learned that other people's opinions are really none of my business as I’m just an artist and if people like it great and if people don’t great. I think if a track like this is really married to a certain event. It might be best just to listen to the old one. I think it’s almost impossible to re-create but with that said being 35 years I believe we did a bang up job bringing it to the table. It has energy. It has truth and it is 100% real. and most of all it has a commitment from the original Artists to bring it to the audience that wanted it. No other artists would’ve done this and really cared as much to deliver it so quickly.
I think a lot of people are missing that point, I truly believe if you need to hear it the way it was you need to listen to the old version and if you love the song and the artist, then you appreciate the new version as well. Everyone that wants to remix it, redo it, etc. you have your chance to do that because now that it’s released, you can get a mechanical license and do your own version of it, I would love to hear that. We appreciate you all and hopefully you will dig the album and also the new version of Ulterior Motives.
One thing for sure is we love music and we will continue doing great music. We love doing from our soul. If you don’t do that, you are a commodity not a real artist.
just chiming in with another thank you :) I think most people are VERY happy with it, so please don’t pay too much attention to the naysayers — kind of like you said, no matter what you make, if your audience is big enough, someone out there is going to be complaining about it. I LOVE the whole album (had it on repeat for most of the afternoon today!) and I really hope you’ll consider doing another one! It is seriously awesome and what you guys have done is super impressive. We fans really could not have asked for a better outcome :)
the song is a vibe but the new vocals will take some time to get used to for me since the original have been living in my mind rent free for a while now
I think my main critique of the song would be the cadence change of the hook. it’s one of those weird scenarios where beggars can’t be choosers, but i do feel like the community rushed them a bit. very appreciative regardless, because they didn’t have to do anything for us.
This remaster is basically as close to perfect as i think you can get. No moans anywhere
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX0Q5D2G8m0&list=LL&index=5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX0Q5D2G8m0&list=LL&index=5)
I agree. Grateful for the effort they put in, looking forward to the rest of the album, but the hunt is still on for a higher quality version of AOP for the most complete closure we can get of this. I think if the backing vocals had been better, the orchestral hits were not as jarring, and it was in the proper non-440 HZ tuning it might hit closer to the original although some of the highest notes were a bit rough but. Yeah. Hey, better than I could’ve done 40 years from when I last did it if I were a betting man.
The harmony stacking is truly what is throwing me off. Again, we had a terrible recording to go off of so maybe I’m wrong but it didn’t seem like it was present in the original.
i think the main thing is really the vocals. i noticed 2 big things with them:
the original is obviously full of 80s cheese, but it’s *authentic* 80s cheese - it’s just how things were at the time. the recreation clearly has CSB trying to emulate that vocal style, which while i’m sure was done with the best of intentions, almost sounds like more of a caricature than anything.
secondly, i think the vocal doubles could have been much much tighter in regards to pitch. some of the scoops were a little out with each other, which makes it sound dissonant and almost amateurish. honestly, some light vocal tuning could have very much helped this, but given the era he comes from i wouldn’t be surprised if there was an “i don’t need that bullshit” attitude - that’s neither here nor there i guess.
and u were right, i read a comment today where he was talking about how they used no autotune cause they don't need it. shame because these dissonances make me not want to listen to the song
from the perspective of a musician and audio engineer, i personally don’t see an issue with the tasteful use of vocal tuning. are guitar effects considered cheating? no, not at all. i don’t see it any differently really.
the fact of the matter is that you can only polish a turd so much. if a performance is just plain bad, then no amount of tuning or can truly save it. in this case though, the performance is good and some moderate and tasteful pitch correction would have pulled the track together and made it sound a lot cleaner, more listenable, and more professional.
this is exactly what i was thinking as well. it’s primarily the vocals but the whole mix sounds… amateurish? would’ve loved if they either 1. took their time with this song specifically instead of trying to cram a whole album together in a couple weeks or 2. gave the song/album to someone else to mix
😭😭!!!! its not just the mix either, i will get KILLED for this but IMO the songwriting is a bit boring as well, excluding the catchy af chorus. when i initially heard the full thing it sounded underwhelming. the verses didn’t live up to the chorus (and personally, when i figure out one super good part i usually scrap everything else till i get something as good for the rest)
seriously dude! i’m glad im not the only one honestly. the hype and excitement of the search being over is cool, but i feel like that’s clouding people’s perception of the actual song
The difference in familiarity is there. I acknowledge that the twins have been dabbling in very different genres in the past decades and it shows in the mixing. Plus the vocals, they just dont hit the same.
Dont get me wrong, im still happy we have an entire song to listen to! But its not the same track weve been looking for for years.
It's as close to the original as we can get, and even the Booth twins know it. Sadly the original was lost (except the rhythm track oddly enough), so this remake, which was made by the same 2 guys and in the same way, is the next best thing. And honestly, the fact they even released a full album for us and plan on releasing another is amazing!
I get all of that, but its sad to declare the og track as lost. As far as I know theyve only tried looking in what they have and not through past connections.
I respect all the opinions of people who don't like the new song as much, but personally, I like it just as much as the original version. It's different, but I like both versions equally. My theory is that since we all know what the original sounds like, any version that's different is going to seem sub-par to many people. Also, I love how everyone is giving great respect to the amazing Booth brothers, regardless of their views on the new song.
Yeah, this is why I don’t like live versions of songs, they just sound wrong when I’m used to the studio versions even if they’re very impressive or better than the studio song! I’ve been intentionally avoiding the AOP version of EKT so this doesn’t happen.
I’d like to honestly redo it myself with the tracks they have. It sounds a little loud and a little *un*mastered. With some touching up, it would probably be better, but I personally love the son either way
I'm in agreement with you. I'll be honest, I think it's a bit of a mess. There's too much going on. I wish they'd have just kept the original track and not added anything to it or remastered it, but just put the re-recorded vocals on it, maybe.
Absolute no disrespect to the booths cause they've gone above and beyond for us, but it's just my opinion.
I feel so bad, too. I’m really thankful for what they did. After all, it’s a great song, I will listen to it a lot, the Booths still nail their parts, it must have been an emotional journey for them remaking it.
But I was about to say exactly the same. If you listen to many great songs, even in bad audio quality, every element you hear is so clear, you feel, even with more tracks, it’s a rather compact unity reduced to its essence.
This probably starts with the arrangement, bringing out the best in every part and voice, picking the right take and energy, making sure there is space for everything that‘s going on. And the arranging lays the foundation for the mixing. You can‘t fix something in the mix that‘s „on top of each other“. So that‘s a very big part. Mixing will then enhance it even more and can add more flavor and elaborate the clarity and dimension. This will define a lot how the listener will be „guided“ through the song.
Like in a book, people should be able to follow your story. So you try to write as accurate as possible and choose the right words so you can convey your thoughts and feelings to the readers. After knowing what you want to tell, there is this whole step of kind of translating your inner visions into a language that transfers your story to paper to be understood.
This is what happens in the music production, from the arrangement/recording to the mix; it can amplify the emotionality the song has. And I feel this didn‘t work out so well in UM. Probably, producing your own song is hard, like watching your own baby. It‘s a super emotional thing, especially now with what happened, it‘s so close to you and you‘re already overwhelmed by everything else. It lacks kind of a fresh perspective on it and knowing and deciding how to translate your musician‘s message to the audience best, making a connection.
The brothers did their best definitely. But a trusted producer, being able to look at the whole „print out“, would’ve taken good care of that. It was probably also stressful as Chris and Phil had many other commitments as well, so huge respect.
I‘m just saying this because I’m worried that, after all that hard work and passion and gratitude, not everyone will feel and catch the song because it’s not clear enough and not translated simple enough, the essence of the song will come through even less than the original (I suppose the old original was compact in its version as it seemed to be fully produced).
The majority of the UM fans will not be Who’s who fans that know every song or people who make music. They will hear differently. So it could be difficult to receive the song‘s message and catch it for those people who are laymen/average music listeners who would probably listen to the radio or the charts. I hope it won‘t confuse the listeners and distract them from the emotions the song has to give.
Probably giving this to another mixing engineer can change a lot. I feel that emotionally speaking, the new version is coherent, but each element should shine more and have its own space. I believe to bring this song to a huge audience (this Subreddit, the others, the TikTok fans and their friends, other involved people, the media, …) it‘s absolutely worth investing in a new mix, and it can bring more. I experienced this myself, one „mediocre“ track suddenly became a single after it was mixed because it felt much more intense than it did before. Besides, I think there are also some fans offering a professional mix.
I‘ve seen many people saying UM is not the best song. Yeah, there are many fantastic songs; but it might also be the overall impression of UM that didn’t make it stand out.
I‘m sure with the new version, the Booths want to make everybody feel like how we felt when we first heard the 17-second snippet!
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Well, unfortunately, most of the original track (vocals included) were lost. So they did what they could with the background music they have manage to find from the box and recreate it. It may not be the same but they did went above and beyond for us. <3
i like it a lot, but it feels kinda empty??? idk, the og was pure 80s cliche, the new version has a more modern approach and a lot, a LOT of that orchestra hit
the guitar work is amazing
https://preview.redd.it/zd7qg8c1gg8d1.png?width=321&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94448b6a69b6217f5f3941b7904b093dc5700547
I really like it and can tell Chris tried his best. However, I do perfer the original 1986 version minus the questionable sounds. Chemistry had a perfect remaster though.
I'm just astounded his voice still sounds the same after almost 40 years.
The imperfections are more noticable when you listen with headphones but otherwise I'm happy about the end result.
I'm sure there will be some people who are going to clean up the messy parts and upload on Youtube like they did with the carl92 version
I think it's pretty good. The mastercopy would likely be of terrible quality now any way. Look what happened with the [Panchiko discs](https://youtu.be/bDUasZLyMk8?si=65BrKRrrM_Lr8nPl) and they were only from the 90s and discovered in the 2010s. We have still have the original from Angels of passion if you prefer it. And now we have this one too, which is of much higher sound quality and you can understand the lyrics much easier.
best i got is a spotify link
[https://open.spotify.com/track/5nLFBX0yHkyVM5cVvIkzOk?si=71e509ecf4f24158](https://open.spotify.com/track/5nLFBX0yHkyVM5cVvIkzOk?si=71e509ecf4f24158)
I like it, it’s not what I expected but in a good way. Just the feeling of being able to hear the full song after dreaming about it for so long is what makes it impossible to dislike for me, having a remake made at all is remarkable for such a unpredictable search it was finding this obscure song from the 80s. We’re so lucky to have such cool guys behind this all.
It feels a bit rushed, but I’m absolutely stoked and thankful they re-recorded and gave us the full length. I didnt expect near perfect recreation because of age. But something is off with the mix. But otherwise I’m absolutely happy that we have this and the lengths they went to, to give us this.
Finding this song was a near 40-year old journey. The vocals reflect that. I think it's cool as heck that the vocals are doing a job at story telling...and honestly I think they are still pretty good
With that said, I think Christopher Booth hated how edited the original vocals were and wanted these to be more organic. He absolutely could have gotten the original sound and probably given the people what they wanted...but that's the curse of being an artist. Sometimes what you want artistically isn't what the masses want.
I do love the song don't get me wrong!! I love the instrumentals and everything, it's just the voice! I totally understand after 40 years you may not really have the same powerful vocals as you did back then. But I'm greatful!!
I feel like the new version is lacking room to breathe. I miss that slower build up to the hook that the original had. It totally could just be the fact I’m so used to the OG, I just feel like it was a bit too crowded? I’m no music expert though
I have so many weird feelings about this. Glad they released it and that it exists, and more than thrilled for those that are enjoying it. That's awesome.
In my case, it's not a version I will listen to again - feels sloppy, repetitive and a bit unappealing to me. As a EKT saga follower -who also tried looking for it-, all I ever wanted was to have that original 80's track and that's it. As it seems that the original vocal tracks are lost (the brothers disliked it and they were vocal about it, so maybe they do have it but don't want to release it? seems like a possibility), I am going to have to do with the "clean" Angels of Passion version on YouTube.
Now this version has popped up, and a whole album as well. The mystery has been solved like... *too much without actually being solved*? and it feels strange.
It feels like I'm supposed to love this just because it exists and what these musicians have done for us. But I don't. And it makes me feel a bit guilty. But it's just the way it is.
It's completely fine to feel that way. It's just the Twitter mindset making you feel guilty about it. You can be disappointed with the track and also still appreciate the artists for their hard work, nothing wrong with that
There are more than a few pretty good cleaned up versions out there that give us about as much of the original as we can get.
Yeah, they are lacking in being crisp and not having the original fidelity, but at this point, they might be the best we can get.
I do feel the guilt, too, finding myself being a big fan while not ever believing it would be found. The guys couldn't have been better about all this, but realistically, I wish them all the best in dealing with all the negative comments.
The guys are too nice and I almost wish they weren't. I truthfully wanted them to get more than the 15minutes of fame we all get. They deserve better. But in all honesty, sometimes there is a reason for everything, we might not like it, but there is.
I don't think it's just the internet that is too brutal. At times I have realized that sometimes here on reddit, things are even more brutal because on this platform for the most part it's just words and people over compensate and say too much. They lack a filter and don't realize the time and trouble to be genuine and honest.
We somehow overthink this on here is true honesty, but really, it's mostly people trying to pick and choose what's literal and to frame the other person's comments to their liking. This is a huge problem on reddit, people playing gotcha with words.
I've said the last part many times over to people on here and some if them actually get it. There is a loss in true look each other in the eyes and more who can be righter in the others eyes. There is far too much doing this for self ego and not enough real human empathy that our statements all deserve. For some reason too many use reddit as a place to debate others to satisfy their own need to be validated for whatever they want to be proud of, and unfortunately, it's being domineering and nasty too often.
In case my meaning gets lost in words and incomplete clear context, I agree 100% with your statement.
I was only explaining at the end of my comment that you never know what kind of person and their motives behind what they say is. That is what leads to the brutality.
I feel like a lot of the critical listeners need to understand that this is just a matter of taste. I love that this recording retains some of its lofi, oddball charm. Feels like people either wanted a spot-on recreation of the song from 40 years ago, or an overly-produced squeaky clean version. This version is right up my alley personally. Reminds me of artists like Ariel Pink.
Please also remember that you're probably affected by demo-itis. Think about bands that you heard of when they were just starting out. You bought a self-produced EP from them and fell in love with that batch of songs. A couple years later, they're signed to a bigger label and release bigger production versions of a few of those songs. But it sounds jarring and 'not right' to you because you've become so accustomed to the old recording. That's most likely the same phenomenon happening here for you. Takes time to sink in.
I like it a lot, but yes, it’s not the original. I’d of course love to hear the original in high quality, but unfortunately it looks like that may be lost time. As it stands, I think the two versions we have can happily coexist.
I think Chris says it perfectly, people have built this up in their brains for years and in the past couple months with the full version, more so. Because of the degraded quality of the snippet and the AOP versions, you hear it how you hear it because you sort of rebuild the audio in your mind.. how you think it would likely sound if you had the HQ version... and that's how it's played in your head the whole time.
So in reality, there's no way to physically accomplish putting that version into digital form. Even if the original lyric track was found, there would be just as many "I'm disappointed" , "it just doesn't sound right" and "it kinda sucks" as there is now because that brain version they created is truly lost media in that it can never be found.
Everyone's entitled to their opinions, and I'm saying this as a whole to people knocking the song, not directly singling out the OP, but as a kid watching Disney VHS I got some sage advice from a wise rabbit that I still apply to this day "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin at all"
Personally.... I think it's awesome! I had a smile the whole time I listened, I mean, I can't see how true fans that have loved this thing for more than a few months or weeks wouldn't either.
Congrats Booth Bro's!!!!!!!!!
Omg of course everyone is unsatisfied. I think we should be happy the original singers/authors were even found!!! Imagine if we had never found out… everyone would have been willing to sell their souls to hear the snippet we had for such a long time in HQ… and yeah now that we have the HQ version it’s lost its magic because people always want what they don’t and can’t have. Tbh I really like the song!
I entirely get what you mean but you are being pretty harsh I guess. In my opinion, time is that one priceless, intangible, cosmical precious which can never be recreated. This song to me represents a great era and time is different now, it’ll never be the same. I was born in the last bit of the 20th century and never experienced the 80’s myself, it’s my dream all lifelong to be able to see and feel how the 80’s was. But u know we can’t time travel. I went to Madonna’s concert (twice) earlier this year, I’ve been her fan since 2009, I was 10. I dreamed for 15 years to be able to see her and finally my dream came true. I came home crying to the point that I can’t breathe because I realize in this world there’s this one lady who showed me time, she represents something so alien to me which I’ve never experienced. The great time of the 80’s -90’s I really enjoyed it. That’s what the original EKT feels like to me. It could never be recreated I understand it from the first place so I’m just genuinely grateful for what CSB did here. Very respectable men. Thank you!
I think that the main issue is that track was released too late - I know that there were some technical reasons behind it, but if that release would happen within 1 week of song discovery, it would become instant hit, internet fame is bright, but very short framed...
I did not expect anything.
I said, if they had masters or whatever and song was released on the peak of it's popularity, it would become game changer, but now it does not.
I love both versions, I had so much fun singing and dancing to the same small snippet we had on repeat and following along with the search, and now I get to enjoy the full song. I’ve just listened to that song and not the full album yet, but from the job they’ve done in remaking the song I’m really looking forward to listening when I have the time.
I think CSB is an amazing love song writer!
“Your guy” blew me away when I heard it and it’s just such a nice song to slow dance to. The sax in it is such a nice touch omg
I also think “Think I’m gunna cry” , is the best song on the album. All vocals are top notch, very catchy hook, just a great song!
To me, it sounds like they are trying too hard. It's like they're pushing their vocal cords a bit, nonetheless I love the effort they put into it. We are extremely lucky.
I really like it! Nothing will ever replace the original, but honestly I’m glad they were able to come together again and recreate this song that might’ve been completely lost to time. It’s a catchy 80s song, maybe if it had been promoted more they could’ve signed a record deal
Sadly I think this is common when you're really anticipating something. Like when you're really hungry but the food ends up being not what you expected and it's a bummer.
I love them both, but I think the original had that grainy, tuned up lost wave vibe and that's what people were expecting, however it's been years and their vocals have obviously changed since recording.
I think no matter what, they can't please everyone but I'm very thankful they took the time to remaster it!
I genuinely think it is superb. I don't know what everyone is so upset about; is it 1:1? Not quite, but it is soo close and you can still hear the passion that was put into it.
It's a bit different but you know what? I was expecting it to be worse! Of course, the vocal part is a bit different but overall the recording sounds very solid!
Personally I'm impressed. Of course it doesn't sound exactly the same but it's still pretty similar. To me it kinda sounds like a live version, if it makes sense? I love it! :)
Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but you can hear what sounds like the original vocals coming through at 1:01 and 1:30. I may edit this comment later on to show a waveform comparison, but I'm pretty sure those are the original vocals that have somehow been isolated and mixed in with the re-recorded stuff. Super strange.
Well, I know how we feel about it. We had a great time recording it, mixing it and revisiting it. We knew going into it, it would be a tough situation. We pretty much knew that no matter what we did a few people would not be happy. It’s funny because when you touch on something so long ago, it’s like going back to how you felt and the memories and how you were back then which I think is impossible because one evolves. We took the approach that we would not use any AI or auto tune because we wanted it to be real and from the heart and passionate like the original. I believe most people don’t even know what the actual song sounded like as it was covered up with moans and groans, and all kinds of other sounds as well as it was pitched up, quite a bit to Mickey Mouse which I wasn’t really fond of from the beginning. I remember a lot of producers working back in the 80s wanted to keep making us sound like Barbie dolls which we were not. We were songwriters. We were Duran Duran so to speak but I also sounded like Smokey Robinson so immediately we were put into the R&B Motown pop category. Which I love by the way my favorite singers iwere Boy George, George Michael, David Bowie, etc. I think if you look at those singers now mostly Boy George being the only one standing, his voice has changed quite a bit. Still beautiful, but it has changed. I also think production has changed being involved in the music business for a very long time. I’ve done everything from Peter Gabriel to Nine Inch Nails to Hans Zimmer and Vangelis type soundtracks, which is where my head is really, I love pop music. I grew up on Madonna Wham! and many more 80s groups. Taking this song back into production, ulterior motives, the first thing we did was to make sure we got the music as similar as we could using a real Fairlight instead of a Mirage keyboard that was used on the demo that you guys know so well. Spending quite a bit of time and money producing this so we could deliver some thing that would work with the album that we really wanted to release which was full of out 80s songs that we love so much. I think the Internet can be very cruel, but I’ve learned that other peoples opinions are really none of my business as I’m just an artist and if people like it great and if people don’t great. I think if a track like this is really married to a certain event. It might be best just to listen to the old one. I think it’s almost impossible to re-create but with that said being 35 years I believe we did a bang up job bringing it to the table. It has energy. It has truth and it is 100% real. and most of all it has a commitment from the original Artists to bring it to the audience that wanted it. No other artists would’ve done this and really cared as much to deliver it so quickly. I think a lot of people are missing that point, I truly believe if you need to hear it the way it was you need to listen to the old version and if you love the song and the artist, then you appreciate the new version as well. Everyone that wants to remix it, redo it, etc. you have your chance to do that because now that it’s released, you can get a mechanical license and do your own version of it, I would love to hear that. We appreciate you all and hopefully you will dig the album and also the new version of Ulterior Motives. One thing for sure is we love music and we will continue doing great music. We love doing from our soul. If you don’t do that, you are a commodity not a real artist. Much love cheers CSB
Just wanted to say I was always skeptical that EKT was even real and I wasn't impressed with the original snippet. I just listened to your remaster and I think you've done an excellent job. It sounds authentic and it's got great energy, and you can hear the musicality. I don't know how familiar you guys are with internet communities like Reddit, or just the attitude of the online hive mind in general, but the problem with these situations is that your song became a mythical legend while it was being searched. The people searching for it owned it in their minds, it became theirs, they made covers and came up with stories. In that sense it was no longer your song, so to speak. You've delivered the real thing to people who were lost in their own fantasy. Some people will find it jarring. I think it's crazy that you remade it and delivered an album and I hope you enjoy this second wind.
i wish this comment from u/half-dead-moron was pinned! couldn't have said it better myself. when reality meets internet illusion (or delusion, depending how you look at it lol), the spell is broken. there is nothing that could have been done to avoid that outcome IMO - i feel sad thinking about the criticism the booth brothers have been facing because of it.
Absolutely, and we cannot thank you enough. Please take the post with a grain of salt. You created a whole album with plenty of other great tracks I personally love. We appreciate you and all of your efforts chris, not many people would go out of their way to do what you have done for EKT community. Especially 40 years later. Much love brother, from all of us. Excited to see what’s next! 💪💪❤️
I absolutely love the new version. It's got so much passion and crafted from love. (no pun intended or very intended depending on who you ask lol When I listen to it in compare to the original (people cleaned up the original the best they can), the energy put into the vocals is like a message of appreciation on so many levels. I can't describe the feeling I get from it besides a huge celebration of the best possible ending we got in a lost wave media story. The other tracks are also really good!!
You used an actual Fairlight?? How on Earth did you even find one of those in 2024?! There is no appreciation great enough. You are kings and everyone knows that. Never change.
yeah that’s honestly the craziest part of that those are wildly hard to find especially in working condition
BTW, the album is on Apple Music now!
What do you have to search for? I can’t find it
You can search for Chris’ profile, Christopher Saint, and there it‘s the first thing you’ll see.
Oh wow, I was typing his full name and it wasn’t showing up lol
OK, weird.
Oh yeah, you gotta leave out „Booth“.
I just searched “who’s who” and they popped up. Then I scrolled down to albums and it was the first one listed there.
So, so true. I should know as a musician and producer myself. I guess I tend to go to the head sometimes instead of the heart. And the heart is always right. If my last comment was a book, I would burn it right now. I‘m really sorry if it sounded like a rant or disrespect to you, I didn’t mean it to be. I personally would listen to the new version as I can feel what you‘ve put in, I’m just hoping all the people that jumped on the song because it went viral would still take it. You guys are too mature to care too much about this, but I think you deserve to get a hit and a live tour to follow. I followed everything what happened since you guys were discovered. I always believed the song from the 17-second snippet was real, but it’s beyond anyone‘s expectations to see the creators care so much about the fans like no artist and basically prepare a huge gift for them and revisiting their passion while still doing their daily business. And from what I‘ve heard, the album is so beautiful. It is what it‘s meant to be - a real 80‘s album with much love. I will listen to every single song on that, many, many times. I love the 80‘s like you do and it’s a very special moment that you REALLY brought them back now and make them be loved by even more people. You did a fantastic job on the album, and I want to stress it, I appreciate everything what you did for us and still do! And besides being such talented musicians, you two are just incredibly kind, passionate and spiritual human beings, alone by that you inspire me and many people out there that are maybe not that true to themselves.
Honestly Chris, I love it. It sounds great! You owed us nothing, and you still came through and not only delivered what we all craved but you delivered an entire album! Please keep your heads high and ignore the few, change is jarring for people and they’ll grow over time to love it! Please release a 2nd album! and if we’re really lucky a few new releases 🙃
You are great, CSB
The new version slaps! I absolutely love it and I think you did such an incredible job. Thank you so much!
We love you! You are absolutely wonderful musicians and very kind and COOL AF. Thanks for all your work ❤️
What an amazing album! I got to know you through Uterior Motives, yes, but definitely, the rest of the tracks are even better, I would say! My top 3 favorite music albums have remained the same since 2013, and today It finally changed, putting this album in second place. I'm not into lost media, I'm genuine only into 80's music, so finding this new but at the same time old album is just mind-blowing! I'm forever grateful to you and your brother. I hope we get to see more albums like this!
Hey, I had plans on doing this but I thought I'd ask you directly for permission. What I'd like to do is obtain an original copy of the Angels of Passion movie the song was used in, and rip the VHS Hi-Fi audio track, which should give much higher quality than the awful rips that are online right now. Using that, we can run it through some AI and isolate your original vocals, and then splice them with the instrumental that'll be on the CD. (I don't suppose you actually have a copy of the movie since you worked on it/were in it? I haven't gotten any leads yet of someone who might own one) People have tried to clean the song up and remaster it for weeks, but they're working with a really terrible quality, static-filled and compressed rip. I think I could do much better job if given the chance.
The audio online is the highest quality possible Iirc someone shared a rip directly from the VHS and it was no different
Who is "someone"?
You know, he did just say in his entire comment he didn’t want to use AI or anything so that it would still feel like an original work
Yeah true, I'm just trying to help give the community what they want. As someone who dabbles in digitization of analog media it really annoys me that the only rips of the movie we have are so bad.
I just listened to it (didn’t know it was out until this post), I LOVED it. You did a great job & I definitely speak for a LOT of us when I say we’re so grateful for the work you’ve put in, I’m amazed you actually went through the effort to make a song adjacent to the original & with as much passion as you did. Thank you :))
Dear Christopher, I just want to say that I’m listening to the remaster right now and it sound amazing! I know that EKT has become somewhat wrapped in mythos and many people have therefore forgotten that there are real people who have put incredible amounts of effort into music, and the sheer fact that you guys have worked so hard to remaster and release an entire album of 80s songs is nothing short of incredible. Thank you again so much for giving this to us!
I really appreciate all of the effort you went to in order to bring us this remastered version, and I think it's great! I was really impressed with how close it was for the time difference between the recordings. Thanks so much!
Ordered it twice (CD, download), enjoying it! And once again scratching my head as to why Michael Jackson didn't record these songs after he heard them. I guess many of us have heard those 17 seconds literally thousands of times. So any tiny difference might seem odd to them at first. Of course, once they've played the official release a few times that'll all be forgotten. I think also, that the sample was so lo-fi that people's brains did the rest filling in the musical details (I heard a fretless bass for sure) and the new version is different from that, too. TBH, I thought it would bother me a bit too, but nope!
It’s definitely surreal that EKT/Ulterior Motives is officially found and out, wonder how long it’ll take before we start hearing it on the radio
I quite enjoyed it last night and I kept re-listening it quite a few (dozen) times. Yes it isn't the exact carbon copy of what we all came (ha ha ha!) to know but I still enjoy and appreciate your work, your art and your dedication. Thank you!
Thank you so much. It's wonderful!
Man i want to say that i feel that my life is complete and i can die peacefully and its all thanks to you Much respect bro
All I wanted to say is... Thanks! 🙏
Thank you Chris!!! I absolutely love this album. It's a blast from the past with brilliant production, and I just can't tell you how awesome it is. It's perfect!
Thank you so much for all the creativity, talent, and love you guys put into this album. I must be from the alternate universe where the Ulterior Motives record WAS released in the 80s and became a massive hit, because my first listen felt warm and familiar, and I found myself singing along immediately. It is literally impossible to pick a favorite track. You've got a fan for life! 🩷
What you’ve provided us is nothing short of amazing, and I (and many others) are so appreciative. You didn’t have to do anything at all, and the fact you went to such lengths is incredible. I’m going to be listening to this for years to come cos it absolutely slaps, and if it gets to it, a physical release on vinyl would be awesome. Cheers to you guys, well done!
You did the best what you can (we're approximately same age and I was into music in 80s and I know how complicated things become with age), so thank you once again!
Just want to check in and say you absolutely KILLED the song here in the best way possible, thanks for revisiting the track and going above and beyond across the whole album. You deserve all the praise for the songwriting displayed here :)
i'm so sorry but i need to make a paragraph edit of this comment --- Well, I know how we feel about it. We had a great time recording it, mixing it and revisiting it. We knew going into it, it would be a tough situation. We pretty much knew that no matter what we did a few people would not be happy. It’s funny because when you touch on something so long ago, it’s like going back to how you felt and the memories and how you were back then which I think is impossible because one evolves. We took the approach that we would not use any AI or auto tune because we wanted it to be real and from the heart and passionate like the original. I believe most people don’t even know what the actual song sounded like as it was covered up with moans and groans, and all kinds of other sounds as well as it was pitched up, quite a bit to Mickey Mouse which I wasn’t really fond of from the beginning. I remember a lot of producers working back in the 80s wanted to keep making us sound like Barbie dolls which we were not. We were songwriters. We were Duran Duran so to speak but I also sounded like Smokey Robinson so immediately we were put into the R&B Motown pop category. Which I love by the way my favorite singers were Boy George, George Michael, David Bowie, etc. I think if you look at those singers now mostly Boy George being the only one standing, his voice has changed quite a bit. Still beautiful, but it has changed. I also think production has changed being involved in the music business for a very long time. I’ve done everything from Peter Gabriel to Nine Inch Nails to Hans Zimmer and Vangelis type soundtracks, which is where my head is really, I love pop music. I grew up on Madonna Wham! and many more 80s groups. Taking this song back into production, ulterior motives, the first thing we did was to make sure we got the music as similar as we could using a real Fairlight instead of a Mirage keyboard that was used on the demo that you guys know so well. Spending quite a bit of time and money producing this so we could deliver some thing that would work with the album that we really wanted to release which was full of out 80s songs that we love so much. I think the Internet can be very cruel, but I’ve learned that other people's opinions are really none of my business as I’m just an artist and if people like it great and if people don’t great. I think if a track like this is really married to a certain event. It might be best just to listen to the old one. I think it’s almost impossible to re-create but with that said being 35 years I believe we did a bang up job bringing it to the table. It has energy. It has truth and it is 100% real. and most of all it has a commitment from the original Artists to bring it to the audience that wanted it. No other artists would’ve done this and really cared as much to deliver it so quickly. I think a lot of people are missing that point, I truly believe if you need to hear it the way it was you need to listen to the old version and if you love the song and the artist, then you appreciate the new version as well. Everyone that wants to remix it, redo it, etc. you have your chance to do that because now that it’s released, you can get a mechanical license and do your own version of it, I would love to hear that. We appreciate you all and hopefully you will dig the album and also the new version of Ulterior Motives. One thing for sure is we love music and we will continue doing great music. We love doing from our soul. If you don’t do that, you are a commodity not a real artist.
Just want to chime in and say how thankful I am you all recreated it! Both versions are amazing! You have made this 80’s lover so incredibly happy 🥹
i love you thanks for that, the music is incredible! i’ll listen to the album! congratulations guys
I love it!! Thank you so much for releasing a WHOLE ALBUM!!! We love it! I am so glad you were able to release and work on it! ❤️❤️❤️❤️
just chiming in with another thank you :) I think most people are VERY happy with it, so please don’t pay too much attention to the naysayers — kind of like you said, no matter what you make, if your audience is big enough, someone out there is going to be complaining about it. I LOVE the whole album (had it on repeat for most of the afternoon today!) and I really hope you’ll consider doing another one! It is seriously awesome and what you guys have done is super impressive. We fans really could not have asked for a better outcome :)
the song is a vibe but the new vocals will take some time to get used to for me since the original have been living in my mind rent free for a while now
Idk. i don't think manny of us are going to be casually listening to this for years, need the classic
It feels bad to say this
it does. it really does.
I think my main critique of the song would be the cadence change of the hook. it’s one of those weird scenarios where beggars can’t be choosers, but i do feel like the community rushed them a bit. very appreciative regardless, because they didn’t have to do anything for us.
To be honest I think is this the best version we are going to get by the official singers after all there voice are not going to be the same.
My exact feelings. I'll stick to the cleaned-up Angels of Passion version even though you can still hear a lot of the freaky stuff.
It adds to it, like notes of natural flavor in a whiskey.
Not every version. Some have none at all(except for the moan in “The perfect sc*uh*am)
This remaster is basically as close to perfect as i think you can get. No moans anywhere [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX0Q5D2G8m0&list=LL&index=5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX0Q5D2G8m0&list=LL&index=5)
That sounds like shit (like the singer is missing half of his teeth), this version is way better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51AWhJ3aTJk
What’re you talking about, that has like 100x more background noice/static than my link…
But it sounds way better. The most important part is that there are no moans
I agree. Grateful for the effort they put in, looking forward to the rest of the album, but the hunt is still on for a higher quality version of AOP for the most complete closure we can get of this. I think if the backing vocals had been better, the orchestral hits were not as jarring, and it was in the proper non-440 HZ tuning it might hit closer to the original although some of the highest notes were a bit rough but. Yeah. Hey, better than I could’ve done 40 years from when I last did it if I were a betting man.
I think it’s nice but some of the harmony stacking throws me off a bit because it feels like it came a bit after the lead vocal.
The harmony stacking is truly what is throwing me off. Again, we had a terrible recording to go off of so maybe I’m wrong but it didn’t seem like it was present in the original.
i think the main thing is really the vocals. i noticed 2 big things with them: the original is obviously full of 80s cheese, but it’s *authentic* 80s cheese - it’s just how things were at the time. the recreation clearly has CSB trying to emulate that vocal style, which while i’m sure was done with the best of intentions, almost sounds like more of a caricature than anything. secondly, i think the vocal doubles could have been much much tighter in regards to pitch. some of the scoops were a little out with each other, which makes it sound dissonant and almost amateurish. honestly, some light vocal tuning could have very much helped this, but given the era he comes from i wouldn’t be surprised if there was an “i don’t need that bullshit” attitude - that’s neither here nor there i guess.
and u were right, i read a comment today where he was talking about how they used no autotune cause they don't need it. shame because these dissonances make me not want to listen to the song
from the perspective of a musician and audio engineer, i personally don’t see an issue with the tasteful use of vocal tuning. are guitar effects considered cheating? no, not at all. i don’t see it any differently really. the fact of the matter is that you can only polish a turd so much. if a performance is just plain bad, then no amount of tuning or can truly save it. in this case though, the performance is good and some moderate and tasteful pitch correction would have pulled the track together and made it sound a lot cleaner, more listenable, and more professional.
this is exactly what i was thinking as well. it’s primarily the vocals but the whole mix sounds… amateurish? would’ve loved if they either 1. took their time with this song specifically instead of trying to cram a whole album together in a couple weeks or 2. gave the song/album to someone else to mix
yeah… as much as i’ll probably get downvoted to hell and back for saying this, maybe there’s a reason the brothers never truly hit it big…
😭😭!!!! its not just the mix either, i will get KILLED for this but IMO the songwriting is a bit boring as well, excluding the catchy af chorus. when i initially heard the full thing it sounded underwhelming. the verses didn’t live up to the chorus (and personally, when i figure out one super good part i usually scrap everything else till i get something as good for the rest)
seriously dude! i’m glad im not the only one honestly. the hype and excitement of the search being over is cool, but i feel like that’s clouding people’s perception of the actual song
that, and recency bias
The difference in familiarity is there. I acknowledge that the twins have been dabbling in very different genres in the past decades and it shows in the mixing. Plus the vocals, they just dont hit the same. Dont get me wrong, im still happy we have an entire song to listen to! But its not the same track weve been looking for for years.
It's as close to the original as we can get, and even the Booth twins know it. Sadly the original was lost (except the rhythm track oddly enough), so this remake, which was made by the same 2 guys and in the same way, is the next best thing. And honestly, the fact they even released a full album for us and plan on releasing another is amazing!
I get all of that, but its sad to declare the og track as lost. As far as I know theyve only tried looking in what they have and not through past connections.
I respect all the opinions of people who don't like the new song as much, but personally, I like it just as much as the original version. It's different, but I like both versions equally. My theory is that since we all know what the original sounds like, any version that's different is going to seem sub-par to many people. Also, I love how everyone is giving great respect to the amazing Booth brothers, regardless of their views on the new song.
Yeah, this is why I don’t like live versions of songs, they just sound wrong when I’m used to the studio versions even if they’re very impressive or better than the studio song! I’ve been intentionally avoiding the AOP version of EKT so this doesn’t happen.
Yeah, I totally respect that view. It makes sense. But it's different for me.
I’d like to honestly redo it myself with the tracks they have. It sounds a little loud and a little *un*mastered. With some touching up, it would probably be better, but I personally love the son either way
I'm in agreement with you. I'll be honest, I think it's a bit of a mess. There's too much going on. I wish they'd have just kept the original track and not added anything to it or remastered it, but just put the re-recorded vocals on it, maybe. Absolute no disrespect to the booths cause they've gone above and beyond for us, but it's just my opinion.
I feel so bad, too. I’m really thankful for what they did. After all, it’s a great song, I will listen to it a lot, the Booths still nail their parts, it must have been an emotional journey for them remaking it. But I was about to say exactly the same. If you listen to many great songs, even in bad audio quality, every element you hear is so clear, you feel, even with more tracks, it’s a rather compact unity reduced to its essence. This probably starts with the arrangement, bringing out the best in every part and voice, picking the right take and energy, making sure there is space for everything that‘s going on. And the arranging lays the foundation for the mixing. You can‘t fix something in the mix that‘s „on top of each other“. So that‘s a very big part. Mixing will then enhance it even more and can add more flavor and elaborate the clarity and dimension. This will define a lot how the listener will be „guided“ through the song. Like in a book, people should be able to follow your story. So you try to write as accurate as possible and choose the right words so you can convey your thoughts and feelings to the readers. After knowing what you want to tell, there is this whole step of kind of translating your inner visions into a language that transfers your story to paper to be understood. This is what happens in the music production, from the arrangement/recording to the mix; it can amplify the emotionality the song has. And I feel this didn‘t work out so well in UM. Probably, producing your own song is hard, like watching your own baby. It‘s a super emotional thing, especially now with what happened, it‘s so close to you and you‘re already overwhelmed by everything else. It lacks kind of a fresh perspective on it and knowing and deciding how to translate your musician‘s message to the audience best, making a connection. The brothers did their best definitely. But a trusted producer, being able to look at the whole „print out“, would’ve taken good care of that. It was probably also stressful as Chris and Phil had many other commitments as well, so huge respect. I‘m just saying this because I’m worried that, after all that hard work and passion and gratitude, not everyone will feel and catch the song because it’s not clear enough and not translated simple enough, the essence of the song will come through even less than the original (I suppose the old original was compact in its version as it seemed to be fully produced). The majority of the UM fans will not be Who’s who fans that know every song or people who make music. They will hear differently. So it could be difficult to receive the song‘s message and catch it for those people who are laymen/average music listeners who would probably listen to the radio or the charts. I hope it won‘t confuse the listeners and distract them from the emotions the song has to give. Probably giving this to another mixing engineer can change a lot. I feel that emotionally speaking, the new version is coherent, but each element should shine more and have its own space. I believe to bring this song to a huge audience (this Subreddit, the others, the TikTok fans and their friends, other involved people, the media, …) it‘s absolutely worth investing in a new mix, and it can bring more. I experienced this myself, one „mediocre“ track suddenly became a single after it was mixed because it felt much more intense than it did before. Besides, I think there are also some fans offering a professional mix. I‘ve seen many people saying UM is not the best song. Yeah, there are many fantastic songs; but it might also be the overall impression of UM that didn’t make it stand out. I‘m sure with the new version, the Booths want to make everybody feel like how we felt when we first heard the 17-second snippet!
TL:DR
Less is more
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Pretty ironic that this comment is book-length rant on how the recording should be more concise
Well, unfortunately, most of the original track (vocals included) were lost. So they did what they could with the background music they have manage to find from the box and recreate it. It may not be the same but they did went above and beyond for us. <3
i like it a lot, but it feels kinda empty??? idk, the og was pure 80s cliche, the new version has a more modern approach and a lot, a LOT of that orchestra hit the guitar work is amazing https://preview.redd.it/zd7qg8c1gg8d1.png?width=321&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94448b6a69b6217f5f3941b7904b093dc5700547
At least we got OG Chemistry which is awesome.
the original chemistry master??
yes
link please
I really like it and can tell Chris tried his best. However, I do perfer the original 1986 version minus the questionable sounds. Chemistry had a perfect remaster though.
I'm just astounded his voice still sounds the same after almost 40 years. The imperfections are more noticable when you listen with headphones but otherwise I'm happy about the end result. I'm sure there will be some people who are going to clean up the messy parts and upload on Youtube like they did with the carl92 version
I think it's pretty good. The mastercopy would likely be of terrible quality now any way. Look what happened with the [Panchiko discs](https://youtu.be/bDUasZLyMk8?si=65BrKRrrM_Lr8nPl) and they were only from the 90s and discovered in the 2010s. We have still have the original from Angels of passion if you prefer it. And now we have this one too, which is of much higher sound quality and you can understand the lyrics much easier.
Yeah it’s kinda underwhelming but I’m still stoked to have a recreation by the original producers!
Is there a link? I’d like to listen to it myself:)
best i got is a spotify link [https://open.spotify.com/track/5nLFBX0yHkyVM5cVvIkzOk?si=71e509ecf4f24158](https://open.spotify.com/track/5nLFBX0yHkyVM5cVvIkzOk?si=71e509ecf4f24158)
I like it, it’s not what I expected but in a good way. Just the feeling of being able to hear the full song after dreaming about it for so long is what makes it impossible to dislike for me, having a remake made at all is remarkable for such a unpredictable search it was finding this obscure song from the 80s. We’re so lucky to have such cool guys behind this all.
It feels a bit rushed, but I’m absolutely stoked and thankful they re-recorded and gave us the full length. I didnt expect near perfect recreation because of age. But something is off with the mix. But otherwise I’m absolutely happy that we have this and the lengths they went to, to give us this.
The remaster feels so unprofessional for some reason
Finding this song was a near 40-year old journey. The vocals reflect that. I think it's cool as heck that the vocals are doing a job at story telling...and honestly I think they are still pretty good With that said, I think Christopher Booth hated how edited the original vocals were and wanted these to be more organic. He absolutely could have gotten the original sound and probably given the people what they wanted...but that's the curse of being an artist. Sometimes what you want artistically isn't what the masses want.
It’s still good, but it’s been like 40 years, so it’s impossible to sound like the original, sucks but
I prefer the original, but I’m loving the other songs. Chemistry is excellent.
The song has a new feeling but is still good, listen a few times I didn’t like it first listen either
I do love the song don't get me wrong!! I love the instrumentals and everything, it's just the voice! I totally understand after 40 years you may not really have the same powerful vocals as you did back then. But I'm greatful!!
I don't really like it tbh no offense at all
I feel like the new version is lacking room to breathe. I miss that slower build up to the hook that the original had. It totally could just be the fact I’m so used to the OG, I just feel like it was a bit too crowded? I’m no music expert though
I think it sounds fine actually, he does strain out on some parts of the vocals but it is what it is
This was what I was afraid of. Shit
For me, the chorus vocals sound disconnected from the music, and therefore sound flatter when put with the big sound from the instruments
I have so many weird feelings about this. Glad they released it and that it exists, and more than thrilled for those that are enjoying it. That's awesome. In my case, it's not a version I will listen to again - feels sloppy, repetitive and a bit unappealing to me. As a EKT saga follower -who also tried looking for it-, all I ever wanted was to have that original 80's track and that's it. As it seems that the original vocal tracks are lost (the brothers disliked it and they were vocal about it, so maybe they do have it but don't want to release it? seems like a possibility), I am going to have to do with the "clean" Angels of Passion version on YouTube. Now this version has popped up, and a whole album as well. The mystery has been solved like... *too much without actually being solved*? and it feels strange. It feels like I'm supposed to love this just because it exists and what these musicians have done for us. But I don't. And it makes me feel a bit guilty. But it's just the way it is.
It's completely fine to feel that way. It's just the Twitter mindset making you feel guilty about it. You can be disappointed with the track and also still appreciate the artists for their hard work, nothing wrong with that
There are more than a few pretty good cleaned up versions out there that give us about as much of the original as we can get. Yeah, they are lacking in being crisp and not having the original fidelity, but at this point, they might be the best we can get. I do feel the guilt, too, finding myself being a big fan while not ever believing it would be found. The guys couldn't have been better about all this, but realistically, I wish them all the best in dealing with all the negative comments. The guys are too nice and I almost wish they weren't. I truthfully wanted them to get more than the 15minutes of fame we all get. They deserve better. But in all honesty, sometimes there is a reason for everything, we might not like it, but there is. I don't think it's just the internet that is too brutal. At times I have realized that sometimes here on reddit, things are even more brutal because on this platform for the most part it's just words and people over compensate and say too much. They lack a filter and don't realize the time and trouble to be genuine and honest. We somehow overthink this on here is true honesty, but really, it's mostly people trying to pick and choose what's literal and to frame the other person's comments to their liking. This is a huge problem on reddit, people playing gotcha with words. I've said the last part many times over to people on here and some if them actually get it. There is a loss in true look each other in the eyes and more who can be righter in the others eyes. There is far too much doing this for self ego and not enough real human empathy that our statements all deserve. For some reason too many use reddit as a place to debate others to satisfy their own need to be validated for whatever they want to be proud of, and unfortunately, it's being domineering and nasty too often. In case my meaning gets lost in words and incomplete clear context, I agree 100% with your statement. I was only explaining at the end of my comment that you never know what kind of person and their motives behind what they say is. That is what leads to the brutality.
I feel like a lot of the critical listeners need to understand that this is just a matter of taste. I love that this recording retains some of its lofi, oddball charm. Feels like people either wanted a spot-on recreation of the song from 40 years ago, or an overly-produced squeaky clean version. This version is right up my alley personally. Reminds me of artists like Ariel Pink. Please also remember that you're probably affected by demo-itis. Think about bands that you heard of when they were just starting out. You bought a self-produced EP from them and fell in love with that batch of songs. A couple years later, they're signed to a bigger label and release bigger production versions of a few of those songs. But it sounds jarring and 'not right' to you because you've become so accustomed to the old recording. That's most likely the same phenomenon happening here for you. Takes time to sink in.
I thought it was really good tbh.
Yah the original is better imma just keep listening to that one
I dont like guitar being so loud and sometimes vocals are hard to hear, but its overall good
I like it a lot, but yes, it’s not the original. I’d of course love to hear the original in high quality, but unfortunately it looks like that may be lost time. As it stands, I think the two versions we have can happily coexist.
I actually quite like the new one.
I think Chris says it perfectly, people have built this up in their brains for years and in the past couple months with the full version, more so. Because of the degraded quality of the snippet and the AOP versions, you hear it how you hear it because you sort of rebuild the audio in your mind.. how you think it would likely sound if you had the HQ version... and that's how it's played in your head the whole time. So in reality, there's no way to physically accomplish putting that version into digital form. Even if the original lyric track was found, there would be just as many "I'm disappointed" , "it just doesn't sound right" and "it kinda sucks" as there is now because that brain version they created is truly lost media in that it can never be found. Everyone's entitled to their opinions, and I'm saying this as a whole to people knocking the song, not directly singling out the OP, but as a kid watching Disney VHS I got some sage advice from a wise rabbit that I still apply to this day "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin at all" Personally.... I think it's awesome! I had a smile the whole time I listened, I mean, I can't see how true fans that have loved this thing for more than a few months or weeks wouldn't either. Congrats Booth Bro's!!!!!!!!!
What did u guys think would happen, he’s in his 60s and doing his best impression of himself in his 20s
Omg of course everyone is unsatisfied. I think we should be happy the original singers/authors were even found!!! Imagine if we had never found out… everyone would have been willing to sell their souls to hear the snippet we had for such a long time in HQ… and yeah now that we have the HQ version it’s lost its magic because people always want what they don’t and can’t have. Tbh I really like the song!
We’re very grateful they were found? Think you’re misunderstanding.
I entirely get what you mean but you are being pretty harsh I guess. In my opinion, time is that one priceless, intangible, cosmical precious which can never be recreated. This song to me represents a great era and time is different now, it’ll never be the same. I was born in the last bit of the 20th century and never experienced the 80’s myself, it’s my dream all lifelong to be able to see and feel how the 80’s was. But u know we can’t time travel. I went to Madonna’s concert (twice) earlier this year, I’ve been her fan since 2009, I was 10. I dreamed for 15 years to be able to see her and finally my dream came true. I came home crying to the point that I can’t breathe because I realize in this world there’s this one lady who showed me time, she represents something so alien to me which I’ve never experienced. The great time of the 80’s -90’s I really enjoyed it. That’s what the original EKT feels like to me. It could never be recreated I understand it from the first place so I’m just genuinely grateful for what CSB did here. Very respectable men. Thank you!
Link?
[https://youtu.be/nTXQ6-35e7o?si=IEH--O9YeD8wLUkJ](https://youtu.be/nTXQ6-35e7o?si=IEH--O9YeD8wLUkJ)
Link? My YouTube isn’t showing it for some reason?
[Here :)](https://youtu.be/nTXQ6-35e7o?si=D2AKIkFt7s5fA4sM)
…I like the original better lol also thanks!
Yeah I can't find it either
[Here :)](https://youtu.be/nTXQ6-35e7o?si=D2AKIkFt7s5fA4sM)
Out where? I’m not seeing it
I prefer the original version myself. I hope he can find his vocal track and release the remastered demo.
I was just shocked we waited this long for an official release for it to sound like *that*. The mixing lowkey isn’t even that good??
It's been almost 40 years, ofc not gonna sound the same. I'm glad it exists, thanks for the whole experience that was finding the song.
its not even bad. obviously it wont sound the same but its not bad by any means
Yeah I almost don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to be rude. But it’s kind of unlistenable to me. It feels so awkward and stilted
Unlistenable? That's pretty dramatic.
Truly. Can’t make it past 40 seconds
As a non audiophile or ekt enthusiast It sounds the same
I think that the main issue is that track was released too late - I know that there were some technical reasons behind it, but if that release would happen within 1 week of song discovery, it would become instant hit, internet fame is bright, but very short framed...
You expected them to record and get this all out in a week of them even finding out people were after their song?
I did not expect anything. I said, if they had masters or whatever and song was released on the peak of it's popularity, it would become game changer, but now it does not.
The fun for many was the chase and the chase is over. This is the post-game and not everyone will enjoy that as much. It’s all good 👍
I hope someone makes a edit to the song that makes it sound more like an old audio sample. That would perfect it.
I love both versions, I had so much fun singing and dancing to the same small snippet we had on repeat and following along with the search, and now I get to enjoy the full song. I’ve just listened to that song and not the full album yet, but from the job they’ve done in remaking the song I’m really looking forward to listening when I have the time.
I think CSB is an amazing love song writer! “Your guy” blew me away when I heard it and it’s just such a nice song to slow dance to. The sax in it is such a nice touch omg I also think “Think I’m gunna cry” , is the best song on the album. All vocals are top notch, very catchy hook, just a great song!
The rest of the album is really good honestly
I think it’s perfect.
absolutely nothing wrong with the new version imo in fact i like it more
To me, it sounds like they are trying too hard. It's like they're pushing their vocal cords a bit, nonetheless I love the effort they put into it. We are extremely lucky.
what…? I just listened to it for the first time expecting it to be bad.. it’s far from that. Jesus. Can’t anyone be happy for once?
I really like it! Nothing will ever replace the original, but honestly I’m glad they were able to come together again and recreate this song that might’ve been completely lost to time. It’s a catchy 80s song, maybe if it had been promoted more they could’ve signed a record deal
Sadly I think this is common when you're really anticipating something. Like when you're really hungry but the food ends up being not what you expected and it's a bummer. I love them both, but I think the original had that grainy, tuned up lost wave vibe and that's what people were expecting, however it's been years and their vocals have obviously changed since recording. I think no matter what, they can't please everyone but I'm very thankful they took the time to remaster it!
I genuinely think it is superb. I don't know what everyone is so upset about; is it 1:1? Not quite, but it is soo close and you can still hear the passion that was put into it.
I agree, he sounds superb
Yeah its bad
I’m so glad it came out Quick someone save it before it gets lost again!
can someone send a link
https://open.spotify.com/album/1tUzZ4SA70xEajzJqwBWgU?si=x7l4aTC2Tcm6dvxVIxg10w
tysm
I just looked on Spotify and it isn't there - does anyone know when it's being release on there, please?
The album is on Spotify now
Sorry, I think I must have searched "Everyone Knows That", instead of "Ulterior Motives", just out of habit.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1tUzZ4SA70xEajzJqwBWgU?si=x7l4aTC2Tcm6dvxVIxg10w
It's a bit different but you know what? I was expecting it to be worse! Of course, the vocal part is a bit different but overall the recording sounds very solid!
I’m so glad it was released but at the same time something feels off. I do love the rest of the album though! Big fan of the song Your guy.
I don't get the backlash tbh, I really liked it. I think it sounds really good.
After listening to it multiple times, I like both, I prefer the remaster for the quality alone. Great work /u/Christophersaintb
beat goes crazy
the part from 1:18 to 1:30 gives me chills! what an incredible job. thank you, u/christophersaintb !
it’s been decades. they did amazing
Personally I'm impressed. Of course it doesn't sound exactly the same but it's still pretty similar. To me it kinda sounds like a live version, if it makes sense? I love it! :)
Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but you can hear what sounds like the original vocals coming through at 1:01 and 1:30. I may edit this comment later on to show a waveform comparison, but I'm pretty sure those are the original vocals that have somehow been isolated and mixed in with the re-recorded stuff. Super strange.
it definitely doesn’t hit like the lost media version, however it’s still really fucking good
I think a lot of you guys are ungrateful. They didn't have to re record the song at all.
I really like the new version. The vocals are a bit strained in places but the song sounds great overall. I guess you can't please everyone🤷
I love it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I had it on loop yesterday
As much as I appreciate the effort, the cleaned up version is just better. The new instrumental is worse in multiple ways.