Have you ever considered song duration? No? Can’t say I blame you. For the most part it’s an entirely uncontroversial subject, especially in the digital age. Anyone can open up Spotify and check the file length of any given song. But in the olden days when music was disseminated on vinyl or tape, the medium didn’t have a built-in length indicator and if you looked closely enough things could get as weird and varied as the songwriting credits I’ve written about. I stumbled back to this subject recently because of a podcast about Love Gun so I’ll take the chance to look at (parts of) that album. Avid collectors of vinyl might not find this very interesting but for the rest of us it’s an odd little tale.
The problem with album covers
When KISS were at their commercial peak in 1976-78 they operated at break-neck speed. Their record contract with Casablanca specified that they had to deliver a certain number of albums per year—and what constituted an album was (usually) specified as the number of minutes of music—otherwise certain auxiliary clauses would kick in (or the contract would automatically be extended which, for the most part, would benefit the record company). I’ve only mentioned this in passing before so it’s worth looking at it a little more closely here. I happen to think that some of the… eh… oddities regarding the album covers during the late 70s are a direct result of the record contracts.
The original 1973 contract with Casablanca (at least the one available to me) doesn’t specify what constitutes an album in absolute duration, only that the artist is to deliver ”one long playing album or 10 45 r.p.m. record sides or their equivalent” during the contract term. (§2A) Said term was one year from November 1, 1973, to October 31, 1974, and this could be extended in four (4) yearly installements as long as Casablanca gave 30 days notice. (§21) Since the advance monies were relatively modest in this original contract, and possibly because a ”long playing album” wasn’t specified, there were later amendments. The one available to me is dated May 1, 1975, and here we find that a ”12-inch 33-1/3 rpm recording” is specified as being ”not less than 25 minutes nor more than 50 minutes”. (§1) Under this contract the artist was expected to deliver two (2) such ”Albums” under each one-year term.
In (§1) we also find the part that would become relevant when the band was recording Rock And Roll Over. The masters for both of the ”12-inch 33-1/3 rpm recordings” of no ”less than 25 minutes nor more than 50 minutes” were to be delivered 120 days before the end of a current agreement term—whether that term was an extension or not—and failure to do so would extend the agreement for ”a period equal to 120 days” after the masters had been delivered. Despite the relative lack of commercial success up to that point Casablanca chose to exercise their option on September 16, 1975. That meant that the then-new term of the agreement ended on October 31, 1976, and that the band had to deliver two masters well before then.
We all know what happened. The unexpected runaway success of Alive! completely upended any and all plans the band might have had for the fall of 1975 and spring of 1976. The planned European tour was moved and Destroyer didn’t see release until almost a year after Dressed To Kill. Under the 1973 agreement terms this wouldn’t have been a problem. Back then all the band had to do was produce an album per year. But now they had to deliver two and, if we go by the terms of the May 1, 1975, text, they would have to do so right at the start of August 1976 at the latest. (Deduct 120 days from October 31.) With the Spirit of ’76 Tour set to begin on July 3rd that obviously wasn’t going to happen. If you’re thinking ”But what about Alive!?”, it didn’t count. It was released before the new term went into effect and, to add insult to injury, the 1975 contract specified that a master had to contain ”material not previously recorded by Artist”.
Now, I think that Glickman/Marks and/or Aucoin may have managed to negotiate their way out of the 120 day period, it wasn’t really in Casablanca’s best interest to try to play hardball with their new cash cow just as they were becoming profitable. Even so, since so much had happened to the band’s commercial viability since May 1975 the band’s management felt that the record contract had to be re-negotiated and Glickman/Marks had a proposition ready on June 21, 1976. The number of albums the band had to deliver was the same but it now specifically included live albums and, as a consequence of the recent commercial success, bonus and non-refundable advance monies had increased significantly. And now we finally get to the problem with covers.
As I detailed in the second installement on Double Platinum the recording for Rock And Roll Over didn’t exactly go according to plan. The recording started late because the Star Theatre had to be prepped before they could record there and according to Corky Stasiak the final mixing session wasn’t until October 23-24. They might have managed to get the masters to Casablanca just in the nick of time before the October 31 deadline but that haste resulted in at least one but most probably two mistakes on the album sleeve. The first was the omission of Stasiak’s name, something that was corrected on later pressings. The second, and this is my theory, was the odd tracklisting which doesn’t match the actual track order. Even though I have no documents to support this I think that the track listing on the sleeve is just a preliminary one that was the working sequencing during mixing and mastering. The proofs for the cover were approved and sent to printers and then the sequencing probably changed during mastering. At least that’s the only reasonable explanation I’ve been able to come up with.
The problem with Love Gun
When it came to planning the band and its management weren’t doing themselves any favors during 1976 and 1977. I get it, strike while the iron’s hot and all that, but they weren’t allowing much time for, well, anything really. The band had just started their short 1977 tour of Japan when Casablanca sent the advance money for the next album. There was a plan for the recording of the next album presented in early April but that was scrapped, probably because it didn’t really give the band any time off, and an alternative plan was devised. This later plan, outlined in a memo from May 12, had the band recording at Record Plant until May 25 and then 10 days of mixing at Electric Lady. The dates for mixing weren’t specified.
Based on meeting minutes from June 21 the recording of Love Gun went over budget by $19,968 (!) so I think we can assume that recording/mixing ran long. The total proposed budget from May 12—excluding Kramer’s producer’s fee but including $2,500 for the string section and a contingency of $6,800—was for $74,000. As per another memo Kramer was resonsible for the recording costs which came to $54,200. In the June 21 meeting minutes it was specifically noted that ”Kramer is responsible for these overages [the $19,968] […] However, the Partners [i.e. the band] decided that since he was not entirely to blame for this, they would split the sum on a 50/50 basis with him”. Based on the May 12 figures it cost $1,800 per day, excluding magnetic tape, to make use of Record Plant so they could easily have been there for a full week more than projected. Mixing at Electric Lady was debited at $125 per hour and since we now know that there was a string section recorded that they ultimately didn’t use, I think it’s not unreasonable to guess that they might have spent a day or so trying to make that work (and then putting in more time adjusting the mix once the strings were taken off).
I have a feeling that the sleeve track listing on Love Gun, which is just as interesting (and wrong) as the one on Rock And Roll Over, came about because recording ran long—thus going over budget—and they became pressed for time. The track list was an early, suggested sequencing that was used on the sleeve proofs and then the sequencing changed during mastering. (I also think this is why both Dynasty and Unmasked have alphabetical track listings on the sleeve, to avoid even the possibility of having the same problem. Listing the songs alphabetically at least made the weird track listing look as if it was planned!)
My insulation’s gone
So, the sleeve track listing for Love Gun doesn’t match the one on the center rings and now, depending on whether you buy my theory or not, we have some idea of why. With that preamble out of the way we can (re)turn to song durations. In the following I will be using duration and running time to mean two different things. Duration means the ”stated” song length, the song length that was printed either on the album sleeve or on the vinyl center ring. Running time means the actual song length, the one you can time when playing an album or single (or CD or mp3 or Spotify).
When I started looking into this more closely something about the analog age dawned on me: who timed a song’s running time to provide the duration for an album? The old-school tape counter I hope at least some of you remember only counted the revolutions of the reels (usually divided by two) so they didn’t indicate anything about the actual time elapsed. They were also accurate only as long as you played in real time, if you fast forwarded or rewound the tape, errors were introduced. There were reel-to-reel 1/4″ tape machines like the Studer Revox A700, introduced in 1973, that had real-time counters but they were all based on tape motion sensors so they only worked at specific playback speeds. (This would seem to imply that fast-forward or rewind would introduce errors on these as well.) Whatever the method was, somebody had to keep track of the running time of a song and note it somewhere, if only for the record company to be able to check that they were getting their money’s worth. In my mind’s eye I keep seeing some dude in the background with a stop watch…
Since this will be (mainly) about Shock Me, let’s have a look at that song and it’s single release companion Christine Sixteen. For the first US pressing of Love Gun in 1977 (NBLP 7057) the duration of Christine Sixteen was listed as 2:52 and Shock Me was 4:17. For fans like me who grew up in Europe in the 80s this looks preposterous. Looking at ”our” issues of Love Gun, say, a 1980 West German reissue (6399 063), the durations were 3:12 for Christine Sixteen and 3:47 for Shock Me. Did European audiences get more Christine Sixteen but less Shock Me than their American counterparts? Sadly, or thankfully, no. The actual running times are (approx.) 3:14 and 3:48 respectively on both releases.
(Quick note on vinyl rips. I use a bare-bones setup: the record player is an entry-level Denon DP29F and I run the output through a Behringer UCA202 interface. The files have been edited slightly, even the CD rips, so that there is about 100ms before the first audible part of the song and they end more or less at the last audible part of the song. No additional compression, EQ, or limiting has been applied so there is a distinct difference in perceived volume between the vinyl rips and the CD rips. And be forewarned, some of my 45s are a little worse for the wear and there is plenty of crackling in these rips. I should also note that when I started ripping these I noticed that my turntable ran fast, it was spinning at almost 35 rpm. I’ve adjusted that and according to my RPM app these rips are within 0,2% of the actual 33-1/3 and 45 rpm targets.)
The change in song duration printed on the center ring actually came about with the first European reissues in 1980. All issues I’ve seen from 1977 have the same track durations irrespective of where they were produced. (I should say that my vinyl collection is relatively limited so a lot of this information comes from Discogs.) After 1980 things get a little confused on the European mainland but most issues move to the 3:12/3:47 durations. The US though… there were strange things afoot. For the 1979 US reissue the song durations stayed the same, but they decided to mix things up and changed the song order. Plaster Caster was swapped out for Got Love For Sale on the A side and the B side was completely haywire, it ends with Love Gun. I don’t know if this center ring track listing is reflected in the actual grooves of the vinyl (I would guess not) but it really doesn’t look right.
For some completeness I should add that there were quite a few other durations for these two songs on various releases through the years. A Mexican 1981 issue of Love Gun (LPR-43053) had durations of 3:11 and 3:48 respectively while a 1985 US cassette (824 151-4) had them as 3:11 and 3:45. I have none of these releases available to me but I would bet that the actual running times on all of these were the same as for the original US release.
The first batch of CDs—which, as some may recall, were tied in to the release of eXposed—showed up in 1987. One might have hoped that things would get standardized when the digital age arrived but… The US release (824 151-2) had duration/running times of 3:12 and 3:47 respectively which, even though they are ever so slightly shorter than the original vinyl running times, is close enough. But the West German release (832 413-2) had 3:06 and 3:44. And since this was a digital medium those were the actual running times. The 1987 European CD version of Christine Sixteen actually was considerably shorter than the previous vinyl releases and the US CD release. It’s a litte weird wrinkle that I have no explanation for. I can’t even conjure a reasonable theory as to why that would be.
The current standard is the 1997 CD Remaster which gave the durations/running times 3:14 and 3:46. If you go to Spotify today and look at Love Gun those are the durations/running times you’ll find, Christine Sixteen is 3:14 and Shock Me is 3:46. Unless you happen to choose the Love Gun Deluxe Edition where you’ll find that Christine Sixteen is a measly 3:12. (I’ll leave it up to the reader to compare those two versions.)
I’m down to the bare wire
Now that everyone is suitably confused (and probably googling or checking Discogs), let’s make it worse, shall we? Shock Me was the B-side to Christine Sixteen, the first single release from Love Gun. As I detailed in a recent post we don’t really know the exact release date of this single. Suffice to say that John Swenson’s claimed release date of July 5 is almost impossibly late considering that the album itself was released on June 17. However, the June 1 date listed on Love Gun’s Wikipedia page (accessed 2022-08-29) doesn’t make much sense either. The single entered the US charts on July 16 and considering the amount of money and illicit substances that Casablanca representatives doled out to secure airplay of their singles—and the fact that KISS was nearing their commercial peak—there’s no chance that it would have taken the single 6 weeks to even chart.
But enough about that. There was a single released some time in 1977. It featured two songs. Anyone care to guess what durations were printed on the center ring? The US release (NB 889) exists with (at least) four different versions of the center ring. I will disregard the fact that there are both Casbah and Filworks center rings and focus on the fact that these both exist with two different durations. One has Christine Sixteen at 2:52 and Shock Me at 4:17—just like the US Love Gun pressing center ring—and the other has durations of 3:10 and 3:45 respectively. The photos below are of my copies of these editions. Alas, the actual running time of the songs, regardless of what the center ring says, is 3:12 for Christine Sixteeen and 3:44 for Shock Me. Shock Me fades just a tad earlier compared to the album version (and the fade feels more abrupt when it starts), but that’s it.
The Argentinian release (9099) which is listed on Discogs, and was sold to me, as a promo single, has the durations 2:52 and 4:17. Since this was supposedly a promo—even if I can’t see anything about that on the center ring—one might expect that this would actually have these running times in the grooves. But no, this release has the same actual running time as the audio examples above. (Though it’s hardly surprising, the adapted title for Shock Me completely misses the equivocality of the original but I kind of like it.)
The rest of the world mixed up the printed durations a little. France (45 CB 140290), Germany (BF 18550), and Sweden (7C 006-99467) all had the album durations of 2:52 and 4:17 on the center ring, as did the Australian release (NB-889). Spain skipped duration altogether on their release (11.445-A). The Japanese (VIP-2546/CAB-1032) didn’t have the duration printed on the center ring but on the back of the picture sleeve Christine Sixteen was 3:12 while Shock Me was 3:46. Rounding things out the Italian release (CA 504) had Christine Sixteen running 3:11 and Shock Me at 3:48 which mirrored the durations on the Canadian release (NB 889X). Fun, huh? I don’t have access to all of these but the German Bellaphon release and the French Vogue release, both of which had the durations 2:52/4:17 on the center ring, had actual running times of 3:11/3:45.
But the Shock Me shenanigans didn’t stop there. When Strutter ’78 was released as the single from Double Platinum Shock Me once again ended up on the B-side. The US issue (NB 928) noted that Shock Me was taken from Alive II (it was not) and the duration on the center ring was listed as 4:17 (it was not). The Australian release (NB-928) also had the song as taken from Alive II but had the duration 3:46, a running time that was also on the French issue (107-45 CB 157). The latter didn’t mention where the song was taken from. The Germans decided that they would go their own way so the Bellaphon release (BF 18603) had the duration of Shock Me as 3:43.
So how long was Shock Me on these releases? I can only speak for the original Casablanca (NB 928) and the French Vouge release (107-45 CB 157) but they were both 3:46.
So get me high?
As the reader might assume, this state of affairs would make one question whether there actually exist any version of Christine Sixteen and Shock Me where running times are 2:52 and 4:17 respectively. I personally own five (5) different single issues where the center ring claim those durations and not a single one of them actually has those running times. But there had to have been a reason for those durations on Love Gun and having those songs completed early for release as a single, presumably in some haste due to the recording sessions going over schedule, is the only explanation that makes any sense. And thankfully we have this…
This version is sourced from YouTube and although it’s not noted as being a single edit I can’t really see that it could be anything else. The quality is pretty rough and so are Ace’s ad libs during the additional half-minute at the end. The ”one more time, one more time” at about 4:00 is borderline OK, but the ”yeah, yeah” at 4:08 sounds like someone who doesn’t really want to be there. One gets the feeling that Kramer could have requested another take or two to get something better. (”Once more with feeling!”) It’s no wonder that they chose to edit this down to the 3:44 to 3:48 range.
So, this obviously means that there exist some copies of the Christine Sixten b/w Shock Me single where at least Shock Me has the ”correct” running time. I think it’s reasonable to expect that these copies also has the ”correct” 2:52 running time for Christine Sixteen but obviously I’ve yet to hear any version that actually does. For the more hard-core collectors this must be a pain in the ass. Not only is there (almost certainly) five or six versions of Casablanca NB 889, there is also no way to know that you’re buying a specific one—one where running times match the printed durations 2:52/4:17—unless you get to actually listen to it and verify those running times. But maybe that’s part of the allure of collecting, to possibly find something so elusive. Just like these minor details are the reason it’s so satisfying to ”research” the many twists and turns the band’s career has taken.
If anyone actually has a copy of the Christine Sixten b/w Shock Me single with the 2:52/4:17 running times I think it’s high time that there was a decent vinyl rip made.
Axeology Extended 
En reaktion till “Don’t pull the plug on me”