I'm not sure about the rules of submitting something like this to Hacker News, but I found it to be a fascinating quirk at the intersection of culture and technology. I didn't even know about it (the radio edit) when I started researching this song for my website. The gist is below.
The Knack's 1979 breakout hit My Sharona is remembered for spending six weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, but that radio edit is woefully incomplete. Lead guitarist Berton Averre’s full-length My Sharona solo is absolutely transcendent. Which makes it all the more ridiculous that it was cut for time on the radio release.
ChrisMarshallNY•2h ago
Tons of songs were cut. It's still typical to have "radio edits" of songs.
When the tech came out, that allowed the tempo to be increased, without changing the pitch, a lot of songs suddenly got faster.
In radio, every second counts, and there will be a lot of fighting for tenths of a second. Sort of like top-shelf track and field athletes.
The prose in that story is a bit ... intense.
jdalgetty•2h ago
I'm too young to know the radio version but I've definitely enjoyed the solo for many years listening to the mp3 version.
bitwize•2h ago
Fun fact: Sharona Alperin, now a realtor, uses her status as the subject of this song to market her real estate business. https://mysharona.com
ChrisMarshallNY•2h ago
Sorry you got dinged. That was a fascinating fact. Thanks for sharing it!
alsetmusic•2h ago
The Beatles never sat on the stereo mixes for any of their songs because the radio of the time was AM / mono. All the stereo mixes were done by their producer / sound engineers / possibly others without their input. Not that they were cut out or anything; they just didn't care.
ribfeasty•1h ago
The Beatles (especially John) also hated the tedium of re-recording vocals to layer them, as is common in audio production to improve the impact of vocals in recordings.
Their engineer ended up coming up with a technical approach we call ADT (Automatic double-tracking) to artificially duplicate and layer the vocals without requiring the artist(s) to re-record vocals.
ChrisMarshallNY•2h ago
The worst, for me, was watching a Gary Clark Jr live recording (I think it was When My Train Pulls In) on YouTube. He had a long solo, and, right in the middle of it, a damn Cialis ad pops in.
wmeredith•6h ago
The Knack's 1979 breakout hit My Sharona is remembered for spending six weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, but that radio edit is woefully incomplete. Lead guitarist Berton Averre’s full-length My Sharona solo is absolutely transcendent. Which makes it all the more ridiculous that it was cut for time on the radio release.
ChrisMarshallNY•2h ago
When the tech came out, that allowed the tempo to be increased, without changing the pitch, a lot of songs suddenly got faster.
In radio, every second counts, and there will be a lot of fighting for tenths of a second. Sort of like top-shelf track and field athletes.
The prose in that story is a bit ... intense.