Hysteria was one of Mutt Lange’s 80s experiments in technology-driven control-freakery. The electronic drums were quantized, as was the synth bass. The rhythm section was practically synth-pop, no less than contempraries like Depeche Mode.

Then Mutt drilled the guitarists in how to play every single lick with cold precision, which he then treated with chorus effects… so it sounds a lot like a synth as well.

The vocals were also heavily comped (pieced together from multiple takes, sometimes even combining the individual syllables of words from different run throughs of a line.) The end result sounds as if it was Auto-Tuned, so a new reproduction may as well use Auto Tune.

Hysteria had such a slick, shiny, heavily produced sound, modern music technology will make it pretty easy to reproduce, with less effort.

I’ll roll the dice and check out the new Pyromania.  I think I’ll miss Mutt Lange’s production, but that CD was remastered so quiet, the new one might just be an improvement.

I’ll skip any of the newer material, though.

Those were solid.

Much less solid, indeed positively squishy in a revolting way, are the songs that the label Cleopatra releases, which are remakes of songs from the 1980s performed by the actual former lead singer(s) of bands such as Flock of Seagulls or Berlin or Missing Persons, but backed by the most generic session musicians you could imagine. Some theorize that these remakes – which sound more like the lead singer singing along to a bad Karaoke track – are made primarily to be sold for use as background music in tv shows and movies that need (but cannot afford) the original hits. However, Cleopatra also sells them as CDs and downloads to unsuspecting music fans with nary a warning that they are remakes.

;)

The thing I am not sure of is what constitutes a forgery? I mean someone could just take the original track and state at the beginning this is a forgery and since the original track was altered in an obvious way would that not count?

So, not a faithful copy then.

http://www.amazon.com/Pour-Some-Sugar-On-Me/dp/B008593MIU
It’s not terrible, but it is noticeably slower than the original.

They won’t be able to reproduce it exactly…  I do like Viv Campbell and I have seen him play live with them.

The other question, who is going to buy these new versions? Doesn’t everybody already have copies?  Well, you might not have Slang, but I do and it is good album.  It  didn’t sell well, so they might not remake it.

New Material would be cool too.

This makes me think of Devo, whenever somebody want to use “Whip It” in a commercial they just record a new version instead of not getting paid on the original.

He could fake a Picasso as well as anyone.