In case you haven't noticed from this series, as a teen, I never met a single that I didn't like to see extended, and Big Audio Dynamite were true artists at stretching it out. I have a few twelve-inchers from these fellas, but I'm going with the extended version of "The Bottom Line" today because in the comments section of Adam's post the Swede mentioned it would make his imaginary compilation. Right with you, brother. I'm including the B-side of the 12" as well. For the longest time I had mistakenly thought "BAD" had been released as a single in its own right, but I think that was because it got quite a bit of airplay due to its inclusion in 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.' At any rate, both sides of this one are worth a listen... and just shy of a whopping 16 minutes in all!
"The Bottom Line"
"BAD"
6 comments:
I've always thought The Bottom Line was the sound The Clash should have ventured towards. The bones of great Clash music is there in this song and Mick Jones had to have been aware of this when he was creating This Is Big Audio Dynamite. But Mick took his new forced freedom to expand the scope of his music with BAD.
I never thought of the 12" of 'Bottom Line' as being an extended version, in the same way that so many singles of the period were artificially stretched. To my mind, this is the full version of the song and the 7" & LP versions are merely edits. I could never understand why the full length version wasn't re-instated onto the CD issue of 'This is Big Audio Dynamite'.
Hmmm. Wasn't expecting this..... I like it! And I like the extended mix. Builds on a familiar sound and plays with it. That concept doesn't always work, but with BAD it certainly does. One has to wonder what the next Clash album would have been like with Mick going in this direction and Joe Strummer going all flamenco & outlaw. Hmmmmmm. Something to dream. Damn. I LOVE the Clash.
Swede, I think your description of the song is a more apt one. It is the album version but twice as long. I don't believe the term "extended" is used anywhere on this single. At any rate, I'll take 8:40 of the song over 4:39 that we got on the album every time.
Echorich and Kevinpat, We can't help but wonder where the Clash would have gone next, but for the most part I did enjoy where both camps went.
Thanks Brian. And I don't think of the longer version of The Bottom Line as extended either. Just right.
That was me btw.
Swiss Adam
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