I just now realized that the song is not the original song. Oh, it’s Roger Daltry alright, but it ain’t the real McCoy. Did Roger and Pete have to re-record it due to some copyright obligations, or what?
How do you know it is not the original? Often they remix songs for TV and advertising due to time constraints.
It is not the original song. Bob Pridden, sound man for The Who since the early days, did the remixes for the CSI theme songs.
Dunno. I’ve heard the song 3 X 10^6 times in my life, and it didn’t sound like the original. Roger sounded more … strained. I was just wondering if anyone knew if they, in fact, re-recorded it and why?
The Who have performed that song a zillion times, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to find several variations in the vault.
Townshend caught some flak about selling Who songs to advertizers a few years ago. He said, essentially, “Look, there’s no radio format where we can get airtime anymore. Ads are the only contact we can have with the people. If you don’t like it, that’s too bad.”
Huh? The Who gets played on local classic rock stations like Q104.3 all the damn time. He may have said that, but I doubt it’s true at all.
FWIW the first three seasons used a different version of the song. The intro wasn’t as long and we heard more of the lyrics. I think I heard Daltry rerecorded the song, but I could be wrong on that.
I speculate that the question is did they just remix it, or did they re-record the song.
Indeed. That would be the question.
My only cite is a conversation with a fan after a show. Ben Pump said that he had done the remixes and that he was proud of his work.
He probably meant it’s harder to get any new cuts played. John Mellencamp had a similar complaint when he licensed his song “Our Country” to be played in Chevrolet ads. The Who may get their older songs played on classic radio all the time, but are there any stations playing their 2006 album, Endless Wire? Or the Eagles’ Long Road Out of Eden? And stations are more likely to play Born in the U.S.A. than Springsteen’s latest album, Magic. At least in my area.
But the CSI themes and any Who tracks used on ads aren’t likely to be new Who songs either. I think what Townshend may have meant was that the selling of songs for ads gave them wider exposure. Being played on classic rock stations is like preaching to the converted but being used on a frequently rotated advert gets your music heard by a larger demographic, some of whom might go out and track down ‘that song from that ad’.
OB
He shouldn’t be proud of the CSI:NY one. I just happened to catch the top of the show last night (I don’t normally watch it, so I can’t speak to anything but last night’s airing), and it features the worst cut I’ve ever heard at the very end of the opening credits. It sounds like he opened the mp3 in Goldwave and just snipped out 3 minutes of song to get to the final chord.
Totally amateur.