Visitors - Do You Wana Play - An analysis of the versions

VISITORS - DO YOU WANNA PLAY
An analysis of the versions

A friend of mine, who prefers to call himself Johnny Delusional, has done some extensive analysis of the different versions of Do You Wanna Play as follows:

Album version (June 1987) - For comparison purposes this has been designated the master version (note that there is no definitive reliable time for the album version, as where you decide that Don't Call For My Love stops and Do You Wanna Play is entirely guesswork by whomever is doing the mastering from the original tapes where the two tracks play as one long continuous track, but I'd say that the Feb 87 single version of 3.40 is more accurate than the suggested 3.37 stated on the album)

August 1986 7" single version (3.26) - This shorter version starts exactly the same way as the Feb 87 version but just fades 14 seconds earlier, and should be called the "original mix" as it has quite a few notable differences to the album version as follows:
9.5 seconds - a loud electric guitar chord (not on either of the other versions)
19-21 seconds - far more pronounced drum beats26-27 seconds - far more pronounced piano chords
1 min 1 second - 1 min 6 seconds - a much quieter electric guitar deep note but instead a synthesised "wolf howl" (not on either of the other versions)
1 min 31 seconds to 1.33 seconds (repeated at 2:42 - 2.44) - two short guitar riffs are missing
2 mins 08 seconds - 2 mins 10 seconds - additional drum beats
2 mins 31 seconds - 2 mins 33 seconds - less pronounced backing vocals
3 mins 04 seconds - 3 mins 07 seconds - a short saxaphone riff is completely missing
3 mins 08 seconds - 3 mins 19 seconds - underlying guitar is completely missing

August 1986 7" instrumental version (3.26) - All the same observations from the vocal version apply with the exception of the one about the 3:08 sax riff which was mixed out of the vocal version so as not to compete with the vocals which are present at this point - curiously this was restored on the Feb 87 vocal mix). Also note that a shorter version can be found here on You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHQ6ZFDz_8 but this version is incomplete as it misses out the first seven seconds and fades out eleven seconds early. In theory it could be an edit but I can find no evidence to back up the poster's claims that it was a bonus track on some versions of Attention.....certainly not on Discogs anyway.

February 1987 12" Extended UK Mix) (8.09) - This is a full blown standalone remix (which you can quickly tell just from the different instrumentation in the opening sequence) by Mark Dearnley, but the word "Extended" is ambiguous as you will shortly see! Does it mean that it's an Extended version of a shorter UK mix, or just (as is often the case with 12" remixes) acknowledging that's a far longer version than that found on the album?

February 1987 7" UK mix (3.40) - The only difference between this and the album version is that this mix fades in the intro, so why is it called "UK mix" when it bears no relation at all to the 12" mix of that name, and why does Mark Dearnley also gets a mixing credit for this 7" single when (apart from the fade-in) it's exactly the same as the album mix. Out of curiosity I Googled him and the first entry was this Discogs one https://www.discogs.com/artist/241338-Mark-Dearnley, and as you can see he is a producer and engineer at Roundhouse Studios. My first observation is that his production career only started in 1984, and that out of 304 credits, only 10 of them were for remixes. So quickly we establish that when he did the Visitors remix it was early in his career, that remixing was not his main job, and also that the Do You Wanna Play 12" was only his second ever remix. When Mark was asked to create a UK mix for Virgin they would have given him the album master tapes, and when he listened to the track he would have discovered that it wasn't a standalone one, but a continuation of Don't Call For My Love with a merged fade out / fade in. So whilst he would have spent many hours creating the Extended version, it would have taken him less than a minute do the 7" one. All he had to do was to find the point where the the dwindling notes of Don't Call For My Love ceased and then fade it in from that point. Technically I wouldn't call that mixing (because as far as I can tell he did nothing else at all to the rest of it) as much as editing, but that minute of work earned him the credit on the 7" too! But to return to an earlier question, why is it incorrectly designated as a "UK mix" when it's just a faded in album version? If there was a true 7" UK mix then it would sound similar to the 12" mix, but it doesn't, so I see two possibilities. Either the 12" version was what Mark created and Extended just means that it's simply longer than the album version and so no shorter version of the UK mix actually exists (meaning that it was simply mis-labelled on the record by someone who presumed it was based on the 12" version) OR the intended 7" UK mix remains unreleased and this fade in of the album version was put in its place by mistake. I have no view as to which is the reality as both scenarios are equally plausible. What this release does confirm though is that the album version of Do You Wanna Play (and by definition Don't Call For My Love) was already completed at least four months in advance of the album's release, and my belief remains that the album was virtually completed by October 1986 when the All Of Your Attention single was released. Note that the Aug 86 and Feb 87 versions are not different takes or recordings (the main instrumentation and vocals are identical), but it's clear to me that during that six month period additional elements were added as well as some bits being omitted completely.

1989 7" UK mix variation (3.37) [on "SO FAR" compilation 1989] Even though we have still to determine whether a 7" version of the UK mix actually exists or not, there exists another slightly modified version which turned up here two years later https://www.discogs.com/release/2514454-Visitors-So-Far. It's exactly the same as the above 3.40 "album edit" but fades in three seconds later. Technically that makes it another unique version, and also backs up my suspicion that either a 7" version of the UK mix either does not exist or remains unreleased by mistake. Quite why the 3.37 duration has been omitted from the Discogs description is yet another little associated mystery!

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