A few posts back I looked at Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Here To Go’ UK CD single and dwelt upon the fact that the singles from the parent album which that single and the one in today’s posts hail from, ‘Code’, remain largely unavailable digitally. In the case of today’s featured 12″ release, ‘Don’t Argue’, only the A side ‘Dance’ mix got a re-release, as part of 2001’s ‘Remixed’ compilation CD on EMI.
This release was the ‘second’ 12″ issue of ‘Don’t Argue’. That staggered multi-release approach was very much a product from that time in ’80s when the fashions made it near obligatory to release a second 12″ (sometimes a third, or even more!) a week or two after the ‘first’ 12″, often with a different mix or B sides or the like. In this case, two new mixes to join the two mixes already issued on the initial 12″ (the ‘Extended Version’ and ‘Hate & Destroy’ mixes of ‘Don’t Argue’). Don’t forget that there was a 7″ single release too, which contained the 7″ single mix and the ‘Who’s Arguing’ mixes of ‘Don’t Argue’. So, spread across 2 x 12″ and 1 x 7″ formats, there are six mixes of ‘Don’t Argue’ to be had – and they all differ from the album version. Of these six single release mixes, only two of them have appeared on CD releases – as noted above on ‘Remixed’ for the ‘Dance’ mix and also of note the ‘Extended Version’ of ‘Don’t Argue’ can be found on the 2001 compilation CD ‘Cabaret Voltaire – The Original Sound Of Sheffield ’83 / ’87. Best Of;’, where it is listed with the slightly different title of ‘Don’t Argue (John Robie Extended Version)’.
While the first 12″ (and 7″) had featured John Robie on remix duties, this second 12″ release features mixes by Adrian Sherwood on both sides. As the mix title may hint at, these mixes take the familiar components of the previous 7”/12” mixes, – including the somewhat controversial at the time female backing vocals, which are completely absent from the album mix – and stitch in some rhythmical intricacies that you could easily argue have more than a hint of the style of Kraftwerk to them. The A side largely follows the same basic pattern and elements as the album and previous 12” mixes as far as the Stephen Mallinder vocals and documentary samples go but gets to the rhythmical jugular a lot faster and stays there for the duration. It also drops Bill Nelson’s guitar lines too, which the earlier mixes had retained. The ‘Dub’ mix as you might expect drops Mallinder’s vocals entirely though does retain the female vocals and documentary samples and gets a lot more playful and focused with the rhythmical scaffold and bass sequencer especially.
As it happens, there has previously been a digital release of ‘Don’t Argue’ via iTunes back in 2009. This featured the 7″ Version, ‘Dub Version’, ‘Hate & Destroy Mix’ and ‘Who’s Arguing’ mixes of ‘Don’t Argue’. At some point though it looks to have been withdrawn from sale and is no longer available.
