Rounding out May’s posts is the standard UK 7” issue of New Order’s first single release of 1985, ‘The Perfect Kiss’.
On first sight, and in comparison to many other New Order singles of the ‘80s in particular, it looks quite uninspiring and bland, taking minimalism all the way by being packaged in a high gloss plain black card sleeve, with minimal silver print typography on plain black labels. In the grooves though we find two edits that are unique to only this 7” single and which have never found there way on to any later CD releases.
^ New Order – The Perfect Kiss UK 7″ front sleeve and label design.
Side one features a 3’50” edit of ‘The Perfect Kiss’ unique to this 7”. Warners had a couple of attempts to get their ‘Singles’ compilation to actually feature the versions as used on the singles themselves instead of album versions. Took a while! – that compilation first appeared in 2005 – it was the version released in 2016 that finally fixed things. But it was the 4’23” edit of ‘The Perfect Kiss’ that was used on that remastered compilation, not the edit from this single. To be fair, as you’ll see further down the page, that 4’23” edit found on that compilation was the most commonly used edit on 7” singles from other territories.
^ New Order – The Perfect Kiss UK 7″ rear sleeve and label design.
Meanwhile, side two features ‘The Kiss of Death’, which turns out to be a different mix of the A side under a whole new name. This edit clocks in at around 3 minutes here, again unique. Some US copies on 12” had an extra sticker added to the rear cover which described ‘The Kiss of Death’ with an additional subtitle of ‘Dub Version’ (and the short, extra track ‘Perfect Pit’ as ‘Dub Beats’).
^ New Order – The Perfect Kiss UK 7″ label side 1.
There was also promo-only UK 7” issued as well and that featured different mixes, with the standard album mix of ‘The Perfect Kiss’ featured on side one (4’ 50” approx.) and ‘The Kiss of Death’ at a longer 5’09” mix (though still a couple of minutes shorter than its equivalent version on the 12”, which spreads out to a duration of 7 minutes.
^ New Order – The Perfect Kiss UK 7″ label side 2.
Other territories also issued ‘The Perfect Kiss’ on 7”, some in differing picture sleeves modelled after the LP sleeves portraiture, such as the Belgian Factory Benelux editions. The US and Canadian 7” issues had a plainer sleeve design. All of these issues had similar edits with ‘The Perfect Kiss’ at 4’23” duration and the 5’09” take of the b Sid, which varied in title – the Belgian singles titled it ‘The Perfect Dub’, while the US and Canadian singles titled it ‘The Perfect Kiss (Instrumental)’.
I have never come across a copy as yet, but there is an interesting US 12” promo (Qwest, PRO-A-2342) that features the 4’23” edit that was used in most other 7” releases on the A side while featuring the version of the track that was featured in the Jonathan Demme produced promo video for the song.
