Part 149: And the award for most embarrassing goes to…Puff Daddy!

RECORD STORE TALES Part 149:

And the award for most embarrassing goes to…Puff Daddy!

The year:  1998

The place:  My store

The guilty party:  Me

Remember that shitty 1998 movie, Godzilla?  It’s OK if you didn’t.  There are movie executives and Matthew Brodericks worldwide that want to forget it, too.

The soundtrack was OK though.  “A320” is a non-album Foo Fighters track, and one of the first to feature Taylor Hawkins on drums.  “No Shelter” is a rare Rage Against The Machine track.  Ben Folds Five and Green Day contributed.  I’m sure most of these bands would rather forget the movie itself.

The lead single, though, was a song called “Come With Me”, by Puff Daddy.  You may remember this one, a remake of “Kashmir” but with ol’ Puffy himself providing new, enlightened lyrics.

Huh huh, yeah
Huh huh, yeah
Huh, huh huh, yeah
Huh, huh huh, yeah
Huh, huh huh, yeah
Huh, huh huh, yeah, yeah

Here’s one of the, um, better verses.

You said to trust you, you’d never hurt me
Now, I’m disgusted, since then adjusted
Certainly, you fooled me, ridiculed me
Left me hangin’, now shit’s boomerangin’

Anyway.  The song features Jimmy Page and Tom Morello too, which is really too bad, because that put it in my obsessive-compulsive collector’s sights.

Then I saw the CD single come in

Track list:

  1. Album version
  2. Morello Mix (cool, right? basically, more guitar squonk)
  3. Radio album version (?)
  4. Live version (???)

Live version?  Yeah.  Although I’m sad to say that Jimmy Page performed live with Puffy more than once, this one is from Saturday Night Live.  I don’t know who the drummer was, but he ain’t no Bonham (John or Jason), that much is clear.  Jimmy Page does play on it, but I really hate when mid-song, Puffy proclaims, “I think I wanna dance!”

I don’t remember what I paid for this single, probably $3 with my discount.  Forgivable?  I hope you think so.  But I have a lot of ‘splaining to do any time somebody sees it in my collection.

Then another different single showed up!  It has two more tracks:

  1. Extended radio edit
  2. Radio versi0n II

Don’t ask me the difference except the swear words are replaced by Godzilla roaring on the radio versions.  I ended up getting this one for free.  I turned down the guy who was selling it, because it did look like a cheap promo (no booklet, for example, and the crappy track list), but he left it behind.  And that’s how I ended up with two copies of a Puff Daddy single.

I like my CD collection to be displayed for all to see.  I’m (mostly) proud of it.  I ain’t so proud of this, even with the presence of Page and Morello.  It’s always hard to explain and justify to guests, who never fail to notice it.

Therefore, the award for most embarrassing CD of all time goes to ME, for “Come With Me”, by Puff Daddy, not one version but two!

55 comments

  1. Man, that Rage song was HOT! I love that track.

    Seriously, if this is the most embarrassing thing on your shelves, you’re fine. If I was ever to stand in front of your collection, and I saw that, I would probably just say “hey, cool!” I had that CD, back in the day.

    Also, really, what do you care about what other people think of your CD collection? You’re not buying CDs for THEM! They’re for you. I know you have a “rep to protect” as a rawker, but this is by no means a bad one to have. Says the guy who owns Rollins’ 1990 foray into weirdness and almost-rap called Wartime.

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    1. I dunno, I hate radio edits! Like the Darkness. “Get your hands off my woman mother mother”? I have some Motley Crue ones where they just put Vince’s voice on there backwards. Just awful.

      But honestly? Not that embarassing? Well, OK, I’ll take that, but I’ll ask you to qualify that with an actual example of embarassing!

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        2. Well I was wondering if I’d just imagined it! There is plenty of swearing on there as it is. I was sure there was something like “I’ve even f**ked a schoolgirl’s YEAH”! I’ll have to listen again tonight! Maybe it was Godzilla…

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        3. Listening to it right now. It doesn’t sound edited to me, just spur of the moment live improvisation…Animal sings “I’ve even f****d a schoolgirl…” and then James seems to scream. That’s my take.

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        5. What Metallica need to do now is issue all four shows in a physical format! None of this downloading crap. Gimme 8 CD’s and 4 DVD’s in one box set and I will happily pay $200.

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        11. I hope you’re right. Incidentally speaking of Zeppelin, I was browsing the Canadian Amazon site. One of the audiophile reviewers was complaining about the mix of the new Zeppelin album. He called it slightly better than bootleg quality. Sometimes I think these audiophiles are actually deaf.

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        13. Yep. And the funny thing was, he got all negative votes and added a disclaimer to his review, “I don’t know how anyone could defend this mix.” People are weird!

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        17. I actually saw some of the concert on TV last night. Just selections but it was good to get an idea what it’s like. It took them a while to find their feet, I thought, but some of it was great. I find it a bit hard to get all that worked up about Zep these days but if I was more into them I’d probably have thought it was amazing.

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        18. I think Zep were very, very wise in deciding not to do a full blown reunion tour. They could never meet anybody’s expectations. As it is, the concert they did ended up being a nice cap. We wanted it, we finally got it, and Jason deserved to sit in that seat. I don’t look it as groundbreaking, mindblowing, or any of those words. Just a nice gift to us who asked for it.

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        19. It was better than I expected. I’m almost tempted to buy it! But you’re right, it wasn’t worthy of any of the superlatives people are going to throw at it. Like Popoff! I thought he was a little over-enthusiastic.

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        20. In a way that’s what I like about Popoff. Whether I agree or disagree, he’s so passionate. He always makes me look back at something and say, “Did I miss something when I heard it the first time?”

          I think the proof in the pudding will be if Rich decides to take a crack at the Zeppelin catalogue in the new year!

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        21. I know what you mean. I don’t think he’s very good on live albums though. He tends not to like them at all. So I thought it was odd he rated this 9/10 but confessed to skipping songs because they were too long!

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        22. Good point. I am in semi-agreement with him on live albums. Most of them I can live without. But on the other hand, when you want a really good collection, many of them just hit the spot so much better than a hits collection, right? Like for example, put together a hits tape of the songs from Kiss Alive and see which version you prefer!

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        24. True. He seems to hate long meandering jams, and certainly most Purple albums have long meandering jams. I have the Aachen show (I think it was the Aachen show, anyway) and it’s two discs, 7 songs! Three songs are over 20 minutes long each.

          I don’t listen to live Purple very often myself, but Made In Japan is classic any way you slice it.

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        25. I actually rate quite a few live albums of theirs higher than Made In Japan (although it’s obviously great). The “On the Wings of a Russian Foxbat” album is superb. And I really love the Knebworth one… can’t remember what its called. Absence of Pink?

          I’ve got a few Dio-era Rainbow ones that are superb too. With jamming!

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        26. Yup that’s right. Absence of Pink was a great one, from the Perfect Strangers tour. Foxbat, that one had Tommy Bolin, didn’t it?

          A personal face is Live at the Olympia ’96. They had a horn section for some of that album which was a cool touch. Oh! And the Concerto — the original Concerto — is amazing.

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        27. I sold my copy of Olympia which I really regret as I think I’d get more out of it now than I did then. It was pricey here too! Oh, and the Cal Jam show is INCREDIBLE.

          Foxbat is Bolin at his very best. “This Time Around” had it’s moments too. I think I probably listen to more Purple live albums than studio now to be honest!

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        28. The live version of Gettin’ Tighter on Foxbat is absolutely incredible. I prefer This Time Around as a whole. The MK III Final Concerts is also great, and so is the recent Live At Montreaux with Don Airey.

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        31. Well, Last Concert in Japan was supposed to be bad (although did some of that not end up on This Time Around or was it a different night?)

          I remember one called… Nobodys Perfect (fact check required on that though)? It wasn’t very good.

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        32. Wasn’t very good…for Deep Purple. For anybody else, it was above average though.

          I liked Last Concert, I know it has a bad rep, but I still enjoyed it blindly. Same with Nobody’s Perfect. I think Purple have set extremely high standards and expectations.

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        33. Very true! Any time I listen to a DP live album I expect brilliance and anything less seems disappointing. But I’m sure there misses are most other bands hits. You definitely have to put these things in perspective. Nobodys Perfect wasn’t bad by any means, more just uninspired.

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        34. And I actually really liked that new version of Hush on that album. Gillan’s biggest criticism was that they weren’t adventurous enough at the time in setlists.

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        36. LOL I’d forgot that was the post we were talking about! I’ve not seen that movie. I love when comments threads go off-topic. Like your Maiden one where we discussed that time you shat yourself. I can’t get over that. Hahahah

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        40. Yeah, well an animation of him anyway! He didn’t do the voice. He was playing some concert but is so old he just got wheeled out on a wheelchair and could only say “poopypants” or it might have been “poopmypants”. Not sure. It was funny anyway.

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        41. Seriously! I haven’t watched that show in years. Missed that.

          If Rod ever makes another rock album I’d be thrilled, but this stuff he does now is not interesting to me in the least. The last rock album he did was When We Were the New Boys, I think? Not a bad album at all.

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        42. I’ve not really followed his career in any great detail. I’d be interested if he did something with The Faces again but he doesn’t seem interested. I did seem him live about 10 years ago(!) and he was pretty good. Did some good rock stuff I wouldn’t have expected.

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        43. At least you saw him live, isn’t that kind of like your civic duty? Anyway I’m glad he played some rock stuff, because now Rod is firming into the grandma/grandpa music and I won’t be buying any of it.

          Oh and I also seem to remember an album a few years back when he tried to modernize and bring in electronic influences. I never bought that one either!

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