It seems my two favorite Ministry albums suffer from terrible track placement. Not that it hurts the albums. Just look at LORAH, it opens up with Stigmata, It’d be better to have Stigmata as a closer or somewhere in the back and just mix it up. All the electronic stuff is pushed to the back and there’s 3 instrumentals in a row. Mind also ends on two instrumentals and the best track on the album Burning Inside would be nice as the third track, kinda like in a baseball lineup, put your best hitter 3rd.
I actually like the tracklist for LORAH, pretty straight shot. Mind is kind of all over the place, but it’s all good though.
I’ve always tinkered with alternative track sequences for Ministry albums. It can be fun with the good albums. LORAH might seem a bit segregated in that the first 3 are the heavy hitters with all the energy then we get 3 instrumentals and the more electronic tracks round out the album. But if you mix them up I think you might have to sacrifice one or two tracks (which would be an evil thing to do as all tracks are worthy)I can’t see ‘Abortive’ in any position other than last. Also if you de-segregate them it affects the strength of the intrumental tracks, ie. if they stood alone as opposed to being together. If I was to change the order of LORAH for the sake of it I’d go with:
Deity
The Missing
Flashback
Hizbollah
You Know What You Are
Destruction
The Land of Rape and Honey
I Prefer
Golden Dawn (an extended version with more guitar solos, kind of in the vein of ‘Get Down’ on BS&Q)
I’d go with this running order mainly to have an album begin and end with the two greatest Ministry songs of all time.
‘Stigmata’ and ‘Abortive’ I’d move to an EP with the two 1,000 Homo DJ’s tracks that were cut from LORAH.
As for ‘The Mind…’ well, I’m not as interested in that but I certainly would cut ‘Test’. Also I don’t see how ‘Grace’ could be anywhere but the last song or else cut it… which of course would be just plain evil.
EDIT: Of course ‘Dream Song’ rounds out ‘The Mind…’ not ‘Grace’. My Freudian faux pas for the day.
i also wondered for awhile why lorah has 3 “gtr” tracks and then all “electronic” stuff. but i got used to that order so much, even vinyl version (same track order but 2 tracks omitted) feels kinda weird.
same goes for mind. although i still dont know if “dream song” is a proper bonus cd track or it just didnt fit on vinyl (same story as lorah extra tracks or not).
as for supposed homodjs cuts from lorah, they sound too different from the rape and honey album. i dunno how would you fit that.
i made a nice lorah version for myself (car or portable player) which is pretty simple though - same basic tracklist, stuck tonight we murder in the middle, and stigmata remix goes very last. on mind, you could just use 12’’ versions for that i guess.
you can get all crazy on the twitch though!! having all those 12’’ singles, some twitched bootleg track versions, stuff from ealy trax, etc. you can basically make three different “twitch” albums (one standard lp version and two alternate versions from other tracks), each 42-45 mins long. pretty cool.
LOR&H is perfect as is.
I agree that Mind’s tracklist is a bit off. I’d probably leave it the same, but switch out “Thieves” and “Burning Inside” with their single versions, and stick “Burning Inside” after “Test.” Bam. Perfect record.
It’d be hard to cut any track off lorah, if I had to, Destruction would have to go. The thing about lorah is it seems to be missing a balanced track, its all guitar one half and the other half is all electronic with little or no guitar. A nice 50/50 electronic/guitar piece would fit perfectly in there somewhere.
Repeating myself here from past similar threads…I always felt the 12" version of Stigmata should’ve been on the LP, but my introduction to that song was the video on 120 Minutes. I always loved the extended intro, added percussion (pipe hits towards the end), and that version actually ENDS. I felt jipped when I bought the CD, and the song was shorter, and faded out. I always have had LORAH and Mind on CD format, so the bonus tracks were just a part of those albums to me. It was more like a treat back then to get extra tracks on a CD, and I never fussed about the flow of the album being disrupted. These days, I find most remixes are crappy (see: newer New Order), so getting a mix as a bonus track isn’t such a treat anymore.
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LOR&H is perfect as is.
I agree that Mind’s tracklist is a bit off. I’d probably leave it the same, but switch out “Thieves” and “Burning Inside” with their single versions, and stick “Burning Inside” after “Test.” Bam. Perfect record.
It’s been a year since I read Connelly’s book, but I believe he mentioned that “Never Believe” was originally going to be a Zoo Disco song, and I do like the song, but it just wanders aimlessly for 5 minutes. I think “Test” would’ve best been served as an instrumental, or as a RevCo song.
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I had LORAH originally on cassette, and noticed immediately that the first side was all guitar oriented while the second side was more electronic. So for awhile I was used to that track listing without Hizbollah and I Prefer. To this day I still think of them as the “extra” tracks.
Mind is sorta the same for me in that it loses a bit of steam by the end and uses all the heavy hitters up front. Although I do think Dream Song is one of the best compositions they ever did, I would have loved an entire album of stuff like that as a side project. If I remember correctly they played Dream Song over the PA right before taking the stage on the Mind tour.
Bands often front-load albums with their best (or at least most accessible songs) because they want to hook in reviewers and radio programmers right away. Notice that most of Ministry’s singles, with a few exceptions (Lay Lady Lay, The Fall) are from the beginnings of their respective albums.
It’s been a year since I read Connelly’s book, but I believe he mentioned that “Never Believe” was originally going to be a Zoo Disco song, and I do like the song, but it just wanders aimlessly for 5 minutes. I think “Test” would’ve best been served as an instrumental, or as a RevCo song.
Never Believe has a cool beat, but the lyrics are rather silly.
Test would have been better as a 2 Live Crew track.
Ideal tracklisting for The Mind:
Thieves
No Shadow
Wound
Cannibal Song
Room On Fire
Tyrant
Horse
Faith Collapsing
Dream Song
Some of those song names I just made up. Try and guess which ones.
I bet you can’t.
CORRECTION: LOR&H could definitely benefit from switching out the opening track with the single version.
Failing that, the album’s still gold.