I've mentioned this before and i'll bring it up again as it seems to be getting worse. It only seems to happen on the Network hours.

Listening to Heart (on FM) for a couple of hours yesterday, I was amazed at the amount of hacking of songs that seems to be taking place, more-so than ever before.,

I shall give an example, yesterday I heard Toto's Africa, now the version that Heart played had the Album version intro removed (the build up to the first bar) which is OK, but noticing that huge chunks of the 4 minute song had been removed, they still insisted on fading the track out at a stupid point, 3 quarters of the way through the song - crashing into a 'This is Heart' ident into the next track.

This seems to be common place with so many songs they play, examples include - We Built This City by Starship, any of Madonna's 80's stuff; including Crazy for You, infact many songs prior to 1996 seem to have either had chunks of the song taken out, or had a segue marker placed to run into the next track at either a silly position, 3 quarters of the way through the track, or before the natural fade point.

I can understand, maybe in the last 10 minutes on the build up to the TOTH to maybe cut one song short to go into the news, but it seems to happen on an all to frequent basis thoughout the hour.

While I was having my hair cut today, the Hairdressers I went in had Heart on, the girl cutting my hair said after hearing a track - 'I love that song, but they cut it off at the end all the time'. When I asked if she noticed this regularly, she said 'Yes - it annoys the heck outta' me'.

This is NOT a Heart bashing thread, just to point out that someone in the scheduling department at Heart either needs to sort the segue markers out on the playout system or needs to schedule a song or two less each hour to stop this from happening as people are noticing and it annoys them!

You are correct that the front and end of Africa has been edited. It has a shorter intro (15 seconds instead of 31 seconds) and the NTP is set to kick in after the final set of vocals which removes the final 45 seconds of instrumental tail.

Thanks for the reply smart programmer.

But it doesn't explain the other silly-segueing going on.

I don't listen to Heart anymore, but it does annoy me when stations cut songs off before they end or start them just before the vocals.

Why can't stations appreciate the record and play the whole thing from start until the fade, all the way through.

I heard a song on the radio some months ago, I found the same song on a CD and didn't realise the song had an extra 20 seconds on the end of the track that was faded out by the presenter.

Song hacking on Heart isn't a new thing. I remember back when it was just Heart 100.7 and Heart 106.2 and song hacking even happened back then (i.e. ten years ago)!

So are we suggesting Heart are hacking the version themselves or are these just playing the radio edit from the record companies?

Capital and kiss NEVER play any song to its full radio edit! They always shorten every song.

Song hacking on the radio isn't a new thing full stop. Most music stations have had altered versions of some songs, it's not even unique to commercial radio.

Sometimes stations play a radio edit, sometimes they make an edit themselves.

The Heart version of Black Eye Peas "where is the love" is the ultimate hacked song! Just shocking!

But the examples above are retro-edits of songs for which there was never previously an edited version issued.

I believe Heart must make Edits themselves. The versions they play of a number of songs are not commercial popular Radio Edits full stop.

I'll give an example, the version that Heart play of 'We Built this City' by Starship. There are 2 versions of this track, one which was a 'Radio' version lasting about 4:30 (with the 'we built this city, we built this city on rock and roll' missing from the beginning and going into the first bar of the song and misses the radio presenter in the middle saying 'sitting listening to the radio by the bay'), the 5:00 version, has those bits in.

What Heart seem to do is play the 5:00 version and hack the end by about 50 seconds, with a silly early fade - rather than play the 'Radio version' at 4:30 - which would never have to be faded early and could play properly.

I can understand stations editing songs to take out some rap in a song, but that's about it really.

Why shorten Toto-Africa. It's not overly long anyway. Just over 4 mins maybe..off the top of my head. I don't see any advantage in chopping it.It's obviously passed all the music testing nonsense if Heart air it, so "people love it" & then parts of the song are missing.

There are some dreadful record company and cd edits as well though. There is one of 10cc i'm not in love that R2 play sometimes & the single edit of Billy Joel-My life has a bad edit in it.

Likewise if a song has a stupidly long into like Livin on a Prayer, Like a Prayer, the River of Dreams, Echo Beach etc have, that seem to take ages to build up to the first 'bar'.

Yeah, it can sometimes help the flow to make You give love a bad name start where the drums kick in & the beginnings of River of Dreams & Echo beach are a bit quiet unless you're talking over them

But i've never been a fan of hacking bits out of songs for other reasons.

The version of 'We Built this City' you hear on Heart is 4'28. It hasn't been "hacked" or edited. However, as the song has a sloooow fade for 20 seconds, the NTP has been brought forward to 4.28. Nothing much happens in the song for the final slow fade of 20 seconds anyway.

I'm sure you mean "Livin on a Prayer", You give love a bad name has a vocal start.

Well then its clearly not a convential release of the song. The Heartified version has the vocals on the beginning and the radio voice half way through, so its not one of the 2 record-company release versions in existence. It's the 5 minute version which has been abridged at the end, i.e. got a fade where there shouldn't be one.

Seems logical to put in the correct 4:30 'radio' version. This is the version i'm talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlR8Mj1IKpo&noredirect=1

Yeah sorry of course i did mean Livin' on a prayer

There is no 5 minute version though. The song starts to fade at 4.30 and by 4.46 it's gone.

Maybe we should start a new thread "Why does Chris Evans and Steve Wright continuously talk all over the final 1 minute of songs.........."

This morning Chris played 3'09 of Walking on the Moon which has a duration of 4'42. That was followed by 'Skin Deep' by The Stranglers in which he fader wanked and talked over the song for 1'13......

Come on, don't start altering the subject, this thread is about Heart cutting songs short- not Radio 2, start a separate thread if you wish to discuss that subject.

Can I just say, both songs you've mentioned aren't even playlisted on Heart anyway.

BTW this is correct 4:30 radio version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlR8Mj1IKpo&noredirect=1

Edit: There does appear to be another 'Promo Radio Version' which fades 32s earlier than it should do - maybe Heart play that one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1jBHtzvYpI

I can't stand the Heart version of Poker Face. They not only remove the 'rap' (and I use that in the loosest term) in the final verse, but also the 'Po-po-ker-face, Po-po-po-ker-face' hook - which is the most memorable part of the song.

That isn't the correct radio version. That was an alternative version sent out to stations in the US to feature their own local presenter talk in the middle.

I've heard that version on most ILR stations in the UK... would seem to be the common place radio version.

Every station I have worked at and pretty much every station I've listened to plays the version with the jock insert and the cold intro.

...and I bet plays it to the natural fade point too.

Theres only one 'Heart' version of a song I quite like, thats Cee Lo Green's Forget You, which has the 'Shhhh' and another piece taken out at periods in the song.