Excellent Mark picchiotti Remix

I'm a long time fan of MARK PICCHIOTTI and I haven't been dissapointed with his guitar mix of "Freedom", a flamenco party club track with more beats, guitar and additional vocals. Very good work. The "J.C's freedom of flight mix" is quite good but nothing spectacular. The Motiv 8 remix is very poor and boring, But is it truly a remix? Just faster beats....the original album version is one hundred times better.Just a bad remix from bad remixers. 4 stars for Mark!

great song, lousy cd single

Well, here it is, the lead single from the Erasure album that bombed badly. I have to confess that I hadn't heard Freedom prior to the Hits! DVD release, and I found it to be a very uplifting, pleasant song. I especially love when Andy sings, "You've got to believe."

However, as a CD single, this one is a dud. First off, it is a slimline-package import, which follows that horrible U.K. practice of making fans spend more money by releasing two cd singles of the same song, one with a b-side, and the other with remixes. I read that this practice is no longer allowed, which is good!

Being the Part 1 release, this CD single is short- the ENTIRE CD clocks in at just under 10 minutes, for three tracks!

The b-side, Better, does NOT rank among the greatest Erasure has released. I thought is was pretty boring, with Andy's drowned-out, treated vocals. Now, if you want to listen to some truly great b-sides, listen to High NRG (from Fingers & Thumbs), Dreamlike State (from Star), Somewhere Over the Rainbow (from Chorus), or Waiting for Sex (from Breath of Life).

Finally, the "acoustic" version of Freedom is anything but that. Instead of just a guitar-laden background, there are any number of electronic bleeps, blips, and cadences laid under and over the track. In other words, it's just a stripped-down remix, NOT an acoustic version, which would have been much Better (sic).

Anyhow, all these grumbles don't change my opinion of Freedom, which has been an unjustly neglected single.

Heaven Has Come

As a fantastic musical group, Erasure has brought joy and happiness to me. Clarke and Bell, having astutely succeeded in producing another fabulous album of great admiration and stature, they continue to enlight euphonically the ears and minds of many fans. Continue your enthusiastic and exemplary musical work!