THE RETURN OF THE B-SIDE

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

We live in an age in which art is often a work in progress. Filmmakers routinely release "director's cuts" with the controversial scenes they were forced to excise restored in all their superfluously erotic or gratuitously gory wonder; the long-lost drafts of long-dead novelists are disinterred, hyped and sold to the highest Hollywood bidder; obscure demo tracks made by disbanded rock groups are remixed, released, and everybody closes their eyes and pretends John just went out for a very long smoke.

Which brings us to the return of the single. Back when music was exclusively on vinyl, singles were the medium musicians used to promote and sell songs from their latest albums; not infrequently, they were original works. But with the advent of CDs, the distinction between an album and a single, between a 12-inch 33 and a seven-inch 45, blurred. Since all recorded material now came on a standard CD, the special status singles enjoyed was eroded. Sales dipped; artist interest declined. Says Geoff Mayfield, director of charts at Billboard magazine: "For a while rock acts, particularly alternative acts, thought singles weren't cool."

That attitude has changed, among performers and with the public. Sales of two-track CD singles rose from 1.9 million units in 1994 to 7.1 million in 1995 and continue to climb, as do sales of multitrack singles. Prices vary from $2 to $7, though the standard price hovers around $3.49. Singles for superstars like Mariah Carey are sometimes deeply discounted to help the songs scale the charts.

There's an artistic payoff too. Today's rockers, as they strive to re-create the glory days of the B side, can squeeze more material onto a CD single than performers could in the era of 45s and 78s--including remixes of hits, extended versions of current songs, and, increasingly, brand-new songs. The new Smashing Pumpkins CD single, Zero, has six previously unreleased tracks; one, Pennies, could have been a hit on its own.

CD singles have become a new arena for musicians to reinvent their work (rapper Busta Rhymes' single for his amusingly crazy song Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check contains three remixes of the main track), redo the songs of their idols (the Brit pop group Oasis, often accused of ripping off the Beatles, offers up a stale cover of I Am the Walrus on the single for its song Wonderwall) or perform out-of-character material (Bone Thugs-N-Harmony sweetly sing one of its hard-core rap songs on its single Tha Crossroads). Natalie Merchant, whose enchanting album Tigerlily spawned three successful singles, says "songs should have a second life." She returned to the studio to rerecord her song Jealousy before releasing it as a single.

This second life is not always more fulfilling. Country star Reba McEntire's version of You Keep Me Hangin' On has been remixed as a dance CD single--but the remix is gimmicky and plodding. And the single for singer Chantay Savage's slinky, soul version of I Will Survive contains two clunky rap remixes. On the other hand, one of the strongest rock songs of late, Pearl Jam's commanding I Got Id, is available only on CD single. The story of the single isn't finished yet. It's a work in progress.

--By Christopher John Farley. Reported by Daniel S. Levy/New York

With reporting by Daniel S. Levy/New York