What Dope At Sony Thought Leaving "Silent Murder" Off the CD Version of IWW Was a Good Idea?

[Aje]

Sony or Columbia, whatever...

This is one of my favorite Nas cuts

 

[Lord Scion]

They left it off the American CD version... Europe and Japan got it.

 

[Lord Scion]

And the reason they left it off, from the Complex article "The Making of It Was Written"

Nas: “I like the sounds that I heard in the movie 48 Hours and I wanted the steel drum sound. I wanted to put some of that on top of Stretch’s beat so I got someone to play what I wanted to play on top of it and the track just always put me in the zone.”

Poke: “The only reason we couldn’t add any more records to the album was because there were already too many records. At some point, we were making records and just throwing the records out because we had so many of them. That’s the only reason why some of the records didn’t make it.

“You’ve got to try to paint a full movie and not paint a full movie with excerpts. Leave them as bonus stuff that we throw out on the side. That’s what we tried to accomplish, not anything more, not anything less.

“Also, from a publisher’s standpoint, publishers only collect off of 12 records. Every record after that, you’re cutting into other people’s publishing. When you have a number of producers on an album and you have 22 tracks, their publishing starts getting cut down. That becomes a publishing nightmare. So we started scaling down when everybody was like, 'Yeah lets put more tracks on the album.'

"Lets say you have a producer on there who had a record that basically shouldn’t have even been on the album. He’s getting paid because of everybody else’s success. So a lot of A-list producers were mad like, 'Yo you’re on this album for a free ride.' So they stopped that and tracklistings started to get cut down to between 12 and 15 tracks. And that’s where it stayed.

“Half of the guys were putting records on their album just to be putting them on there. Why put it on? Just take it off. It’s almost like a bytch with too much makeup. Like, 'bytch, take some of that makeup off.'”

EDIT - a reason in the past I heard said Nas couldn't clear the Soul II Soul sample in time so they had to leave it off the American CD version. Either reason can work.

 

[the cac mamba]

It’s almost like a bytch with too much makeup. Like, 'bytch, take some of that makeup off.'”

 

[smokeurobinson]

The Tape version was the better version. Never understood why the cd and tape were different. The songs were better arranged on the tape and it included "silent murder." The Tape version is the true classic...The CD version falls short.

 

[H.S.]

The Tape version was the better version. Never understood why the cd and tape were different. The songs were better arranged on the tape and it included "silent murder." The Tape version is the true classic...The CD version falls short.

What do you mean? I remember the CD and tape version being the same with the exception of "Silent Murder."

 

[Brad Piff]

the biggest dope at sony was that chump nas..

 

[smokeurobinson]

What do you mean? I remember the CD and tape version being the same with the exception of "Silent Murder."

Nope


The tape version had

"Nas Is Coming" and "Affirmative Action" on side 2 right after the song "suspect." "Silent Murder" was the last song on side 1 right after the song "The set Up".

 

[director_of_bands]

i had the cd and the bootlegged tape...

 

[Aje]

And the reason they left it off, from the Complex article "The Making of It Was Written"



EDIT - a reason in the past I heard said Nas couldn't clear the Soul II Soul sample in time so they had to leave it off the American CD version. Either reason can work.

I had the cassette version right when it dropped and that version had "Silent Murder", though.

 

[Lord Scion]

I had the cassette version right when it dropped and that version had "Silent Murder", though.

Just citing various reasons why it was left off, I really don't know why it was included on every edition of the album besides the American CD version. I'll just assume that the American CD was pressed before the other mediums, then it was a last minute decision to add Silent Murder to the other versions.

 

[TheJet]

iono. i just want the leftover shyt tho.

 

[JAY?]

I think it woulda been the second weakest track after Nas is coming
I might be the only person to not like the song

 

[MrWillyWanker]

damn i forgot all about this song. this is my shyt!

 

[Ugo Ogugwa]

this could be silent murder part two o