That Balearic Tang!

Music
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Morning

Probably a question thats’s been asked a thousand times on the forum and apologies in advance if so.

I’m looking for those records that have that Balearic Tang, That Haze only some records have, Lots of echo / fairly muddy mixes? Not sure what causes it or how to explain it

Examples are - Escape From New York - Save Our Love (Thanks BB For This)
Simple Minds - Someone, Somewhere In The Summertime (For The Most Part)
Finitribe - 101.93

If other threads have covered this please feel free to point me towards them.

Thanks

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I’ve never been to Ibiza, and the first I heard of the place was a mid-80s TV show called Ear Say, where Gary Crowley went on a Club 18 30 holiday there. There’s a scene in a club full of soap bubbles where this is playing, so it’s Balearic ground-zero for me.

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Let the discussion commence as to what does or does not constitute ‘Balearic’…

How about this sort of thing?

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Vocals on this last one by Madeleine Bell, iirc

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I absolutely need this ‘cos my understanding of what “Balearic” means is about nil. I even googled it but that was no help at all.

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You know that saying ‘Be careful what you wish for’…? :smiley:

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I mean, I think the descriptor ‘pop that sounds good on an e’ isn’t bad. Doesn’t need to be any more complex than that - the sort of music you’d want to hear when you’re feeling happy dancing in the sun on the beach of a Spanish island. Some say it’s what the original island DJ’s used to play BITD, others say it’s a particular sound and tempo. I like eclecticism, so I tend towards the broadest interpretation of my initial description [edit: it’s not really my description, of course]

But you know how people like to categorize things…

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Only too well. Been known to do it once or twice myself.

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Must be about time for Balearic Not Balearic by now.

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Ha Ha! Like it…!! :smiley::+1:

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Here are a few obvious ones-

I’m not sure that these even fit the bill for the original poster in terms of that production ‘haze’ but they definitely work as pop music that sounds good on ecstacy.

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Anyone enjoying this Leonard number might well like this rework of [Waiting For The Miracle]

(Leonard Cohen - Waiting For The Miracle (Alek Lee Edit) - YouTube)

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Ohhhhh…….this old chestnut, eh? LOL!! This could very well be the only oral history record that keeps the “legend” of Balearica afloat. Good on ya.

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Ha! I once added this on a Baelaeric Spotify playlist by I think Jolyon or Moonboots (?) years ago and it was removed!!

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This one!!

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Cracking playlist btw…

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Before going too far into what does or does not constitute ‘Balearic’, I thought the ‘haze’ that’s being referred to here is just a fairly standard 80s production sound - recording to analogue plus liberal use of multiple reverbs on various individual instruments…?

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i’ve suspected for years that much of the balearic sound can be traced to lexicon 200-series reverbs entering a synth’s signal path.

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I find a great way to discover others takes on Balearic is to go to Discogs and search through users lists. Start by typing a few of the tracks above into the Discogs search bar to find the release page, often on the bottom right of the release pages you’ll see that various members have added them to lists called ’ Balearic This’ and Balearic That’ etc. Also Discogs have recently added a ‘Balearic’ style that releases can be tagged as, I’ve already tagged a fair few myself!

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