It’s getting to that time of year again where news of the now-familiar vinyl promotions from HMV, Tesco and Sainsbury’s are starting to appear, presumably partly with Fathers Day in mind. As well as the predictable Quo, Clash and Iggy Pop offerings, one of HMV’s titles this year is Bill Wyman’s 1982 self titled LP – on purple wax, naturally. An odd choice, or is it just me?
Also, will anyone here be grabbing any of these “exclusive” records from either HMV or the canny bandwagonning supermarkets?
http://www.hmv.com/music/hmv-vinyl-week-exclusive-vinyl-editions-second-reveal
More albums here: http://www.hmv.com/music/hmv-vinyl-week-exclusive-vinyl-editions-first-reveal
Haha. Ironically, I’ve just this minute taken delivery of a long-awaited copy of the new Steps album. On neon blue vinyl.
Is the purple vinyl to match Bill’s purple rinse?
Arf!
(Good to see you on here, Mr Music.)
Mini, you are illin’!
Sainsbury’s offerings: http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/sainsburys-launch-more-coloured-vinyl/#
I thought we’d had all this baloney with Record Store Day?
Ugh. Coloured vinyl. Always looks like someone’s dropped custard or blancmange on your record player.
I like coloured vinyl! We’re thinking of doing a small coloured vinyl release for our forever delayed second record.
Coloured vinyl can sound alright, if you’re careful with the mastering. The Paperface album is on red vinyl and sounds pretty good. Picture discs, however, are a different matter entirely.
These promotions timed to coincide with Fathers Day always have such a lame range. Aimed at the dad who got rid of all his vinyl in the 80s/90s and wants to hear his favourites again, I suppose. I kept all my vinyl, so my kids are going to have to think harder. Hint that Hunky Dory gold vinyl looks nice.
Wait, you’re saying the colour of the vinyl can affect the sound? Like, actually, or Steve Hoffmanily?
Uh-oh.
Haha!
By which I only mean, can a person hear it under normal living room conditions? Or is it just something that shows up on graphs, or in a specially treated room with nuclear speakers and strontium cabling? 😉
Yes. Vinyl cutters, presses and processes are set up for black vinyl by deault. Coloured vinyl can sound good, but requires tweaks (=multiple test pressings =expense). There’s a long explanation by Steve Albini you can find online if you’re bothered.
Peak vinyl is, ideally, half-speed mastered on black vinyl, and/or at 45rpm (like XTC’s Skylarking).
The Queen boxset was half-speed mastered on 33rpm coloured vinyl (each album a different colour) and sounds good (apparently).
Mmm. Well, as you know I’m a wee bit sceptical about the whole audiophilia thing, and even more sceptical about the whole Steve Albini thing, but I’ll take your word for it and go with black vinyl! 🙂
Edit – I did actually google the Albini thing about this and it made genuine sense, so I take my joshing above back. The temperature thing I can totally believe.
Good. And expect to pay more for the LP mastering than for CD.
My Paperface red vinyl LP sounds great. My Model Village blue vinyl LP does not. One was mastered at Abbey Road. One wasn’t. I’ll let you guess which.
PS if it isn’t black, the colour doesn’t matter.
PPS Put me down for a copy
And me.
I don’t as a rule buy coloured vinyl unless there’s no option, but I must say Steps are sounding particularly good right now on this:
http://i1350.photobucket.com/albums/p773/minibreakfast/IMG_20170607_182904_zps7qvwxszi.jpg
Those grooves are looking suspiciously wavy. Surely that will put a bit of strain on the tracking arm.
*THWACK!*
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Also, I frequently have Blancmange on my record player.
“The Day Before You Came”… crikey, your arm must be tired.
Go over to SuperDeluxeEdition for news of three CD versions of their three albums.
Careful what you wish for
Definite remnants of old melted down No Parlez in my (Sainsbury’s) Hunky Dory:
Gold?!! Baby poo brown more like 😀
Ughhhhhh. Even before the “cross-contamintaion”, that vinyl is the colour of… I’m going to play safe and say Gloy.
Yes, “Gold” in vinyl pressings these days rarely a colour that Rumpelstiltskin would recognise.
On the plus side, it plays far better than the 3 other (black) Hunky Dorys I’ve tried from Sainsbury’s of late (in terms of surface crackle at least). But it’s still going back. Cockwombles.
Not much takes my fancy this year, except the Suede album.
Managed to get the Manics album on blue vinyl last year, and the three Morrissey albums on gold vinyl the year before. All were albums I already had, so I’ve never played the HMV versions!
I got a pink vinyl copy of Never Mind The Bollocks for Christmas (you can never have too many copies). I’m sure that one came from Sainsbury’s.
Last year (or maybe year before) Sainsbury’s (or was it Tesco?) were offering The Jam: Sound Affects on Pink Vinyl (I missed that one, and baulked at ebay prices).
This RSD, I managed not to get a copy of Quadrophenia on green vinyl (still looking).
Coloured vinyl – it’s a bit of a gimmick innit, and of course, the perfect gift for Fathers Day.
My “favourite” gimmicky coloured vinyl is a Starz album on (and I quote) Piss Yellow Vinyl
As a co-incidental / interesting side note (interesting to me, anyway): I bought that Creation album on CD last night (delivery expected tomorrow)
There isn’t an HMV within a day’s ride of here and the local very large Sainsbury’s doesn’t stock LPs, so I doubt I will get any. I probably would have done, but can’t justify a day trip to buy a couple of records.
On a vaguely related note, one or two people might recall my bemoaning my RSD experience. Over time I managed to get everything I was after, without resorting to eBay. So, the record labels did very well out of me, our ( relatively ) local record shops less so, since they only had about 10% of what I wanted.
somewhere around my house I have a Motors 12″ single….
it came with a sticker and badge.
the sticker says…
“the sleeve is red
the vinyl is blue
its the motors new single…
Forget about You.
I got the Manics Everything Must Go on blue vinyl last year, was it from HMV? Honestly cant remember. And Maiden Brave New World I think. Decent haul. Nothing there i can see that warrants me getting my wallet out.
I like coloured vinyl, i like black too. No probs with colour pressings. All good for me.
I have a local Sainsburys up the road that stocks coloured vinyl, doubt many go in there so always a decent stock. Got the 2 Madge coloured editions last year as well as Trainspotting orange vinyl (think they still have a few of those,) and Aqualung green vinyl.
This seasons stock of Ian Dury and T Rex is tad bland. Think both HMV and Sainsburys have missed out this year with some very poor choices.
So, anyone been down to HMV yet today?
Cuh, some people are never happy: http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/17/music-fans-call-for-boycott-on-hmvs-vinyl-sale-to-support-independent-stores-instead-6715440/?ito=twitter
I don’t care where people buy their music, or indeed on which format. As long as they’re buying it, and enjoying it, it’s all good.
…and of course the moment everybody goes to their local independent store (assuming of course there is one within 100 miles of them), these pompous arses will be tweeting “fuck off back to HMV, vinyl bandwagoners!”
Quite. And I’ll bet many of the same people moaned when high street chains first *stopped* stocking vinyl records.
Yes, like the indie in Bristol, which is, er, owned by Rough Trade, who you don’t have to squint very hard at to describe as a multinational retail chain.
I bought the Suede album today. Was just passing – they seemed to have lots of copies of everything.
I saw the HMV line-up posted earlier on twitter, Clapton Slowhand white vinyl, Cream Disraeli Gears red vinyl (why not pink?) i’m a big Clapton fan but £21 each?? I still think Piledriver on Blue vinyl by Quo is strange, Blue For You was made for this promotion and is a very good album.
All albums too expensive. £13/14 and I “might” have been interested but we can see where the profit is here. I grumpily avoided the promotion, nothing there for my collection, maybe next year.