UPDATED 4/20: Record Store Day and the Flaming Lips Dark Side of the Moon clear vinyl mystery

Just a really quick update here: We now have confirmed reports of 'seafoam green vinyl' stickers coming with both clear and green vinyl. We also have 'clear vinyl' stickers coming with clear vinyl. Do we know if there were any that came with a 'clear vinyl' sticker, but seafoam green vinyl?

I still haven't seen any official reports or numbers on what exactly happened here, but given this sticker information, it certainly seems like this was, at some level, a mistake. Otherwise, if this was done on purpose, it seems at least the stickers would correspond to the vinyl inside. Think of it this way, I would assume since there are no 'clear vinyl' sticker albums that came with seafoam green vinyl (at least that I'm aware of) perhaps the mistake is simply on the issue of putting the proper sticker on the proper album, and the colors were done on purpose?

I'll put it out here again: Anyone have any good information? It sure would be nice - perhaps Record Store Day organizers or Warner Bros. - could lend some clarity to what's going on here.

UPDATE: Record Store Day - Flaming Lips Dark Side of the Moon CLEAR VINYL - New info?

UPDATED 1:15 p.m.: Matt, in the comments, points out he also got a clear vinyl in the US, but his had a sticker saying "custom clear vinyl." Upon further review, so did mine. I haven't seen any "seafoam green" stickers, although Matt says he has. It could be that "custom clear" could apply to the clear AND green vinyl, since they're both transparent. But it certainly seems that, with these stickers, either that's the case or the seafoam/clear distinction was on purpose for one reason or another.

Via a comment on the Flaming Lips' own blog, someone claimed to have ALSO gotten a clear copy of this Flaming Lips Record Store Day Dark Side of the Moon release. As did someone commenting on my original post. So, we know there are at least a handful out there, but I'd imagine there are more.

Here's a thread at the Flaming Lips site: There are a couple more who say they have clear copies. One person is pissed, although I'm not sure why. Another speculated maybe the "dye ran out." I don't think that's it. Finally, another quotes from a Facebook posting of an Ann Arbor, Mich. store: "Underground Sounds - Ann Arbor, Michigan I was told by Warner 10,000; 4,500 clear, 5,500 seafoam and that it sold so fast it will be a regular release in June."

Which brings me to the purpose of this post: Has anyone seen any totals or good, solid information on this? Some people already selling their copies on eBay claim that there are only 500 copies of the clear version in the world, but that doesn't fit for two reasons: One, some postings like this one claim the album has never been opened. Now, maybe this person has some kind of home Xray machine, but I doubt it. How would you know it's clear? That makes me doubt everything the person wrote. Two, at least according to the guy at Crooked Beat, stores were made aware of the 'mistake' the night before Record Store Day. So, if it was actually a mistake, I'd doubt there'd be an official count by the next day. But then again, maybe it wasn't a mistake at all and this is some kind of super-secret-special edition? Although if that was the case, I think there'd be some kind of information out on this already. I think this latter scenario is more selfish wishful thinking than anything else.

Anyway, I'm going to keep poking around for information. Just figured I'd put up a flare for any other information out there.

Here's the album, again: (Beautiful)

Record Store Day - CLEAR VINYL - Flaming Lips / Dark Side of the Moon surprise

I plan a full after-action report of this morning's Record Store Day festivities, but I just got back and started opening the records and found THIS in my Flaming Lips LP:

Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, but as you can see, the record is CLEAR. That's right. CLEAR. I heard from the manager at Crooked Beat that he got a call from the label last night saying there were some errors in the color during pressing, and apparently this is one of those errors. Originally, it was supposed to be sea foam green, but this is WAY better. Just a note on the photo, that's the cover of the album behind the clear -- again, CLEAR -- record.

Anyone else come across this?

Pink Floyd vs. the album killers

Interesting post on the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog. The upshot here is that last week Pink Floyd successfully used a clause in their relatively ancient contract to prevent their label, EMI, from selling their music on a song-by-song basis. As author Steven Kurutz notes in the post, this is almost a no-brainer for anyone who's listened to Pink Floyd. Save for a few single-worthy, radio-friendly tracks -- 'Money' immediately comes to mind -- the band is best known for its album work. "You can’t just casually put on 'The Wall,' hear a song or two and cue up something else," Kurutz writes. "Perhaps more than any other band, Pink Floyd made albums, music meant to be listened to as a cohesive whole." (Emphasis mine.)

Still, as he later notes, this is the opposite of what's going on in today's music business. Between iTunes, MP3s, mobile listening, on-demand songs, Pandora, and on and on, the single has regained its primacy, if it ever lost it in the first place. Kurutz questions whether this is a good or bad thing for music in general, and he comes down on what seems to be a firm maybe. Surely there have been releases past and present with one, two or three good songs and the rest filler. Now, people can just buy those songs. On the other hand, artists like Taylor Swift, who's quoted in the post, are packaging the best songs they can muster into one CD and calling it an album, essentially creating a single-artist mix tape, for good or ill.

But Kurutz nails it at the end, and I'll let him take it from here:

That doesn’t mean, however, that successful pop artists like Swift are making albums these days, at least not in the Pink Floyd sense of the term. Swift and other modern hitmakers are instead packaging a dozen or so individual, singles-worthy songs together and releasing them. An album is a convenient and standardized mode of distribution, not a form of expression. It’s a crucial difference. A band like Pink Floyd used the 45 or 60 minutes of music that a full-length album contains to explore a musical or lyrical theme, the way an author does in a novel. You wouldn’t buy a few chapters of “War and Peace” for your Kindle, ignore the rest and expect to come away with any real understanding of the novel. Pink Floyd seems to be making the same argument. (Again, emphasis mine.)

That's right on. And somewhat goes back to my previous post where I compare the value of buying a vinyl over a CD, even if you just want the MP3. It's a way to ensure people at least walk away with an entire album, and it's better than a little piece of plastic. But of course, that won't change the artists making the music, and I certainly don't think Taylor Swift -- or anyone else like her -- is going to get a bunch of pre-teen or teenage girls to go out and buy vinyl. And I'm not arguing that there's anything necessarily wrong with the proliferation of single-focused artists.

But I hate to think we've seen the death of the classically crafted album's album. With that in mind then, what's left to do? Well, certainly waiting for the next Pink Floyd is a bit of a waste of time, but I think a good starting point is to appreciate those groups that are making full albums that are worthy of the name. Love it or hate it, a commenter on the Kurutz post mentioned The Decemberists' 2009 release 'Hazards of Love,' it's an album's album, and I found it grossly underrated. The Flaming Lips' 'Embryonic' is another. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's 'It's Blitz' has some masterfully designed ebb and flow to it. These are albums, more than a collection of songs. There is a difference. We need more of the former, and these may not be the 21st Century version of 'Dark Side of the Moon,' but they show a dedication to true album-making, and that's something all music-lovers should support.


(H/T Wax.fm's Twitter feed -- which I of course recommend following here: https://twitter.com/wax_fm -- for pointing out the original WSJ post.)

On Salvage Shops

I wanted to follow up on something I referenced earlier: how worthwhile salvage shops can be. In this case? Pictured above is something obviously and simply called "VARIETY STORE" located in South Indianapolis. (I spent last summer there working for the Indianapolis Star newspaper.)

It doesn't look like much, what with its junk-yard/yard-sale look outside (you should see the back) and the "Playboys, $5 sign" that -- trust me -- is sitting in one of those front windows. Granted, it wasn't much on the inside either, and the casual crate digger might have just up and left. Frankly, it was dirty, dusty, about 90 degrees (in the front, toward the back was more of a warehouse) and a little creepy in a Dueling Banjos kind of way. But, to the persistent goes the spoils, or something like that.

In this particular case, I walked in the door and was immediately greeted by a few very South Indianapolis-looking men heckling over a moped or something. All around me were Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo games, cheap bikes, hubcaps, car parts and whatever else that existed in that "we-sell-everything shop." Shortly after entering, I was (seriously) offered 10,000 records for $300. The catch? The guy running the shop had no idea what kinds of records comprised said collection that took up a warehouse wall's worth of space, and I had no idea either. I also, as an intern, had no place to store 10,000 records, let alone transport them, so I passed.

After that ridiculous, but strangely tempting offer, I took to working my way through shelf after shelf and palette after palette of records. Some were completely destroyed -- the kind of records you know wouldn't even play, and just might ruin your needle. I saw Jefferson Airplanes, The Beatles' Revolver, a White Album, the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers and a couple Led Zeppelin albums that were in terrible shape. As tempted as I was to buy them anyway (at $5 a pop) I passed and kept digging. To wildly understate it, that was difficult.