Sunday 28 August 2016

Hypercaffium Spazzinate Part 1

So unless you've been living under a rock, you'll be aware that there's a new Descendents album which has just dropped. I think it would have been possible to miss either of the last two albums when they came out, but in the modern era I think it's pretty much impossible to have not noticed this one. It's called 'Hypercaffium Spazzinate' and is actually the first Descendents record to have been released since I got into them. The last LP, 'Cool To Be You', came out way back in 2004 when I was not into Descendents and when record collecting was in a different place. In 2004, for example, Epitaph didn't press anything on colour vinyl (save a couple of exceptions) and Fat Wreck saw fit to press only 197 copies of 'Cool To Be You' on color vinyl in total - the rest of the press was black vinyl. In 2016, however, the world works differently and within a week of the new album's released, Epitaph had pressed 8 different colors of vinyl (plus some on black too).

When the pre-order launched I got sent an email containing a link to a special pressing on glow in the dark vinyl. I was on the way out for a walk, and figured I'd order when I got home. Unfortunately, however, by the time I got home it had sold out. I saw this as a sign that there was going to be a lot of interest in this record, so made the decision to immediately order the other versions that were available. These were as follows:

1. 'Clear with black swirl' vinyl. This was the pre-order version from Kingsroad Merch in Europe.

2. Green / black swirl vinyl. This was exclusive to two stores in Europe (Green Hell and Flight 13). I got mine from Flight 13, which is why it has the extra orange sticker on the front.

It does look almost black in the photo, so here's the photo I put on instagram just to prove that it is in fact green:

3. Clear green vinyl. This was the pre-order color available from Kingsroad Merch in the States, but I don't have this one yet.

So that was that. There were four colours made, and I had missed one. I figured I'd get one eventually. But then, when the official release date arrived, there were suddenly 'new' colours being talked about. My approach to life is generally all or nothing, and seeing as I was already down the path to 'ALL' (se what I did there?) then I was left with no choice but to pull the trigger on the additional copies. These were as follows:

Silver / black swirl vinyl. This was the UK indie stores exclusive. No idea how many were made.

Red vinyl. I think this was available in both the States and Europe, but limited to 500 copies. No idea if this is rarer than other colours.

White vinyl. This was the US indie stores exclusive (big thanks to Mike for picking one of these up for me!).

So there you go. That's 5 copies I have, on possibly the most boring looking colours of vinyl I have ever seen. I did take a group shot but it looked so dull that I just deleted it. There's also a clear blue vinyl which is a Hot Topic exclusive, and there's also now a rumour of another blue, although I havent seen a picture of this and currently think it could be just confusion caused by people referring to the Hot Topic version as either 'coke bottle clear' or 'clear blue'. I don't know. But I have all copies covered now except that glow in the dark, which I could have ordered immediately if I hadn't have been confident that it would still be there an hour after I received the email. Ugh.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so you're going for the full set! How is the music? Nico told me somewhere between the last two records. I have three albums of them, 'Milo Goes To College' is my favourite. My anti digital music mind needs to find out...

mcs said...

It's good, Willem. Very good. Definitely more like the last two albums that anything before, but definitely still Descendents. I've been listening to it the last few weeks non stop. Well worth checking out.