Simple Creatures – Everything Opposite

Simple Creatures second EP went through a minor delay for the vinyl version. Not sure if it was a production delay or distribution delay however, as this record could have easily been caught up in the now sadly infamous Direct Shot nightmare. As a consumer this delay was not the end of the world, but I’m sure Direct Shot’s issues will have a negative impact on pricing going forward.

If you like Simple Creatures first EP you’ll enjoy this one as well. Everything Opposite is the title of the duo’s latest EP. It has similar cover art as Strange Love, only it’s black instead of white. It has an embossed cover as well. There are three variants for Everything Opposite, with pressing info not released for any of them.

First up is a band exclusive on black with white splatter that costs a whopping $29 before shipping, all for a six song 12” EP. You can somehow actually buy this on the secondary market for way less than from the band; almost $10 cheaper before shipping. From photos I’ve seen of this variant the splatter is very minimal. Next up is half black/half white and lastly there is an 180 gram black variant as well.

All copies come with a download card/code for high quality 320 kbps MP3s, with the record itself being housed in a printed dust sleeve made of card stock. None of the variants have a hype sticker, so if you’re doing a blind buy you’re kind of rolling the dice on which variant you’ll get. The bar codes are apparently different however, as the half black/half white variant has a bar code sticker placed over the bar code that is printed on the actual record jacket.

The bar code for the half black/half white variant is 4050538547566. The bar code for the black with white splatter is 4050538536478, which is the same as the 180 gram black variant.

Simple Creatures – Strange Love

I have enjoyed all of Mark Hoppus’ projects. First Blink-182, then +44, and now Simple Creatures. Simple Creatures is the biggest departure from his other two projects. The duo (along with All Time Low’s Alex Gasgarth) has dubbed the band’s sound “trash pop.” And if you listen to this first Simple Creatures EP before Blink’s latest album, you wouldn’t be as surprised by the musical direction it took. Not that I’m saying Blink’s latest album is a blend of Simple Creatures and straight pop punk, but what Mark did with Simple Creatures definitely influenced the sound of Blink.

Strange Love is Simple Creatures debut release. And considering I don’t like All Time Low one bit, it surprised me that I completely enjoy this EP. To be honest, I wouldn’t have even listened to it had Mark not been involved. Mark and Alex split vocal duties, which is a good balance. You have to take a project like this for what it is. It’s not going to be earth shatteringly deep lyrically, and musically it’s not going to blow your socks off, but it may make you dance and have a good time. Which is what music should be about. It’s an escape from reality for however long a given song is. Sure you may connect with a song lyrically on a deep level, but in those three or four minutes, you lose yourself in it.

Don’t get me wrong, there is some substance to Strange Love. It’s just not going to be anything that wins critical acclaim, awards, or even recognition by pop culture. It’s an experimental project at its finest. Both artists involved in it don’t depart from their bread and butter too far as to lose their strengths, but enough so that Simple Creatures stands apart and alone from their collective work so that it can be enjoyed by both their core fan base and a wider audience.

This six song EP was pressed as a 12”, spread across three variants; half black/half white, white with black splatter and white. The half white/half black was a band exclusive available via their official web store limited to 1,000 copies. The splatter is limited to 300 copies and was a UK indie record store exclusive. Those are the only variants with pressing info announced. If you order this from anywhere else you will receive a copy on white.

All copies come in a single pocket jacket with a printed dust sleeve on card stock. A download card/code is included as well. The jacket features embossing, which is done on all the script in grey font on the cover. Each variant also has a hype sticker that indicate the color of the record.

+44 – When Your Heart Stops Beating (2nd Press)

For once I’m not going to lambast $RC for one of their re-presses. Yes, it’s still a bit overpriced, but it’s a somewhat necessary re-press, and they tackled something I feel should have been dealt with when the album was first pressed on album. They did all album variants this go round; yes the blue, pink and green covers. Finally these are available. And the color of the record matches, at least somewhat, with their respective covers. At least for the two currently released variants, they went with marbled colors. Personally, I feel like solid, opaque colors would have been best. I mean, you have a hot pink cover. Why go with a marbled scheme?

$RC did a good job, at least aesthetically, with this re-press. It comes housed in a gatefold jacket, with an insert. Which is something the first press lacked. Not only does this re-press come with an insert, but it’s a fold out insert. While one side of this insert is rather pointless, the other half has the lyrics printed on it. I feel like lyrics are best suited for an insert rather than inside a gatefold, which is what the first press had. However, the gatefold for this $RC re-press is rather pointless. I honestly doubt $RC would’ve charged less for this release had they went with a standard single pocket jacket, so I’m not complaining too much. It’s just an observation.

The plan for this re-press is to have two of the three variants available now, with the third, the green jacket/record, available later as a Record Store Day Black Friday exclusive release. But there is a catch, it’s not on the official RSD release list. Shocking considering how $RC has tried to scam the RSD folks a handful of times. The retail price on this, at least directly from $RC, is $26 before shipping. That price, for a single LP, is absurd. I’m just happy I was able to buy this in a larger order from $RC, so at least the shipping charges were a bit less because it was split amongst other records.

Pressing info has not been fully released, but even if it was, there is room for skepticism seeing as $RC has blatantly lied about pressing info for their own releases in the past. Read about the All-American Rejects re-press for an example.  Here is what is known; the blue variant is available from $RC and all retailers, with an unknown amount of copies pressed. The pink is a $RC exclusive, and is limited to 1500 copies. The green, since it has not been released as of posting this, has not had pressing info released. But it still may never be, because this variant is not an official RSD release.

Blink-182 – Nine

When it was announced Blink-182 would be releasing a new album I didn’t get my hopes up. I had zero expectations that this would be a great album let alone a good one. Boy was I wrong. Nine is album of the year for me. It’s their best album since their self-titled album released way back in 2003. And it still surprises me that I don’t think this album would be as good with Tom in the band.

On Nine Matt Skiba finally finds his voice in Blink-182. He didn’t stick out like a sore thumb on California, but Tom’s absence was noticeable. Not so much on Nine. This band has evolved over the years, much to the chagrin of die hard pop punk fans, as the band matures, both musically and lyrically from their days singing about fucking dogs, aliens, and awkward hookups, to more adult topics. At its core Nine is a break up album (at least that is how I view it, as it helped and still is helping me get over an awful breakup), full of angst but at the same time optimism. It has dark imagery, ranging from suicidal thoughts and self harm, to depression and using alcohol as a coping mechanism. Despite some of the darker songs, Nine does have some lighter moments, with the self reflecting “Blame It On My Youth” and “Generational Divide” that pokes fun at themselves.

Nine was pressed on five variants; black, “hot” splatter, “cool” splatter, neon pink/”blush”/neon magenta and orange marble. Pressing info has only been released for the neon pink, which is apparently limited to 3,000 copies according to the “exclusive” retailer, Urban Outfitters (UO). It wouldn’t surprise me if UO only received 3,000 copies of this variant, because the band is also selling it, along with some European based stores/distros.

The “hot splatter” is a clear base with red, orange and yellow splatter. The “cool” splatter is a clear base with blue, green and purple splatter. The two splatter variants are band exclusives, with the neon pink/”blush”/neon magenta being initially exclusive to Urban Outfitters (charged $32 before shipping and taxes), but it was later made available from the band as well. Black is the mass retail variant. All copies are pressed on standard weight 140 gram vinyl. Each variant has its own hype sticker that denotes the color. All the hype stickers are the same pink rectangle, but will list the color on the bottom.

Which brings me to a new pet peeve; variants being listed/described as a certain thing or way by the band and/or label, with the hype sticker saying something different. It’s not like the label and/ or band doesn’t know what the hype stickers will say as they’re the ones designing and ordering them. So with Nine, the “hot splatter,” as named by the band, has a hype sticker that says “clear vinyl with warm color splatter.” And the neon pink named by the band has a hype sticker that says “neon magenta.”

All copies come housed in a gatefold jacket with a printed dust sleeve on glossy paper. No download card/code is included with this record. Even if you buy it directly from the band’s official web store. The trend was first ditching download cards in favor of e-mailing out download codes to those who ordered online via official label or band web stores, but now it seems major labels are ditching downloads altogether. But of course prices keeps climbing closer and closer to $30.

The variants had staggered releases/pre-order availability through the band. First put up was the “hot” splatter, then once that sold out the orange marble was put up, and when that sold out the “cold” splatter was out up for sale, not even pre-order as the album was released at that point. After release date the neon pink/”blush”/neon magenta was made available from the band despite it being an apparent UO and Euro exclusive.

Retail price on Nine ranges between $25-$30 depending on where you buy this. The band is charging $29 for this before shipping, using the lame marketing approach of purposely charging a little under a higher, round number as if people think they are actually getting a deal because it’s $29 instead of $30, or the house is $399,999 instead of $400,000. I bought this for $15 shipped, and actually managed to get this pretty close to release date because Target was running a buy two get one free sale on all media.

Blink-182 – California (Deluxe Edition)

Welcome to the craziness that is the deluxe edition of Blink-182’s California. There are so many variants it was tough to keep up, and then it seemed like more and more and more variants kept popping up randomly every couple months. There are jacket variants and record variants. Loads of exclusives, and insane price tags to go along with a lot of them.

Let’s start with how the deluxe edition differs from the standard/regular edition. The deluxe is a double LP in a gatefold jacket, and essentially has a whole other album included as bonus tracks. There are 12 additional tracks found on the deluxe edition, which are a mixture of b-sides left off the firs studio album and brand new songs written specifically for this deluxe edition. All of these additional tracks are found on the second LP, so sides C and D. The cover art remains the same between the two different editions.

When the deluxe edition was first put up for pre-order there were five variants; four of which were available for purchase directly, so you were guaranteed to receive said color. The fifth was a special variant randomly given out in orders. The four variants available for direct purchase were green, yellow, pink and blue, and were all pressed on 180 gram vinyl. The special variant was gold metallic, which was limited to 182 copies and hand numbered on the front of the jacket. Pressing info for the green, yellow, pink and blue variants has not been released and likely never will be. They’re all sold out though.

All of the aforementioned variants; the green, yellow, pink, blue and gold were exclusive to the band’s web store. They all came housed in unique gatefold jackets, which was also exclusive to all the band’s variants (notice how I didn’t say band’s web store. Which is an important note; keeping reading below for full details). It’s a pop up jacket, so when you open the gatefold an image pops up. The artwork inside the gatefold differs from that which is found with all the other variants as well. I’m including a photo of the pop up gatefold in the gallery below, which was posted on social media by the band.

Another nice touch Blink’s store did with all their web store exclusive variants was ship them in mailers that had a color corresponding sticker on them. So green had a green sticker, yellow had a yellow sticker, and so on. The gold variant also came with an exclusive greeting card, which is signed by all three band members.

On top of these band web store exclusives, there is a mass retail variant on 180 gram black limited to an unknown amount, a Euro exclusive on pink/black marble limited to 2,000 copies (Banquet Records was the exclusive UK retailer of this variant) and an Australian and Canadian exclusive on yellow/black marble limited to an unknown amount

Those are all the variants from the first batch, which went up for sale before the deluxe edition’s release date, which was in May 2017. Not all the variants shipped at the same time, some were delayed, but only slightly, so there is not an exact release date. This is where things start to get a bit more confusing.

Some sites list the batches of the variants as different pressings. Since it’s impossible to know if they actually went back and pressed more copies after the initial run, I am not going to label them as separate pressings. Even more evidence for this is that it’s highly unlikely that a major label would order as few as 182 copies of one color in a separate order, only a few months apart from the larger order that included thousands of copies.

The first variant released after the initial batch of variants is a Chicago “pop up” store exclusive on teal/white marble limited to 182 hand numbered copies, with the pop up jacket. This variant was only available in a physical store front during the band’s run of Chicago shows in August 2017. It’s not exactly a tour exclusive, as you didn’t have to have tickets to a show in order to gain entry into the pop up shop. There was inevitably a line to get into the pop up shop well ahead of it opening, and this variant sold out that day. These surprising weren’t flipper gold, as only 10 or so have been sold on the secondary market, with the highest selling for $200 and the lowest for $55.

If that wasn’t enough, just in time for the holiday shopping season (November 2017), the band released two more variants; teal marble and royal marble. Both are limited to 182 copies. The royal marble is a royal blue base with white and black marbling, while the teal marble has only black marbling. Both of these variants come with the pop up jacket.

If you’re variant hunting, each of the variants come with color corresponding hype sticker. So green has a green sticker, gold has a gold sticker, and so on. It gets a bit confusing with the Chicago pop up exclusive though, as it has a white sticker. And I’m not sure what color the royal marble and teal marble hype stickers are.

All copies, regardless of variant, come with the same printed dust sleeves and a download card/code as well, which gives you access to every track on the deluxe edition. So the original California studio album plus all the extra tracks found exclusively on the deluxe edition. All in high quality 320 kbps MP3 form. Though I will say that my download card did not work at first, getting an error message so the card expired, so I had to contact the card’s host customer service to have this issue fixed, because while I know some labels put expiration dates on their download cards/codes, there was no explicitly stated expiration date on the download card/code included with this record. Despite the fact I bought list well over two years after the deluxe edition’s release.

Retail price on this was ridiculous; between $30-35 before shipping. As such it took quite a long time for prices to start falling, and in reality, they haven’t really fallen far if at all. I bought a copy in June 2019; yes you read that right, June 2019, and still paid way more than I wanted to for it. Mainly because at that point in time, copies were becoming harder and harder to find from distros I rely on for good sales. And despite all the variants, the deluxe edition was slowly but surely going OOP entirely. So I had to bite the bullet and bought this for $23 shipped.

With all the variants, and many of them being insanely limited, prices for some of them on the secondary market are completely absurd. Copies of the gold variant topped out at $600. The Chicago pop up variant went for a high of $182 (though I have sneaky suspicion there were shill bids in order to get to that ironic price). Copies of the royal marble and teal marble (w/ black marble) each went for $100. Even copies of the green, yellow, pink and blue each went for $78 apiece.

V/A – American Pie Soundtrack

With the popularity of vinyl, you sometimes get re-pressing that are long overdue and releases getting pressed on the vinyl format for the first time that are long overdue. What you can’t control unfortunately is how they’re pressed. The American Pie Soundtrack was released on vinyl in 2015, but sadly only as a picture disc. Though no one would argue against it being pressed as a traditional record (on any color) in a traditional jacket with inserts and maybe even a download card/code.

My bigger complaint about this is that it falls into the cash grab category, capitalizing on two trends; picture discs and soundtracks. Lately the two go hand-in-hand, but that never used to be the case.  First it was the soundtrack craze, with labels cashing in on multiple facets of consumer culture; nostalgia, collectors and trendiness. There are film nuts and score/soundtrack nuts who will collect anything related to a film they like, and then there are people who don’t like the film, or haven’t even actually seen it, who still collect soundtracks/scores because they like the music. There will always be those who buy things for nostalgia’s sake, which sadly is a strong selling point with records these days. And it leads to things like picture discs, $35 single LP’s and stuff like My Little Pony and the Forest Gump Soundtrack clogging up pressing plants.

This soundtrack comes in a picture disc sleeve with a hype sticker affixed to the bottom right corner, with the sleeve having one of those re-sealable flaps. No idea on pressing info, and it will likely never be released because this is a major label release. No download card/code is included, which isn’t a huge shocker.

Circling back to the mention of $35 single LP’s, when this record first came out in September 2015, that was the price for it; $35. And it’s why I held off on buying this for almost two years after its release. It took that long for me to find it within the price threshold I wanted to spend. I paid $17 shipped for this, which I’m comfortable with because this record is actually becoming harder to find via traditional means. But of course places like ebay and Discogs will always have copies, but those sellers rarely, if ever, lower their prices.

The reason I wanted this soundtrack is for the Blink-182 and Third Eye Blind songs. Blink-182 contributes “Mutt” off Enema Of The State and Third Eye Blind offers up “New Girl” off Blue. If you went to high school when American Pie came out, or even recently graduated, you undoubtedly love the movie, at least the first one. Personally I feel like the choice of using Blink’s “’Mutt” for the scene where Jim runs from his house to Kevin’s house to watch Nadia change, and then picking the song back up again as Jim runs back home to “score” with Nadia, really added something to the scene. It at least made it more memorable for me, hence why I’m able to recall it with such ease.

Blink-182 – California

Blink-182 soldiered on after the craziness that was Tom Delonge, who is no longer in the band. Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio fame replaced Tom on guitar and is featured on Blink’s new album; California. It is weird seeing Blink without Tom. Love him or hate him, he was an integral part of the band. While a noticeable difference, Matt Skiba replaces Tom admirably.

California is not the band’s best work, but it’s far from being a bad album. It’s leans more towards a +44 sound than the Blink sound everyone has grown to love over the years. Personally I loved the +44 album, and I love Alkaline Trio, so I’m really enjoying this new Blink-182 album. Two of Blink’s infamous joke tracks are on this album. And there is a lot of oohhing and whoa oh oh-ing on this record to go along with Blink’s traditional na na na na na’s, so be forewarned.

When pre-orders for the album first went up in April 2016 people went nuts over it. There were plenty of bundles to choose from. Most included the same garbage most bundles have; t-shirts and hoodies, but one bundle had a signed drumhead along with a signed record (on the jacket). That drumhead bundle was rather pricey ($90) and sold out in a matter of hours.

Initially there was only one variant of the record available; purple. Purple sold out in two days and Kings Road Merch (KRM), who handled the pre-orders for this album, almost immediately put up a new variant; white. When white sold out they put up another variant; red. It seemed like never-ending variants for this album, which actually panned out to be pretty accurate.

On top of the purple, white, and red, there is also the standard, widely available black vinyl and a UK exclusive color; silver. And of course $hit Topic had to get into the game as well. Their exclusive color is red with black splatter, and you know they have to charge more than anyone else for their exclusive; $25. All the other U.S. variants cost $22 or under. But because KRM handled pre-orders they charged outlandish shipping prices; $11.15 was the cheapest option because they refuse to offer media mail. So that $22 price immediately turned into over $30 for a single LP. Because they staggered the release of the variants, and with KRM apparently refusing to combine orders for anyone, people who wanted all the variants had to pay that $11.15 shipping charge three separate times.

Pressing info has not been released for any of the variants, and don’t expect it to ever be. So don’t trust any sites that have pressing info listed… cough… Discogs…. cough. The numbers were never posted anywhere official during the pre-order phase or post release date, and if they were, they were immediately suspicious because they got vital info wrong like saying “exclusive” when that particular variant was being sold elsewhere. All colors, except for $hit Topic’s red with black splatter, are pressed on 180 gram vinyl though.

All copies of the record, except the red with black splatter, come with a color coded hype sticker in the top right corner. Whatever color the sticker is indicates what color the record itself is. The red w/ black splatter sticker is all black. All the hype stickers are circle and shape and indicate 180 gram vinyl (except for the red w/ black splatter) along with mentioning the color, just in case the color of the sticker isn’t enough. The vinyl version has exclusive, alternate artwork, but it’s a minor change. Instead of a white background it’s a black background for the vinyl version. The record itself come in a printed dust sleeve. The dust sleeve is printed on thick card stock and has the lyrics printed on one side with the liner notes on the opposite side. A download code for high quality 320 kbps MP3s is included with every copy as well.

So to sum up: six variants all on 180 gram vinyl except for the splatter (purple, white, red, black, red w/ black splatter, silver) with pressing info never released for any of them. Pressed as single LP w/ alternate artwork. Record comes in a printed dust sleeve and a download card included. Retail price is around $20.

 

Billie Joe Armstrong/Travis Barker/Jane Wiedlen & Roddy Bottom – Live Freaky! Die Freaky! 7″ (Record Store Day 2015)

Record Store Day (RSD) 2015 was my worst yet. Typically I arrive about three hours before my local store opens and I’m usually no more than 20 people back, having no problems getting everything I want. This year, because of the Brand New – Deja Entendu re-press I decided to get to the store even earlier, anticipating a clusterf*ck because of the Deja release. Boy was I wrong in how early I should have gotten there. Even though I lined up five hours before opening, two hours earlier than I usually do, I was the 55th person in line, more than double where I usually am in line. How do I know where I was in line you ask? Simple; my local store is insanely organized when it comes to RSD. They keep all the RSD releases alphabetized and categorized by format (7″, 10″, LP, CD, tape, box set) behind a counter they set up just for RSD, have it set up menu style where you tell them what you want and they get it for you, only let a handful of people in the store (RSD area) at a time and they hand out numbered pieces of paper like a deli in a supermarket based on line order to make sure nobody further back in line gets RSD releases ahead of anyone because they have four or five different employees getting releases.

So to sum up, I got to the store earlier than ever before, was further back in line than ever before for my effort and didn’t get three releases that I wanted. Considering in the six previous RSD’s I’ve attended I only didn’t get one release over that entire span, not getting three in one year is a horrible swing. To be fair though, I bought one of the releases I missed online from Bull Moose. I found out from talking to people in the store and some employees that people started lining up at 5 pm on the day before (Friday) RSD, with the bulk of people getting the Deja RSD exclusive lining up by 11:30 pm the day before. No way will I ever line up that early for anything non-life essential.

One of the releases that is still lingering post RSD is the Billie Joe Armstrong 7″ picture disc. It’s billed as solely a Billie Joe Armstrong release, but in fact it’s a split release featuring two other artists and the music is taken from the soundtrack to the stop-motion animated musical film Live Freaky! Die Freaky!. Side A has the Billie Joe Armstrong song, “Mechanical Man,” and side B has two tracks, one by Travis Barker (Blink-182 drummer) entitled “Charlie? (Opening Song)” and the other by Jane Wiedlin (Go-Go’s) and Roddy Bottom (Faith No more) entitled “Do The Creep Crawl.”

There were 2500 copies pressed, all as a picture disc. It was released by Frontier Records to celebrate the film’s 10th anniversary. One thing of note about this release is that is does not come in a red picture disc sleeve as the picture on the official RSD releases list implies based on the picture attached to it. It comes in a regular, clear, picture disc sleeve with a hype sticker on the right hand side.

This 7″ was arguably the most expensive release considering what it is. Yes, there were far more expensive releases by dollar amount, but they were either box sets or multi-disc releases. You can’t compare the price of a box set against a single 7″. What I’m getting at is this three track, picture disc 7″, cost $20 retail. Sure some places might have undercut that price by a few bucks or charged even more for it than that, but theMSRP was $20. To make matters even worse, theMSRP’s stated leaking out shortly after owner of Bull Moose Records and one of the founders ofRSD, did an interview about everythingRSD where he said, referring toRSD 2015; “Ryan Adams’ ongoing inexpensive 7″ series means a label better have a very good reason for releasing a 7″ for $12-$15″ and ‘some releases were rejected based on price.’ Obviously those statements were hogwash as this 7” somehow made the cut at this price point. Before anyone jumps down my throat about complaining about the price but still buying it, myout of pocket cost was only $10 after applying a rewards point bonus that my local store does.

Blink-182/Swindle – Lemmings b/w Going Nowhere 7″

2014 saw a legitimate Blink-182 re-press, finally. Mixed in with the completely unnecessary and pure cash grab splatter re-presses of all of Blink’s albums, was a re-press of the split 7″ with Swindle entitled Lemmings/Going Nowhere. People always forget that this is in fact a split 7″ and features a, additional band other than solely Blink-182 and additional songs other than just “Lemmings.” The classic 7″ that has been OOP for almost 20 years, was re-pressed on three different colors; yellow/”gold”, blue and red. The first press was only done on two colors; yellow and black.

As far as I can tell the first press and second press are practically identical visually. They have the same track listing, obviously, since it’s a re-press and not a re-issue, but I can’t do a sound comparison because I don’t and likely never will buy, a first pressing. Both jackets/sleeves are a half fold, which when unfolded reveal the same artwork. I’m not sure if the material used for the jacket/sleeve is the same between both pressings. The second press is made of card stock, but I believe the first press is made of glossy paper. I’ve never seen a first pressing in person.

No word on pressing info for the second pressing, nor official pressing info for the first pressing. The yellow copies from the first pressing are rumored to be limited to 300 or 500 copies. Grilled Cheese Records was not the foremost when it came to releasing pressing info. They’ve done multiple pressings of the They Came To Conquer Uranus 7″ at this point and have yet to release pressing info for any of them, and now two pressings of the Lemmings Split 7″ and haven’t released info for it either.

Blink-182 – Greatest Hits (1st & 5th Press)

The lone Blink-182 album not to get pressed on vinyl, their Greatest Hits album was released on the format in June 2014. It was pressed as a double LP on clear with black and silver splatter, which was limited to 3000 copies. It’s a $hit Topic exclusive, not a $hit Topic release as many morons still tend to believe. $hit Topic is NOT a label kiddies. This is also part of what those same morons anointed the “splatter series” of Blink-182 records that $hit Topic has been selling. As if there couldn’t be a more obvious way of duping morons out of money, Universal and $hit Topic are catering to kids who buy records for all the wrong reasons, which is leading to the dramatic rise in prices.

To further illustrate my point, one person who owns this record weighs all his records for absolutely no reason. He weighed his copy of the album and posted pictures of the scale’s reading as proof one LP weighed dramatically more than the other after multiple people complained about the weight difference on a message board. For the record, no pun intended, there is no weight difference with my copy of this record. So it’s probably not a widespread issue and it definitely does not affect every copy. Since I own other Universal releases from this latest batch of re-presses and new pressings, one of which (Fall Out Boy – Infinity On High 2^nd pressing) has a weight difference between LP’s, there is a quality control issue and/or pressing error at whatever cheap plant Universal is using for their records.

One thing is for certain with Blink, their albums will inevitably be re-pressed, with some of them being done incessantly and for no real reason. Their Greatest Hits album is a good example. I’m all for albums being kept in print and readily accessible. But for something like this, that never really needed to be pressed in the first place, let alone five times over the years, it just clogs up pressing plants. Yes, I bought two copies of this, from two different pressings; so I guess I can be partly to blame for it and fell into the trap of buying it from both a completionist stand point and just for literally one extra track that was unnecessarily left off the first pressing.

The case can be made easiest by looking at the fourth pressing, which was done by $RC Vinyl as part of their 10^th Anniversary series. For whatever reason they felt it necessary to press a mere 330 copies of it. On a new, different color (silver marble) than was used for any previous pressing. And to add further rarity, they did a numbered variant within this pressing, which was limited to 182; ironic, isn’t it?  Those 182 copies also come with an apparent alternate jacket, which had a matte finish and silver ink, as opposed to the “standard” gatefold jackets, which for whatever reason don’t have a matte finish and have practically identical, if not 100% identical silver ink. To add another dimension to this stupidity; you could not order this variant; it was given out randomly in orders. The hand numbering was done on a sticker that is stuck onto the back of the poly sleeve, not the jacket itself. Which is not an usual move for $RC; it’s actually their MO.

Since I jumped ahead a bit in terms of pressings, here is the rest of the pressing info leading up to the most recent pressing, which is the fifth overall. The first pressing, which was discussed above in the original entry to this blog post, was done by Universal and was a $hit Topic exclusive. The subsequent three pressings; so the second, third and fourth, were licensed out to $RC Vinyl. Which resulted in an unnecessary price increase, not only due to licensing fees, but because $RC loves to overcharge for everything they sell. And nobody give me the “well they do deluxe.” No. Just an excuse to charge more money, I haven’t been all that impressed with any $RC Vinyl releases I own; especially when compared to earlier pressings done by other labels. Also add in the fact they routinely lie about pressing info, especially with this album. As you will see below.

When the second pressing was announced and put up for pre-order in 2017, $RC claimed only 2,000 copies would be pressed. When all was said and done and copies started shipping, people were shocked to learn that there were actually 2700 copies pressed. Kind of hard to hid this fact when every copy comes hand numbered. A 10% over/under can typically be expected for any and all pressings, but you do the math; 10% of 2000 is 200. So where did those extra 500 copies come from?

The second pressing was done on 180 gram black vinyl, and the pressing was given the overstated “deluxe” treatment by $RC. In this case deluxe simply meant a single page, fold out booklet instead of an insert, which is literally the gatefold imagery used from the first pressing. So as a result the gatefold imagery/artwork used for this second pressing had to be changed. And what did $RC go with… two of the bands logos! One printed on each panel of the gatefold.

The third pressing, released in 2018, was limited to an unofficially released amount on clear vinyl, and was not given the quasi deluxe treatment. This pressing still cost $37 before shipping however. The aforementioned fourth pressing was released in 2019.

In 2020, this album was re-pressed again, making it the fifth overall pressing. This time, apparently $RC Vinyl’s licensing ran out, and Universal again pressed it themselves, but this time using Target as the exclusive retailer. This pressing has not had pressing info released, not even people posting speculation on various sites and message boards. All copies were pressed on “leaf” green and aqua opaque. One dumb thing about this variant is that the listing/description of the colors is done in reverse. So in actuality the first LP is pressed on aqua opaque and the second LP is done on the “leaf” green. Both colors are marble as well, with the “leaf” green having a close to neon green hue. This pressing reverts back to the exact layout of the first pressing, which isn’t surprising considering Universal Music Enterprises (UME) is responsible for it. And yes, this pressing technically has a Geffen Records copyright as well. Geffen did initially release the Greatest Hits album when it first came out in 2005, but under the Universal umbrella, with UME handling all vinyl re-issues. Which is the reason for Geffen and UME being listed in the credits.