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Tool Vinyl BUYING GUIDE (Original/Boots, etc.)


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Yeah, yeah, I know there's tons of these threads on here, but bear with me. Discogs, and even toolvinyl.com have been disappointingly scarce with some of the details. Because I'm insane, and have no life, I have accumulated this knowledge, and felt like putting it up here.

STUDIO ALBUMS:

Opiate: 3 pressings. All official, no boots.
- 1st pressing was released in 1996. Printed inner sleeve, BLACK center labels. "Parental Advisory" sticker on jacket. "Tool - Opiate" on spine. Worth $50-$70. http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=468462

- 2nd pressing was released in 1999. Generic inner sleeve, white center label. Smaller "Parental Advisory" sticker on jacket. Worth $15-$20

- 3rd pressing was released in 2006. Like the 2nd pressing, generic inner sleeve, white label. "Parental Advisory" printed on the jacket, no sticker. Somewhat blurry, off colored artwork. Everywhere for under $10. http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=4201393

 

Undertow: 3 pressings, all official.
- 1st pressing was released in 1996. Printed inner sleeves, "x-ray" labels. "Parental Advisory" sticker on shrink wrap. Worth $35-$45 http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=763651
- 2nd pressing was released in 1999. Generic inners, plain white labels, "PA" sticker. Worth $25-$30

- 3rd pressing was released in 2006. Follows the same pattern as the Opiate re-presses. Generic inners, white labels, "PA" printed, not stickered. Everywhere for under $20. http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=1157598
- There's also the original 1993 promo w/out "Digustipated" on gray or clear vinyl. Gray is worth $100ish, clear is more like $150. http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=1275319

Ænima: 2 official pressings, and an unknown # of bootlegs.
- The 2 official pressings are essentially identical, gatefold jacket, printed inners, black vinyl, ornate grayish center-label. On eBay, they range anywhere from $150 to $400.
- It seems there's a huge number of bootlegs bouncing around, but from what I've seen, there might be only 2 (maybe 3?) unofficial pressings, just in a wide range of colors.

#1: Gatefold jacket, plain white sleeves, only one insert, plain black center labels w/ only a serial number printed on them. I've seen transparent yellow and transparent green a lot (plenty of talk about them on this forum), but even black, clear blue, clear red, and orange. The jacket itself is very flimsy, and rough. Haven't seen one on the auction sites as frequently anymore, bootleg #2 is far more common now.

#2: Gatefold jacket (much sturdier), plain white sleeves, two inserts copying the original inner sleeves, and even the original ornate label artwork. Nicely weighted vinyl on marbled yellow, transparent orange, marbled gray, transparent gold, and some with one of each. Sound quality is nice, maybe not as good as an OP, but usually sells for less than $60.

Salival: Bootleg.
- Never put out on vinyl by the band, but whoever did, did an excellent job. (which might explain why so many people think it's official) Supposedly "limited to 350 copies". Cool foil-bag serves as an outer packaging type-deal. Colored vinyl, usually gray & clear. Great sound quality. I used to see 'em a lot for $50-$60, but now hard to come by on eBay for under $100.

Lateralus: 1 official pressings, a few bootlegs too.
- The real one is unmistakable, because of the holographic gatefold and the 180g double picture discs. $35 online or in-store.
- There's a blue 12" promo circulating since the release that looks official at first but sounds like trash. .
- There's a 2xLP on marbled pink/red, that is clearly fake because the track listing mimics the CD, which was re-ordered for the official release.
- And a new boot I've seen has the "eye rings" on it, like the official release (they're positioned differently, so it doesn't look similar), and a photograph of a human eye on the back with the CD track listing sort-of super imposed over it. Labels are each made to look like a miniature version of the picture discs. Sound quality is reportedly below average.

10,000 Days: Bootleg.
- This one has some potential; artwork is well made, but printed on a cheaper cardboard. Heavy blue and/or red vinyl, small amount on green, (confirmed) that sounds good but as several people have pointed out, has 2 seconds of silence between tracks, even if they're supposed to fade into each other. This one's sort of a draw, but I don't think Tool are going to press a real one anytime soon. $45 online, sometimes in-store.

SINGLES/PROMOS:

Prison Sex: 1 single, 1 promo.
- UK 12" on gray vinyl. 45rpm, but I read somewhere that copies play 33 1/3 (confirmed)
- UK 12" Promo on standard black vinyl. 2 tracks, black label, black die-cut sleeve.

Sober: 3 promos.
- UK Sober E.P. 12" promo. Black label, black die-cut sleeve. Includes 8x10 glossy band photo w/ press release.
- UK 12" promo. Black label, black die-cut sleeve. Side B is "Intolerance (Live)" from Lollapalooza '93.
- UK 12" picture disc. Promo. Clear plastic sleeve. (I'm assuming ?)

Selections from Ænima: Promo/picture disc.
- European 12" pic disc. Comes in printed promotional jacket. Never sold for less than $700-$800. "Cherubrium" artwork on one side, "Tool - Ænima" on the other.

Stinkfist: Promo/picture disc.
- 10" picture disc given to anyone who bought a copy of Ænima from Best Buy in 1996. "Medicine Twins" artwork on both sides. Housed in clear plastic sleeve.

Cesaro Summability: Promo/picture disc.
- 12" picture disc, limited to 5000 copies. Comes with a press release to promote  Housed in clear plastic sleeve.

Lateralus: Promo/picture disc.
- 12" picture disc, limited to 500 copies. (confirm?) Contains 6 songs from Lateralus. Housed in Clear plastic sleeve.

LIVE BOOTLEGS:

 

Lollapalooza 1993:

- 12" on many colors. I've seen Pink, Purple, Blue, and Grey. Sleeve is blank white with a long sticker on the front; although I have seen at least 1 with a black sleeve. Silver labels, sound is okay. Don't spend more than $15 here.

 

MMXII:

- Double picture disc. Gatefold sleeve, vinyl is supposedly pretty thick. The recording is from a concert in Charlotte, NC on 02/04/12. I don't own this, so I can't say anything about sound quality, but it looks pretty awesome.
 

Live In Newcastle:

- Colored vinyl, just yellow so far. This is brand new, I don't know anything about it.

 

 

WORTHLESS BOOTLEGS (Just Don't Buy Them):

 

Silver Tongue:

- Green colored vinyl. Demos from the 72826 cassette on side A, covers on side B. (Although I don't recall Tool ever covering Sublime.) Pretty much a pointless purchase.

 

Parabol:

- Colored vinyl. There's red, blue, black, white, brown, and grey. This has pretty much the exact same side A as Silver Tongue, except Sober is on here. Neat. Side B is also similar, but adds No Quarter from Salival, and that Pink Floyd cover that Tool totally did. Remember that?

 

Tainted Love:

- Blue or red colored vinyl. This one's mostly Maynard collaborations. In fact the rest of the band is only credited on the last 2 tracks. The final track is the demo version of Sober. Why this exists, I have no idea. I would imagine, like the 2 releases above, that it sounds like it was cut with a screwdriver.

 

 

Hope this is helpful! :)

 

 

Will update as needed.

Edited by topher
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Can anyone explain to me what the rationale was behind the Lateralus tracklist reorder? The album would have fit perfectly fine in the correct order. Its completely annoying.

Eh, that side might have ran a little long if they hadn't changed it. But it's not like they didn't already sacrifice quality by making it a picture disc.

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I think they wanted to keep the "Disposition-Reflection-Triad" thing intact, but seeing as how the re-arranging disrupted that anyway, it makes no sense. And you're right, it is annoying because that was the highlight of the album! And as far as the pic disc goes, I see the reference to the original CD artwork, with the anatomy layers, and I think it's really cool, but I'd like to see a plain ol' black vinyl release for quality's sake. Hell, make it a 3xLP for a fit that keeps the trilogy together, and do an etching on the side you don't use.

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D/R/T was initally recorded as one song. Hence why on the back of the lateralus CD there is a connecting line to all the songs. They do not fit natively on a LP and the track list was reordered as such.

I kinda feel like this thread is slightly irrelevant given that there is a website for this that is considered to be the go-to source.

http://toolvinyl.com/

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Notes:

First pressing of Opiate has a darker, less color saturated cover. As long as a Parental Advisory Sticker, not printed.

Ænima 1st and 2nd Pressings are easily distinguishable from each other but hard to distinguish from some bootlegs.

I was burned at a record shop for a sealed copy of Ænima and it turned out to be a fake when I got it home. They are that detailed and I am a serious Tool collector who got dooped.

It comes down to the catalog #s and spine being correct on a sealed copy. Otherwise printed innersleeves will be the tell all.

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If it were the CD order the times per side would have been:

A. 16:54

B. 17:06

C. 22:20

D. 22:32

Disc1: 33:60

Disc2: 44:52

They would have been perfect.

And WTF on the pic disc. It looks awesome but why?

The Lateralus 2xLP release on picture disc is probably one of the best sounding records I own. The Picture does not interfere with the quality of the vinyl. The way this disc was pressed is that the image is under the vinyl. This is verified info, forget where I got it though.

The Lateralus PROMO picture disc does not sound as good.

2s7XP.jpg

OjGqX.jpg

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The Lateralus 2xLP release on picture disc is probably one of the best sounding records I own. The Picture does not interfere with the quality of the vinyl. The way this disc was pressed is that the image is under the vinyl. This is verified info, forget where I got it though.

The Lateralus PROMO picture disc does not sound as good.

2s7XP.jpg

OjGqX.jpg

My copy of Lateralus sounds awful, actually, probably the worst sounding picture disc I have. Maybe it's time to find another copy.

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I remember reading at least 10+ years ago in an interview that Maynard did where he said the original pressing of Aenima had a hidden part of a song where the groove wasnt cut as deep as the other part and when the needle took that path it actually had a different part of the song that wasnt on the cd. He said that it only happened like 10% of the time that the needle would take that groove or something. I wish I remember what song he said it was. I always wondered if this was true or if it was just typical Maynard.

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D/R/T was initally recorded as one song. Hence why on the back of the lateralus CD there is a connecting line to all the songs. They do not fit natively on a LP and the track list was reordered as such.

I kinda feel like this thread is slightly irrelevant given that there is a website for this that is considered to be the go-to source.

http://toolvinyl.com/

toolvinyl.com hasn't been updated in a very long time, and their information on bootlegs is less than useless, as they are diametrically opposed to the creation and sale of bootlegs; while I maintain that a good collection can include well-made boots.

And quality on the Lateralus picture disc: I, too have heard both good and bad things, (mine's kinda noisy). It's all one pressing, correct? Or was there a point when they produced them differently? It's still in print, even. Came out in 2005, and sealed copies are still everywhere today.

Edit:

Green 10,000 Days -- This exists. Pics on Google Images. Simple as that.

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Thanks for taking the time to put this together, I haven't started my Tool collection yet but planned to tackle soonish. This will be a big help.

No problem. This is something I will be editing/adding to frequently, so stay tuned. Updated whenever new info is brought up/becomes relevant/is requested.

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