unknown pleasures

I'd just like to let everyone know I have absolutely zero interest in the Springsteen box set. Thank you.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was a whole lot about first world problems...

Excuse me but I believe you mean a Belle & Sebastians scarf.

He must be reading the board. It's a perfectly sane $135 now.

I'm sure dropping the Queen box set to $10 is the first thing GoHastings will do after curing cancer and solving the JFK assassination mystery.

I think we're slowly writing an episode of 'Family Guy' in here...

Then they wouldn't be scratches, they'd be holes.

That doesn't sound like the sort of thing one forgets easily.

I saw one listed a couple of days ago for 150 euros. That's the lowest priced one I've seen. No way I'm paying that. On the S.Hoffman forums there a good thread about this release where they speculate it may be a teaser for a multi-LP release in the near future.

And Jeff is just a department store mannequin with a magic hat who never asked to come to life.

You could say that about almost any RSD Black Friday release this year...

I think this is simply a good example of a situation where things aren't so black and white, but rather a very murky gray.

No one knows for sure outside of Joyful Noise but I think it's a safe assumption. And a lot of it depends on how you define test pressings, but I personally think something that's pressed to test sound quality by the band and/or label is a test pressing and something pressed deliberately to be sold (like you see so often in Kickstarter campaigns and such) isn't. Even if the runs they sell during Test Pressing Week are from the same run as what their true test pressings are from, it's a little disingenuous to run off an extra 20-30 copies and then sell them as 'wink, wink' test pressings.

The trouble is that these are even being referred to as "test pressings", which I'll admit is a problem not unique to Joyful Noise. These are clearly glorified variants or - at best - white label promos. You're basically paying three or four times retail for a black vinyl copy of an album with no label artwork or even a jacket. It's nice that they're numbered and some of them are signed, but they're really just cash grabs in my opinion. Look at the Dumb Numbers box, for example: there were ten, I think, complete box sets available yesterday, then another 15 of each individual 10" available today. Who knows if more will pop up at auctions or elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I think the label puts out some great stuff, but at this point in pretty happy with just the plain releases or even the downloads rather than going crazy trying to score some arbitrary collectible being disguised as a test pressing.

I think $20 for a flexi, $30 for a 7" and $40 for a 10". I'm guessing $50 for a LP.

Can we clarify that we're talking about "ska punk" here and not "ska"? There's a big difference between and

What was the deal with the Parquet Courts release? Is it RSD exclusive, or some variant? I was surprised to see it in the shop and hadn't remembered it mentioned on any lists I'd seen.

PST, I presume?

$10 + $20 glow-in-the-dark novelty tax.

New Numero "Project 12" subscription-only vinyl release club: http://m.pitchfork.com/news/62155-numero-group-announce-lp-subscription-club/

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/rare-records-mostly-dreadful-2014072588944 RARE RECORDS MOSTLY DREADFUL Scarce and highly collectable vinyl records are generally awful, it has emerged. Vinyl junkie Tom Logan said: “Yes it was over a grand but I finally got a seven inch copy of Harmonica Gopher by Bayou Dogg III off some helpful opportunist on Discogs. “It is very rare because nobody liked it when it came out. Most copies were melted down and made into other things that people actually wanted, like rulers and buckets. “Listening to it today, it is still shit. “But it is so rare. Other men do not have it, thus I feel that on some level I have beaten them.” Collector Stephen Malley said: “I lost my wife and kids after spunking all our food money on obscure records. “All I’ve got to show for it is a lock-up garage full of atonal jazz, wanky prog rock and, most puzzlingly of all, Italian horror film soundtracks. “It was worth it.”

People smoke weed at a Phish show?! You learn something new everyday!!

The /1 concept is pretty crazy. All it takes is two rabid fans to drive something into the thousands. And a lot of the bands involved, like GBV and YLT, have a lot more than two rabid fans.

The last idea I saw that had me this excited was the vertical turntable... ...or maybe the Netflix of vinyl.