Okay, I was wrong. I just got word from my contact at Warners UK that this is indeed a legit release that got pulled. It was meant to be a Black Friday RSD 2016 release. The artwork and design was approved by Morrissey himself but Johnny Marr put a stop to the release at the last minute because he never intended the radio edit of The Queen Is Dead to be commercially released.
They have no idea how copies ended up in the wild because they thought they had all the manufactured product destroyed.
So if you got a copy, consider yourself one lucky person.
This sounds wonderful, but elephant in the room : the record and sleeve are dated 2017. Hardly Black Friday RSD? The code "12QID2017A/B" doesn't help either as it is atypical to any other Smiths record code and, again, the date is in the code - hardly for RSD and the date in the code is just bizarre.
The debate elsewhere also states the barcodes relate to a 7 and 12 inch picture disc from the Warner Bros information.
The guy getting frustrated that people are questioning it will have to bite his lip until there is a definitive statement.
Smiths - Queen is dead 12" single
in Vinyl Collective Message Board
Posted · Edited by Poppy Cocteau
This sounds wonderful, but elephant in the room : the record and sleeve are dated 2017. Hardly Black Friday RSD? The code "12QID2017A/B" doesn't help either as it is atypical to any other Smiths record code and, again, the date is in the code - hardly for RSD and the date in the code is just bizarre.
The debate elsewhere also states the barcodes relate to a 7 and 12 inch picture disc from the Warner Bros information.
The guy getting frustrated that people are questioning it will have to bite his lip until there is a definitive statement.