At first glance, one might think the blueness is a trick of the light, but Ian also sent a photo of the LP side-by-side with its black vinyl equivalent, and the difference is quite striking.
What a great find! It is not clear at present whether this blue edition was on general sale. The sleeve, labels and matrix number are as per usual, so whether this was a one-off created in the factory as a souvenir, or whether there was a short run pressed on blue by mistake, is anyone's guess. One would have thought that if the LP was deliberately put on sale as a coloured vinyl edition, they would at least have said so on the sleeve. As ever, we appeal to anyone with any knowledge of this to please leave us some details.
And what of other coloured vinyls issued elsewhere? We may as well round up what we know from the world of budget LPs.
First, Top of the Pops itself. Below is an Argentinian edition of TOTP volume 26. Nothing like this ever appeared in the UK, needless to say!
Where anonymous cover versions are concerned, the Flag/Boulevard label was the first in Britain to go for it, to my knowledge, with a pair of red vinyl LPs in 1970. Here's a pressing of World Top 12 volume 1:
Later in the 1970s, the Chevron label also dabbled with coloured vinyl for their Parade of Pops albums. They issued one in red, and three in "gold" (ie, yellow!):
There is also an album called Pop Concert, issued on the Tempo label in the 1970s. It came out on dark green, translucent vinyl:
And we end this round-up with the USSR album, Variety's Orbit, which contains two Top of the Pops recordings among its twelve tracks (the rest being by their original artists). There are at least three different coloured vinyl pressings known, probably all from 1975:
That is pretty cool! Maybe the pressing plant ran out of black vinyl for a short run? Or likely, as you say, it was a mistake. Perhaps they did it as a joke!
ReplyDeleteHard to say. I don't think it was an official decision to start making blue ones, or we'd have heard about it - this could well be the only copy which survives!
ReplyDelete