Bjork Coloured Vinyl

Amongst my new years resolutions was the promise not to buy any new music by Bjork. I haven't enjoyed one of her albums since "Homogenic" from 1997 so buying more seemed like a waste of money.

The all important sticker

However, I have never ruled out buying her old music again. So when I noticed amazon listing reissues of her albums on vinyl I was intrigued. Add the lure of the first 5000 (yes this is hardly limited quantities, but what the hell) copies being pressed on coloured vinyl and I found myself pre-ordering "Debut" "Post" and "Homogenic" without hesitation. They are only 140g and not the 180g that vinyl enthusiasts seem to crave, but how can you resist coloured vinyl?

Now, I am aware that every vinyl pressing plant in Europe is working at full throttle with an overflowing order book; so when the release dates for these albums slipped a couple of times I wasn't unduly surprised. However, when the first disc turned up I was unduly surprised: the vinyl was black. I immediately began scouring the Internet to find out what was going on. The coloured vinyl seemed freely available, just not from amazon it would seem. I cancelled the remainder of my order and went looking elsewhere.

My first order was placed with a website called Boomkat who were showing all coloured vinyls as available for 'pre-order'. A week or so later a copy of "Homogenic" arrived carrying the telltale sticker in the top left corner denoting it was a limited coloured vinyl edition. Brilliant. Around a week later Boomkat emailed me to say their distributor had 'let them down' and they weren't able to offer the remaining albums. "Sorry about that. We've cancelled your order". Not so brilliant.

Nice discs, but why green?

Next on the hit list was "Post". A quick look through Discogs brought up lots of sellers with sealed copies at reasonable prices so I ordered one. Two days later I owned the coloured version of "Post" too. "Debut" was a tougher and much more elusive opponent if I wasn't willing to spend over £30. I would have to bide my time.

A few weeks later I found myself in an HMV store and whilst I was idly flicking through the vinyl I noticed a Bjork section. It contained a copy of her latest album "Vulnicura" (strictly off limits) along with a coloured vinyl of "Debut" for the startlingly good sum of £15.99. So my mission to own 3 coloured vinyls was complete, all it took was one month, a bit of poking around on the Internet and some good luck. No thanks to amazon on this occasion.

The discs themselves are rather nice, but I can't help but feel "Homogenic" should have been a burgundy coloured disc to match the rear of the artwork, I just don't see where the green came from. Each disc has a card with a download code for 320kps MP3 files but I haven't manged to get any of them to work first time. For "Post" I had to input the code at least 10 times before the website would let me download.

I can't really work out what amazon are doing when it comes to these releases. Why I ended up with a black vinyl remains a mystery (on the plus side it is a 180g edition rather than the 140g of the coloured version). Amazon really need to change their listing to reflect the fact that they haven't got any of the coloured versions. They still list theses albums as "Limited Edition" and state associated colour of the vinyl, but in my experience they just dispatch the black vinyl.