Ridiculous vinyl colour names

Back in the day, coloured vinyl and picture discs were synonymous with inferior sound quality and I always avoided them because of this. Today however, most pressing plants seem able to create decent sounding discs no matter what colours they add (glow in the dark, splatter or glittery discs aside).

This advancement in quality means that the marketing people at record labels feel emboldened to offer all manner of special coloured vinyl editions. Not satisfied with concocting these variations, record labels also seem compelled to add some marketing spin to the names of the colours. 

Alongside the conventional colours red, white, orange etc., I also see terms like ‘Electric blue’ and ‘oxblood’ being used. I don’t really have a problem with this as these feel quite conventional names and they even appear on a list of established colour names I found.

Where I take issue is when record companies invent descriptive colour names that are so contrived they either don’t tell us what colour the vinyl will actually be or they are painfully obvious. Today I have come across the colour ‘Belgian ale’ which seems like a rather unhelpful name. Personally, I like a nice blonde or Dubbel with an amber hue; but I’m not sure if the record will be this colour or that of a Trappist Brune. They’re both Belgian ale, but very different colours – why not just say brown?

An increasingly common description I see is ‘Bottle clear’ or ‘Coke bottle clear’ - which is essentially transparent vinyl that has a pale blue tinge. Another variation is ‘milky clear’, but I’m not entirely sure where the line is between this and ‘opaque white’. Other highlights encountered recently are ‘Silver Nugget Metallic’ (which is grey), ‘Edelweiss white’ (errr it’s white) and ‘Moonlight transparent clear’ (I have no idea, but I’m guessing it is ‘bottle clear’).