After Concord Music Group’s acquisition of Victory Records, we have seen an influx of Taking Back Sunday vinyl releases and re-presses. They have already re-pressed Tell All Your Friends in the traditional sense twice, but that was not enough. In 2022 they released a 20th anniversary edition, which includes an additional 10” featuring the band’s original demo minus the final song found on it, “Your Own Disaster.” If you want the best possible reason for why the song was omitted, maybe it was because it was not actually released on Tell All Your Friends, and it was cut from this anniversary edition because of that fact. But the glaring omission of the song considering there was plenty of room on the 10” since the b-side is blank (musically speaking, I’m aware there is an etching) is a legit complaint any fan can have.
This re-issue has interesting packaging. It’s a gatefold jacket of sorts. The 10” pocket, which is affixed to the front of the LP jacket (this is the best way I can describe it) folds out like a traditional gatefold jacket, except it’s obviously smaller in size. While unique, tt’s definitely not the most sensible design. Most copies have some sort of irreparable bending of the spine because of the size difference in the pockets. This spine bending is not uncommon for gatefold jackets; the size difference on this release just exacerbates it. This unfortunate reality led to the LP dust sleeve with my copy being damaged in a unique way. If Craft Recordings was going for overpriced and uniqueness they sure hit this out of the park!
The LP dust sleeve with my copy has the edges folded over along the side that was slid inside the jacket. It’s not torn in any way thankfully, but I discovered the cause of this interesting after trying to slid the record back into the jacket and had a fair amount of it sticking out. Because the jacket spine is so deformed it doesn’t allow the LP to completely slide in.
Pressing info for this edition/pressing is a bit more fruitful, unlike some other Craft releases. Of course they went with some exclusives, and already announced a second pressing before the first one even shipped. The first pressing has orange crush limited to 1,000 copies and was exclusive to Brooklyn Vegan (yes, the blog sells records now). Urban Outfitters (UO) has an exclusive on “sangria” vinyl limited to an unknown amount. Yes, good ole Discogs has it listed as limited to 3,000 copies, but that number was not officially listed anywhere. The band of course has an exclusive, which is on blue smoke limited to 1500 copies. There is also a tour exclusive on forest green limited to 1500 copies, with 750 copies available online via the band’s web store. Not to miss out, the label (via both Craft Recordings and Victory Records) has their own exclusive as well, which is on “fog” vinyl limited to 500 copies.
Before we get into what some of the variants look like, all variants come with the demos 10” on black vinyl (I had to re-write that sentence multiple times ot have it not be a double entendre). The b-side, as mentioned above, is blank, audibly speaking. The b-side is etched with the band’s panther logo, which really shouldn’t be used for a TAYF release since the band didn’t adopt the panther logo until 2014. The blue smoke variant is a transparent green, like a coke bottle green, with blue smoke. The “sangria” variant is a light orange, almost peach color, with red and darker orange splatter. The fog variant is clear with white smoke. All variants have the same hype sticker. There are no official hype stickers denoting color of the record.
I mentioned above that this is overpriced. The label is charging $35 for this. They only charged $25 for the single LP re-press back in 2019. So an additional $10 for a 10” and re-designed packaging. The re-mastered album was used for both pressings/editions. The price tag unfortunately didn’t dissuade anyone, as the first pressing sold very quickly. Most of the variants sold out in a matter of days. The UO variant cost $38 before shipping. Due to how quickly this is/was selling I would be surprised if any physical stores got in copies, but since pressing info has not been released for their variant, anything can happen.
I applaud the originality of the demo 10”. The dust sleeve, which is printed on glossy paper, replicates one of the artwork designs used for the original demo released back in 2001. For those unfamiliar with the original demo release packaging, there were two different artworks used for the packaging. The most familiar one was chosen for this vinyl release; the guitar amp. The other artwork was two people kissing.
