Not to jump onto the bandwagon here, but anyone remember The Slip? That just dropped on us out of nowhere...FOR FREE. Not many artists would give away an album like that. When i'm giving the opportunity to purchase a limited edition vinyls, i jump at that chance. I was happy with my purchase the second i received the FLAC files, the Vinyls just the icing on the cake for me. I'm sure some will be disappointed with them (as is the age we live in, there will always be someone not completely happy with everything, hell i'm pretty sure someone complained about the Slip being free!) and that's fine, but that won't stop me being over the moon with mine
Wasn't the slip done as a big thank you to the fans for Ghosts though? If memory serves me right Trent wasn't expecting to make the kind of cash he did for Ghosts.
I don't care that I don't have a full art book..but there are four records crammed into a standard gatefold and the sleeves just being basic paper? Come on, Trent. I have a lot of your vinyl releases. You're better than this.
I don't want to complain too much because we've all waited so long for the material. I'm happy to own all of it on a physical medium.
Just turned it on. Sounds AMAZING.
My review of the packaging is: it's beautiful, could have been ... more beautiful. It does seem like it's meant to be a companion to the vinyl reissue of the actual album, minus a book. It is, in fact, pretty bare bones, compared to some other packages for the same price, but I do wonder how the major label ownership of a fan-favorite might have played into these decisions. Even Welcome oblivion had more artwork, in terms of there being full-color sleeves for the vinyls. The artwork is the first and last pages of the PDF for the outside, pages 9 and 4 for the inner gatefold.
But aaaanyway. I'm glad it's here. I really like the wordless aesthetic with this particular release, and how anything with text on it is separate/removable from the gatefold (and the text-free Parental Advisory sticker is a nice touch).
To people making Ghosts and The Slip comparisons, Ghosts was expensive IF you chose to buy one of the expensive versions, and The Slip was free digitally- but of course we had to (happily) pay for it when it came out in physical form as we would with any CD release (so for those of us committed to owning physical releases, we didn't get it for free so much as we were able to listen to it for free before buying it anyway).
The Fragile: Deviations 1 is available in exactly one format, and it's $80. When you have no choice but to pay that much (aside from downloading it illegally), you want to feel like your money was worth it.
I bought the special edition of Fallout 4 in 2015 for twice the price of the vanilla version. It wasn't so much because I felt the extra stuff was worth the extra money as I was just so excited the game was coming out that I wanted to support them and get the best version possible. Now, if the game was ONLY available for $120 dollars, I wouldn't have been so easy to please with regard to the extra content, as I'd need them to justify why they were forcing everyone to buy that version.
Obviously, no one was forced to buy this record, but many of us want to own every official release, so if the only way to do that is to pay this much money, it's understandable we'd want the thing to be holy shit impressive- something like the Ghosts book where you could show it to someone who doesn't know the band and have them say, "wow, that's really cool."
I personally don't feel disappointed (especially not until I actually have the thing myself) and will still happily buy future Deviations releases at a premium to support their existence (as per my earlier Kickstarter comparison post), but I wanted to speak in defense of people who feel they didn't get their money's worth and point out why it's not fair to compare it to other releases. Those of us who didn't have $75 or $300 to shell out on Ghosts were still able to pay $10 to own a physical copy of the album.
The most baffling part of all of this is that the band would have almost certainly made WAY more money on this album if they had also released it as a $15-$20 digital download. Many of us who bought the vinyl still would have bought it, but a fuckton of people who didn't buy the vinyl would have happily bought the digital version.
Did anyone else's copy arrive damaged?
Both of my gatefold sleeves are split from them shoving two records in a space that's only meant to hold one. If the records were shipped inside their printed sleeves and not in additional paper sleeves, I'm sure those are split to hell too. I haven't even opened it.
My copy was also damaged during shipping and the bottom left corner is all beat to hell:
I've already contacted Sandbag for a new copy and will let you all know how dealing with them goes.
Really disappointed about the cramming of two records into each gatefold sleeve. My guess is that most copies will arrive from the manufacturer already split. Glad we paid $80 and waited all these extra months for something "perfect" only for this garbage.
Sandbag is not difficult to deal with. Something went wrong with a Moby download of mine years ago and while it took a little bit of back and forth, they ultimately refunded me when there wasn't a way to get me the correct downloads (which was weird. There were two versions of a remix album you could buy - one that was strung together via a Moby DJ set using various remixes & one that was just a zip of every single god damn remix of the album - I obviously chose the latter, received the former, was told through customer service that the latter was the former, and was given a refund when they couldn't understand that the zip file they were giving me was just the DJ set, not all of the remixes).
The top corners of the openings of my gatefold are a little warped, but I almost expect that when I order vinyl through the mail.
Anyone who is complaining about the artwork, please put the record on the actual needle and I promise you it will ease your mind and make up for the artwork a little bit. This is one of my favorite vinyl records I own and I'm only through side B. It sounds, again, amazing. (And if you only bought the record to frame or look at, well, sorry, hawk it on eBay).
Mine arrived with lots of damage. I guess I'm not surprised after the frustrating rollout of download links and the months of delays... I guess it would've been too much to ask for them to professionally package these flimsy $80 gatefolds instead of just throwing them in a thin mailer.
Here are the pics I just sent to Sandbag. Hopefully they will replace my LP with one that is appropriately packaged. A single-ply cardboard formfitting mailer is not enough for something this heavy and expensive. Due to its weight, it seems to be taking all of the hits and creases as it rolls around in shipping.
Last edited by jxe; 06-29-2017 at 01:56 PM.
Does anyone know if sandbag will refund you if you've opened the package already? I'm thinking of sending mine back once I receive it.
Were your gatefold sleeves split along the top or bottom? All of the photos you posted just look like the package got beat up. I wasn't impressed with how they packaged it either, something this heavy but fragile (heh) needs some sort of bubble wrapping around it for this exact reason.
Phew. Hopefully my second (or, let's be honest, third) copy will arrive in perfect condition.
Sounds like they're going to end up burning through however many copies they have remaining just replacing people's fucked up orders. Kind of amazing that a company who makes a huge chunk of money shipping vinyl to people hasn't actually learned how to properly ship vinyl.
Is there a booklet or extra liner notes? Could someone do an unboxing video so I could see the packaging?
Last edited by FineFinchTails; 06-30-2017 at 06:55 AM.
From my dealings with Sandbag thus far and records received (Lost Highway 2xLP and Prick LP), they're hitting or missing the mark big time. They're either packing the records very well as they did with LH and Prick in ample-sized mailers with bubblewrap...to now half-assing these TF: D1 in shitty LP mailers with little to no padding. That's a complete shame considering the cost of this (which by the way, it's still too much for $80 overall).
photos have started trickling in to instagram, tumblr, fb groups etc... lots of damage, and seam splits. i would say at least half of the photos i have seen have damage unfortunately. good luck everyone!
When an album called the fragile with a lead track called somewhat damaged arrives to most people damaged, the jokes write themselves. It's almost as easy as putting a song called "was it worth it" on an $80 album, especially when it's an instrumental and nobody would know if he called it something else.
This is why vinyl never caught on with me as much as I would love to collect them. I love packaging. But rarely can I ever get a vinyl record delivered and not be damaged in some way. Bent corners, creases, splits, and sometimes packaging that just unglues and falls apart. So I either go with CD or even better lossless digital. But I've had too many bad experiences with shipping records. Especially for the folks that spend top dollar, that is a shame.
I was very happy and surprised when SubPop sent out those emails. Of my 10+ years in collecting it's definitely still rare that the label or artist will address these issues head on like this and offer replacements. Usually you have to try and contact the right people, then provide a lot of pictures, and hope they believe you. I've definitely got the old "it's usps' fault...sorry". Not always the case, but too often. I find that buying direct from labels isn't as safe (imho) as ordering direct from fans on sites like Discogs or eBay for example. Indie record shops are still #1 as you can physically hold and inspect the item you're going to buy. I let them (subpop) know mine was damaged as well and they immediately got back to me and said I should have a replacement by the end of July. Here is to hoping that along with the limited 5000 run for Deviations that some extra sleeves were pressed in case this kind of thing happening.
I am glad I am expecting 200+ dollars of damaged goods. Here is hoping my stuff comes in good shape.These are my first vinyl, so yay?