Unless you’ve been living in a cave (or the midwest) you’ll know that vinyl records are back, and back big. Right now vinyl is outselling all formats of recorded music. I guess people were just bored w/ stealing badly compressed music off the internet – hopefully so. In order to give the buyer a completely different experience record labels have upped their game by producing unusual and uniques pieces. It’s usually the smaller record companies like Jack White’s Third Man Records that will do the real cool stuff – You may find a pink vinyl copy of Madonnas new LP from a major label but you’re never gonna’ find one filled with her hair and urine (honest to god – see below). Most of the records don’t play that great but what the hell – they’re just so damn cool.
Liquid filled – Friday the 13th OST
Aliens OST – Alien Blood Version. Limited to 75 copies
X-ray
In the cold war era Soviet Union, bootleggers built homemade recording machines and ingeniously copied and pressed forbidden records by the state on discarded X-Rays which they clandestinely obtained from hospitals. They would etch a copy of a record into the X-Ray, cut it into a circle with scissors, and use a cigarette to burn a hole in the middle, allowing the record to be played on any record player. http://coloredvinylrecords.com/blog/25-unusual-and-creative-records/
Glow in the dark by Man or Astroman?
String filled record by The Liars – LP – MESS
Multi hole, lathe cut
Bible Ash
Hellmouth burned an old German Bible from the late 1800s and pressed the ash into the ‘Bible Ash’ variant of their Gravestone Skylines album, which was limited to a total of 33 copies.
Ice Mold
Shout Out Louds, a band from Sweden managed to create a playable ice disk for their single ‘Blue Ice’ in collaboration with TBWA Stockholm. The track can be recreated on a record player but only a few people got the chance to use it. They sent a kit to ten select people along with a set of instructions on how to make the album, along with a mold and a bottle of water. http://coloredvinylrecords.com/blog/25-unusual-and-creative-records/
Zoetrope
Zoetrope vinyl releases have printed or etched images on them that produce continuous moving pictures when spun on a record player.
Color combos
Glassjaw‘s Coloring Book has 120 unique color combinations using yellow, orange, green, red, blue and white. The vinyl separates into a 7″, 10″ ring and 12″ ring and comes framed with a hand-numbered sticker on the back of the frame.
Chocolate
French DJ and producer Breakbot had a limited pressing of 120 copies of his single cast in edible chocolate and was intended to be played only once and then eaten.
3 RPM
The world’s first 3 RPM record, given away for free at Third Man Records‘s Three Year Anniversary Party. It’s cut at the slowest speed yet it plays super fast (and needs to be spun by hand as no turntable can play it). It’s a compilation of 7 inch records but packaged like a 12 inch, containing every Blue Series single released. http://coloredvinylrecords.com/blog/25-unusual-and-creative-records/
Asteroid Dust
Emperor Yes’s LP – An Island Called Earth had a limited pressing of 100 records, containing crushed meteorite dust.
Blood
Meredith Graves of Perfect Pussy had her blood mixed w/ clear vinyl for a limited release. The Flaming Lips went went step further for their LP Heady Fwends having the blood of Kesha, Nick Cave and Yoko Ono (among others) pressed into their LP.
Hair and Pee
Eohippus went even further with their single “Getting Your Hair Wet with Pee” single. That’s right yellow vinyl embedded w/ urine soaked hair.
Autumn Leaves
Barren Harvest‘s Subtle Cruelties clear vinyl edition was pressed with real autumn leaves inside and was limited to 100 copies.
Cremains
British company And Vinyly offers a unique service to their customers. They press your or your loved one’s ashes into a 12″ clear vinyl, containing music or any audio of your choice. All you have to do is to deliver the ashes to a pressing plant in London and pay the £3,000 for the ‘Basic Package’, which includes 30 copies of the record.
Platinum and Gold
Both LPs for The Great Gatsby soundtrack are set are blindingly reflective metallized discs. Disc one is platinum and disc two is gold. These are the first-ever commercially available records made using these precious metals via this process. Not stopping there, the records come housed in an entirely unique laser-cut wooden LP jacket riveted to aluminum spines. If you can find one it’ll set you back about $400.
Lazer Etched
Normally, laser etching is only done on a non-playable side of a vinyl record. However, with some tweaking, laser etching can be done also on the groove side of the record without affecting the playing grooves. If hit by a light, the etching reflects in polychromatic colors.
Thanks to http://coloredvinylrecords.com
