theguardian.com/music/2026/aug/04/a-pressing-issue-vinyl-albums-riddled-with-mistakes-charli-xcx-olivia-rodrigo

Good write up.

What Olivia did might be the most egregious offense yet.

Do you pre-order albums? How do we hold these scammers accountable?

looks like they're assuming people are just buying these to display and not to listen to

are their CDs different?

I think it's mainly a vinyl problem. Haven't heard anything about CDs being different

yes the cds are different

it’s literally just so they can have physical product out for first week sales
they have to turn at least something in before the manufacturing deadline

i’ve said it before but they need to make it so that you need a certain % of the same content for something to count as the same album

it would stop deluxes that are full new albums worth of music, vinyl/cd versions that are cut down with only half the songs, etc

Cause billboard rules that vinyls and physicals only count the week they ship @op

its CDs to. vinyls take even more time to make so clearances and songs might not be done by the time they due in order to have them for first week sales.

so…scamming with an unfinished product to falsely advertise first week sales metrics? gooooot it

1st Pressing versions are nothing new anymore, it’s been years

there should be no issue if there’s exclusive tracks on there

they’ve never been “unfinished” versions of the album, they’re just shortened to prevent full album leaks

occasionally, the mixing on some songs is an earlier draft than the streaming mix, but that’s to be expected if the album is still being mixed up to the release date, and it’s been happening forever (Yeezus & Rodeo come to mind as pre-streaming examples)

they’ve never been “unfinished” versions of the album

occasionally, the mixing on some songs is an earlier draft than the streaming mix

so unfinished

not unfinished products, just a variant tracklist

might have earlier versions of certain songs (Young Thug new album CD version had a solo version of the song with Cardi B) or bonus songs (Young Thug new album CD version had 3 bonus songs), but the expectation is that you’re still streaming the album because nobody is walking around with a portable CD player or a portable record player to listen to albums

listening to the physical is supposed to be a different experience from the streaming version, that’s the whole appeal. otherwise, why’d you buy it?

This could all be fixed if niggas stopped publicly reporting sales lol

variant versions

if it’s released, it’s finished. that just means there’s 2 finished versions.

this isn’t like Kanye releasing Donda 2 on the stem player with mumble verses, it’s just things like Future having louder vocals on Cast A Spell compared to streaming or Rosalía having different reverb settings on certain parts of LUX.

That’s not the whole appeal and this “editing post release” only started on streaming with Pablo. we not normalizing that s*** cause pop girls are doing it now, nah miss me with that

people got finished products both physical and on streaming until the industry normalized editing post release which just means you uploaded an unfinished product, such as an improper mix (Astroworld) for your consumers as to not miss a deadline. that’s some bullshit false advertising idc lol

“started with Pablo” meanwhile Yeezus CD mix was drastically different from digital version

Take Care CD version has a whole different outro on Headlines & split the double-songs

Rodeo CD mix has different features

CD versions have had earlier mixes compared to digital versions since digital album sales became the norm, you just never noticed because you were too young to care

the industry has come up with a cool way to give fans exclusive content on physical albums that isn’t available on streaming platforms & the anti-streaming chuds somehow find that to be a negative