Songs of Surrender Coloured Variations

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2023-01-13)

Update: January 23, 2023

Today a number of new versions were announced and put on sale. Three versions were added for sale, in white, orange and blue vinyl.

The white is an exclusive for independent retailers in the UK and Europe. (It is now listed in shops such as Banquet Records, Assai Records, Rough Trade, and so on in the UK, as well as at Tower Records and Spin Dizzy in Ireland.) The blue is an exclusive for larger chain retailers worldwide including Target (USA), FNAC (Portugal), JPC (Germany), Golden Discs (Ireland) and HMV (UK). The orange version is an Amazon exclusive and is now appearing in both the US and UK stores. The previously leaked green and purple versions still have not surfaced.

Original Story: January 13, 2023

Songs of Surrender is likely to be pressed in an ever growing variety of colours, and formats. The collector market likes to buy the limited colour pressings, and record labels know one way to increase sales, and thus get a higher chart position, is through the release of these exclusives. It looks like there will be no shortage of formats for Songs of Surrender. This follows the path many other artists have taken over the last few years.

In 2021, Inhaler released four coloured vinyl versions of their album, two different picture discs, and a limited version of one of the vinyl versions with an added OBI. There were also five versions released on cassette, and multiple versions on CD as well. The result? Inhaler reached #1 on strong sales, spurred on by fans buying multiple editions. Most of these contained the exact same music, but each looked different.

So far for Songs of Surrender we know of a black vinyl pressing with 16 tracks, and a clear vinyl version with 20 tracks. The clear vinyl version was exclusive to U2.com members for the first 48 hours, and had it sold out it would not have been available elsewhere. Starting today it is available everywhere, including the U2.com shop to non-members. Nothing has been published to say how limited these pressings are. But they won’t be kept in print after they are sold out, where as the black vinyl version on two discs will be around long term to purchase.

Two other vinyl pressings were seen very briefly in the shop on U2.com after it launched. They were quickly taken down from sale. It is believed they were put up in error, and removed from sale within minutes, but there are reports that some were successful purchasing. The two that only appeared briefly and disappeared again? One was “purple splatter and marble effect” and the other was listed as “transparent green”. A third item, a “mint green cassette” was also briefly seen in the shop, but has also been removed quickly. It is not known when these will appear again, but there is a good chance they will appear. After all the whole purpose of these exercises is to sell records, and increase chart position. In Inhaler’s case, every few weeks there would be a new variation released right up until the release day.

Another pressing will be in blue vinyl. This looks to be the edition that will be sent to a number of bigger retailers around the world. FNAC in Europe, Target in the USA, Sunrise in Canada all tend to get these releases when they happen. Back when The Joshua Tree came out in gold vinyl we tracked the full list of where they appeared. That’s not to say each of these companies will get them but it will give collectors a place to start looking for these. One mock up of the cover of the album appears to show the Target logo.

We’ve also been told that on top of a green and white cassettes, that people should keep their eyes open for an orange cassette. We’ve also heard some rumblings about a picture disc. All of these are on top of the formats which have already been announced which we are tracking in our discography entry now.

Also starting to pop up are Japanese shop exclusives. Available bonus retail items includes a B2 sized poster (CD Japan, Universal Music, and other retailers – 50cm x 70.7cm), and a 12cm-square sticker (Tower Records) while supplies last. These are only available when you purchase the regular Japan editions of the album at one specific shop, and are limited in quantity, so may not always be available. Of note, the regular Japan CD has 17 tracks instead of 16, but no word yet on what the bonus is. Likely it is another track from the full set of 40.

If you see any additional formats of interest please let us know! We’d love to hear from you, and we’ll update the discography with any new releases we can confirm.

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