Beyoncé‘s admirers who enjoy vinyl were disappointed to learn that the album’s regular digital version lacked five tracks, which were included on the LP version released in March. The album is widely regarded as “Cowboy Carter.” Now, that apparent error is being fixed with a new vinyl edition of the compilation that costs more but contains every tune that was previously unavailable.
A few online merchants as well as Beyoncé’s website are currently offering what is described as the “official” vinyl version of “Cowboy Carter,” which includes the entire 27-song track list. The price of the new version has increased to $59.98, which is $20 more than the prior edition’s selling price, even though it is still a two-LP set.
(On Thursday, the revised version was made available for purchase on Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Only the artist’s webstore seems to contain the updated version, according to an earlier version of this story.)
Having every song available on vinyl at last is fantastic news for a lot of fans. However, not everyone is pleased about getting double-dipping after paying the webstore nearly $60 in total for the album’s base price, shipping, and taxes for the first edition when they pre-ordered it, thinking it would be the full album, when the new version comes with those same fees and costs nearly $80.
“Beyoncé… if this is the OFFICIAL, WTF did I just order earlier this year?” is the first fan comment that appears for certain users on her Instagram account post announcing the new release.
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In order to set it apart from this new, “official” edition, that version was advertised as a “limited edition.” Despite the initial belief that it would be limited, copies are still easily accessible through Beyoncé’s website and other stores. While shops like Amazon are selling a black vinyl edition with the shortened track list for as cheap as $33, the latter site is still selling the shortened limited edition in blue, red, and white colored vinyl variants for $40 before taxes and shipping.
Fans will receive not only the restoration of the five missing tracks but also printed materials not included in the first edition for the $20 extra that the “official” LP costs than the “limited” version. A 40-page booklet with “never-before-seen images” and a 24 by 36-inch foldable poster are offered. Along with featuring the singer astride a horse for the normal digital editions, the double-LP also features an alternate image of the singer standing for the first vinyl release.
For this new version, the five tracks “Flamenco,” “Oh Louisiana,” “The Linda Martell Show,” “Spaghetti,” and “Ya Ya” have been put back in the original order.
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Pre-orders for the new edition are being accepted, and the checkout page states that copies will start shipping on June 28.
There has been conjecture as to why the first vinyl edition was released without the five tracks, despite Beyoncé’s camp remaining silent in the face of a mild uproar about the missing tunes. Obviously, length was not a problem because the current release shows that the entire record can fit on two LPs.
Nevertheless, since vinyl projects typically require months to complete, more time than needed for CDs or, obviously, streaming versions, where changes can be made practically up to the last minute, it’s likely that those five tracks were left unfinished when the vinyl version was ready to go to press (or, at least, some of them weren’t, as that section of the album features segues).
There’s also a chance that the album title wasn’t decided upon when the initial vinyl edition was produced because “Cowboy Carter” wasn’t printed anywhere on the packaging. A track list was absent from the album sleeve and other printed materials, suggesting that the tracks were still being worked on at the time of production.
For music lovers, having to purchase multiple copies of an album in order to obtain a “complete” version is becoming a more frequent problem. While Taylor Swift has maintained her double-LP releases’ prices under $40, many fans purchased four vinyl copies when various editions featuring four different bonus tracks were released. However, even that resulted in an incomplete vinyl version of the album, as a later digital edition added several tracks that were not yet available on vinyl.
Aside from the vinyl concerns, Beyoncé’s album “Cowboy Carter” has been one of the best-received of her career. It has earned nearly universal critical acclaim and there are widespread expectations that this album will win the artist the Grammy for album of the year.
