[antimax]

Haha, yeah… love that album! (off-topic I guess, but… yeah SIXX )

[albatard]

Just wanted to say a big thank you to Mondo for this release.
I was searching for way to get out the "i need that soundtrack so bad" vicious circle i was stuck in since a few years now.
My 1rst reaction to the Looper annoucement was "ok, it's a must buy"...then the news of the 70$ came out, i started to think (think that didn't happen for a while) "do i really need that record?"...the answer was obvious as i didn't even remember how that soundtrack sounded like...
So i passed...and that's a relief!! That doesn't mean that i'll stop buying records...just that i hope that now i'll start to think before buying them!

THANK YOU MONDO!!!

[manuorru]

Uh uh, STBC strikes against Mondo!!!

[RandomHajile]

I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. The on sale announcement caught me off guard because I haven't been hounding Twitter and the forums as of late. I was at work and scrambled on my phone to order the record, as I noticed the on sale tweet was a few hours old.

Then I saw the price... wait, what? $70? I thought maybe $50 when I first saw the promo pics from a while back, but I really wanted this score and think the package is gorgeous. I pulled the trigger quickly because I feared another JP sell-out, and didn't want to have to pay even more on eBay. I'd say I lasted about 30 minutes before serious buyer's remorse set in. I had just paid $77 for a f'ing soundtrack in a cloth bag. That's $12 more than I paid for a pink variant Drive Mondo LP on eBay. I seriously hope that this and the $100 test pressing BS is not a sign of more things to come. Last fall, when I got into this whole OST vinyl revival, I was buying Assault on Precinct 13 in an incredible package for $17 from LITA. Now Spencer is working for Mondo. I want to be excited about what those two companies can do together, but now I'm more worried that this type of collector mentality is going to spill over into Death Waltz. In fact, it already has with all the MondoCon exclusives. I'm beating a dead horse, but can't they just make a decent supply to fill the demand, do it at somewhat normal prices, so the genuine music and film fans that they are supposedly making all this shit for can actually buy it? This super-limited-exclusive-never-to-be-made-again-unless-you-bought-a-$350-subscription-or-spend-$700-on-a-trip-vibe that seems to be overtaking this scene is making me want to drop the hobby as soon as I got into it. I just want to buy your stuff. Why does this have to be so difficult?

[Vapourmire]

@randomhajile I could not agree with you more. I've been worried about this for a while now. It's just not healthy and feels wrong. After the complete Jurassic Park Version B farce I experienced and now this, I don't think i'll buy a Mondo again. I really hope change is on the cards.

[glennmichael]

I have no problem with Mondo releasing 'deluxe' versions of records.. It's just weird how there's no standard version of this record without the bag.

[texasvinyl]

Why was Jurassic park B a farce? Had no issues getting that one. Stable website, B version "limited" to a fairly high 1,000 with A version pressed in the several thousand range (3,000?). Showed up at my door 2 days later. Sounded awesome, maybe the best mastering of any Mondo release to date.

[tonyandrewgiles]

@texas - Probably the onsale being after the flippers had picked it up from the gallery event?

[texasvinyl]

That's too bad, maybe they oversold or had some stock get lost/damaged. Or just took forever to ship!

[lazyben]

The bitching about Jurassic Park might have something to do with the fact that half the pressing ended up on ebay.

But mondo finally figured out that (instead of doing something sensible like limiting purchases at pre-release events or even online) they could avoid that by charging flipper prices themselves so this won't happen with looper.

What a bunch of assclowns.

[texasvinyl]

Here is some more info on the Looper production process. Basically, it was expensive because everything was hand-done by an effects team.

-----

Nathan Johnson’s incredible score for Rian Johnson’s time-travel masterpiece is coming to Vinyl for the first time. Composed using found sounds of the film’s production city of New Orleans, Nathan crafted a suspenseful, innovative soundtrack to the dystopian landscapes of a future where Time Travel and murder are controlled by organized crime.

In a stunning packaging concept by Jay Shaw, this 2XLP album comes in a embossed, gold foil gatefold jacket, housed in a custom, hand-embellished Canvas bag. With the help of local effects shop Hawgfly Productions, Mondo lovingly crafted a truly one-of-a-kind package befitting this modern sci-fi classic. Read what Jay had to say about this release:

“When Rob Jones asked if I had any ideas for the cover of the “Looper” soundtrack I was honestly stumped. Mondo had recently released Martin Ansin’s wonderful poster for the film so I couldn’t get that image out of my head. Rob and I went back and forth with a half dozen duality gimmicks but none of them quite fit the tone of the film. As we sent ideas to Nathan Johnson (the film’s composer) it became increasingly clear that he had a real affection for his creation wanted this release to be special. I knew we were getting nowhere with our current approach so I took a step back from the project and worked on other things. When I’m stuck conceptually that tends to help redirect my process a bit. After a few brainstorming sessions with my wife and other smarter people than me the idea of recreating something directly from the film was born. Once I tossed out some stinkers (a working clock running in reverse for example) the gold currency bars seemed perfect. We could create a custom fabric sleeve and have a blunderbuss hole blown through it to reveal the gold bars underneath. Great idea but how is this going to work? How expensive would something like that cost to make? What if we pitched this to Nathan only to have it fall apart during production? As I put together a rough mock-up of the concept my concerns started to subside. This is the same company that took a bunch of “Monsters” metal posters out to a shooting range and blasted them with shotguns. The same company that spent countless hours turning some of Drew Struzan’s best poster art into screen prints. The same company that staged a live zombie invasion and played “Dawn of the Dead” inside an abandoned shopping mall. They’d go for it. If the idea was good, they’d go for it. And go for it they did. When Rob and Justin saw what I had in mind they were instantly on board. When we showed it to Nathan he replied “I LOVE IT!”. Clearly we’d figured out a solution.

Now came the fun part, designing the thing. We spent weeks working through the aesthetic language of the film to get the details right. The markings on the bars, the material for the clothing, everything. I worked up a custom type treatment based on the engraved currency demarcations. As the pieces came together everyone became more and more excited to see the finished project. Nathan was so enthusiastic he started asking if there was anything extra he could supply. When the composer asks if he can provide additional material to a soundtrack release you pounce on the opportunity. We got him to create a special locked groove “loop” and even put together a 7” single containing his piano solo version of the main theme and Kid Koala’s “Slinky Dance” from the club scene. I’ve worked on a good number of soundtrack releases and I’ve never seen so much direct contribution from a composer. Outside of his musical career Nathan is part of a graphic design shop with his brothers so he’s got a background in art. It made sense that he wanted hands on involvement with this project. His contributions and feedback are one of the big reasons the final product came out as cool as it did.

Once the design was complete the moment we all secretly dreaded had arrived. Making the physical product. It’s a lot of fun to come up with crazy ideas and pretend they’re logistically feasible but when it comes time to get production vendors to realize your vision in a tangible way you inevitably run into problems. And boy did we run into problems. As simple as the concept seems, blasting a realistic artillery hole in a burlap sack, the manufacture of something like that on a volume scale is anything but. Sure we could punch a shape out of the material and screen print a little black around the edges but the results were cheap and unconvincing. The only way to make this look like a film prop was to do it by hand. If we were only going to release a dozen copies of this thing that would’ve been fine but this was a proper soundtrack pressing so we needed to come up with a solution that would work for every record. After shipping production samples back and forth and trying to figure out a way for the factory to make these look right Mondo came up with the perfect solution. Have the factory create the basic sleeve with the hole punched and a flat black screen printed burn ring but then hand finish every bag right in Austin. Mondo has a great relationship with a special effects shop down there (I believe the same folks who did all of the zombie makeup for their Dawn of the Dead screening) so they were able to use film industry practical effects tools to get the details exact. My involvement in this part of the process was limited to looking at production samples and saying things like “Holy shit guys this looks amazing!” and “Do you think these will be finished before we’re actually living in “Looper” future?”. Somehow the miracle workers at Mondo were able to finish the project and it’s finally ready to be released!

This soundtrack is one of my favorite projects of my career. The amount of dedication and collaboration between Mondo, myself and Nathan Johnson has been remarkable. Everyone contributed so much to this release. It’s something I’ll always be incredibly proud of.”

[Voodoo_Jim]

I come more from the comic book world and I worry that the vinyl soundtrack world is heading towards the gimmick era comics saw in the early 1990's. Multiple variants of the same comic, sealed, with bells and whistles and catering to the speculator market. An explosion of product in widely varying quality whose sheer volume caused people to walk away...

This wasn't a soundtrack I was going to pick up in any event as I've had to become much more selective with the sheer quantity of quality releases out there. Unfortunately, the current market is not likely to sustain itself and all of the labels at its current level of expansion.

[fluppeco]

The Looper soundtrack just isn't that special to me to justify the price. Think I'll just listen to on steaming.

[scentofdeath]

Hopefully there will be a regular 2LP for sale soon.

Better yet, maybe Death Waltz picks up on this and make their own pressing... (?)

[antimax]

^^^ Cool to read this story, and it just reinforces my sentiment that I really don't know what exactly goes into all these releases.

[texasvinyl]

Thought I would bust out the macro setting on my camera and take some shots of the Looper package to better show how well-done this thing really is.

First, these are the shots from the movie that Jay Shaw was trying to emulate:





-----

[blue15]

THE $70 edition with 7" single is now sold out on the Mondo site, while the $60 with no 7" edition is still available.

[Occhionero]

....and as long this happens so fast, why should a record company change their price policy? Anyway, it is a free will to buy or not - I´ve passed, too!

[palmat]

Pardon me for indulging my inner conspiracy-theory-nut, but the whole "story behind the packaging" on Mondo's blog came out very conveniently just after the pricing drew the ire of the vinyl community. It was an interesting read but come on! It reads to me like a longwinded justification of the insane pricing. Deluxe packaging have been done before in various ways and never did it need an explanation. For me Mondo has always been the least interesting player on the soundtrack market (but I do owe them for bringing Timecrimes and SOTD to vinyl) so passing this up is no biggie. I just wish that Mondo would've released a barebones version for people who are actually interested in the music...

[karswell]

Passed

[repulsion]

Passed too. 85 usd including shipping, good luck on selling this...
The limited lp+7" already up on ebay? How much? ....

[DISCOSUCKS...]

@palmat -- I'm not sure about "conspiracy", I think it's just that they have gone about things in a crappy way (urm...as ever?)

You might agree, I think I have this sussed: how many of us would have been irked by this release if Mondo had put out the press release (with pricings etc, limited details) before/at the time of the release? Something along the lines of "we really wanted to do this justice, spent a shitload of effort and time getting it right, and consequently it is very limited due to the nature of the production process and the price unfortunately has to reflect that. Sorry to anyone who will feel it is too high for them." ??

Yes, some of us would still point out that it's just too damn expensive, and moan a bit, but the courtesy shown us (ie soundtrack fans) by the label woulda gone a LOOOONG way to keeping our ire in check. That's my theory anyhow.

Lastly - can we officially start referring to this release as FLOOPER please?!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

MONDO: A LAZYBEN GLOSSARY

Fucking Hipsters = Someone from Mondoville
Assclowns = Someone else from Mondoville
Shenanigans = Mondo standard business practice

Please add your own entries to the glossary, and guarantee @Lazyben's "ironic" invitation to be the patron saint of MondoCon 2!!

[blastman]

There's one copy at $200, cheapest is an auction with a $99.99 opening bid (no bids yet).

I hope this isn't going to happen with The Iron Giant and Shaun Of The Dead....

[texasvinyl]

These won't sell, there is no wide market for vinyl at those prices. If you want a copy of Looper at a better price just wait, they will come down for sure.

Shaun of the Dead and Iron Giant will be standard Mondo fare- resale of variants will go for higher prices than sealed or black vinyl copies, but they pressed thousands of them. Shaun of the Dead is really solid and might be my favorite of the lot. 2001 is a good listen but just a terrible fit for the movie. Looper is also a good listen, I rather like the music.

[antimax]

They have sold… the 7" bundle is sold-out. The "market" is irrelevant in this case, for as I've said before; Mondo has become a phenomenon.