The Crew

If truth be told, I've never been the biggest 7 Seconds fan. Some of their stuff is good and some is a bit meh. But there's no denying that the first LP is an absolute classic. And there was one version that I always wanted but figured I would never own. So when one came up for sale recently I jumped at it.

'The Crew' was put out by BYO Records waaaaay back in 1984. At the time I was 9 years old and probably had no interest in music at all. Kinda weird to think that this LP is now over 30 years old.

This version that I've been searching for is on a dark, clear blue vinyl... although it's only really visible when you hold it up to the light. Otherwise it looks almost black, as these photos show. It's a very interesting colour for sure, and is also a very similar colour to the first Youth Of Today LP on Wishingwell. In fact, I'm sure I read somewhere once that the 'Break Down The Walls' layout took a lot of influence from this LP, so perhaps the vinyl itself did too.

Some people have speculated that this colour vinyl pressing was not intentional. Some cheap vinyl from back in the day appears to be clear brown, just because it is super thin, although some people would actually think that it was brown vinyl rather than black. I also have a Lincoln 7" in my collection which is not thin vinyl at all, but when held to the light is dark red in colour. I would guess that the Lincoln 7" is not supposed to be red, but by a similar token, I struggle to believe that this blue vinyl 7 Seconds LP came about by accident. If nothing else, the vinyl colour just so happens to match the cover. So I firmly believe that this was intentional. But regardless, who really cares? It's a great record on a great colour.