Friday 24 April 2020

Loud And Clear USA

I saw this Step Forward 7" for sale on eBay and it instently grabbed my interest. I'd never seen or heard of it before, but the listing said that it was numbered out of 40 copies, so I knew that whatever it was, it was something special. So I bid and won for a good price.

As you can see, this comes in a red sleeve and has an obi strip that says 'Loud And Clear USA', although I am unsure why. The back of the obi strip is numbered. Mine is 36/40.

It's kinda interesting how the prices of records from bands of the early to mid 00s have, if anything, largely gone down over time. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but it's not like there are lots of records of this era trading hands for hundreds of dollars. Yet a lot of the bands are so damn good, and the records are nicely collectible. The mid 00s were probably also the peak of 'version mania' where there would be at least 6 different versions of every single record. Feels like I could be buying records from the 00s for the rest of my life... although that would probably cost less than a single Revelation test press.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The band’s name was originally Loud and Clear but then they changed it because of the Belgian band with the same name. The first 7” had a “Loud and Clear - this is Boston not Belgium” joke cover as well.

mcs said...

Good information, thanks! I never knew that.