DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: trivial thoughts on the hype stickers (Part 2 of 2)

Two DARKNESS sticker variations with the U.S. release.
The purple version is rarer than the red one.

As one of the six focused series ("DARKNESS US pressing LP variations"), I've been blogging on collecting the U.S. pressings of DARKNESS LP (Columbia JC 35318), particularly focusing on the early vinyl copies*. When this album was pressed in Spring 1978, unusual pressing plants of non-Columbia Records participated in the manufacturing process due to the temporary shutdown of one of the three Columbia's plants (i.e., its Pitman, New Jersey plant; see 03/18/2017). So, my motivation for the collecting effort has been to get in-depth knowledge on how many variations exist for the early release concerning vinyl-pressing plants. As already explained in detail in the past blog posts on this series, such variations can be distinguished by examining dead-wax matrix numbers and other markings, stamper ring, and label design, including typesetting, of a given vinyl disc, which often exhibits pressing plant-specific signatures.
*One of the essential features of the early copies is to have either TML-M or TML-S stamped on each side's trail-off dead wax.

Shown above are promotional copies of the U.S. DARKNESS LP from my collection, all of which came in the "large tracklist" sleeve. On the other hand, I have never seen a promo version of the "small tracklist" sleeve release (Has anyone got it?). From this fact and observation, I came to the idea that the former sleeve variant preceded the latter early in the album release in 1978.

Generally, uniquely designed hype stickers on shrink wrap are also associated with early or original pressings (although such labels usually have no specific relationship to particular pressing plants). As I wrote in the last post (08/24/2020), however, the U.S. DARKNESS LP seems to be unusual in this respect. My points are summarized as follows:

• The DARKNESS sticker is almost exclusively available on one variant of the album sleeve with the "small tracklist" on the rear side (either with or without barcodes). However, as far as I've seen, this variant was NOT used for the very first pressing of the album release and delayed slightly than another sleeve variant featuring the "large tracklist" (w/o barcodes). In contrast, the "large tracklist" sleeve is much more common to the white-label promo release as well as early copies pressed at several pressing plants owned by other than Columbia Records, such as MCA, NAMI, and Keel (11/19/2018).
• The sticker only mentions Badlands, the second single, among the featured 10-album tracks, and disregards the first single Prove It All Night.

From the above points, I had long thought that the early copies from the album mostly had not been stickered, I guess, possibly because Springsteen didn't want to do so (due to enough hype surrounding BORN TO RUN). However, my long assumption was backward when I obtained the 8th copy with the red sticker. 

Until I obtained this copy (8th with the sticker in my possession), I had never seen, known, or heard of either a "large tracklist" sleeve or a white-label promotional edition labeled with the hype sticker. This one is a Terre Haute pressing with the matrix number suffixes -1D/-2E.

To my surprise, the 8th stickered copy was a white-label promotional release with a typical Columbia's time strip that is glued on the front side of the "large tracklist" sleeve. Although this copy is the only example I've ever seen, the presence itself instantly denies my thoughts on the sticker, provided that it is really one of the advanced circulation copy. That being said, I think there still is the possibility that this particular one was manufactured as a usual promo but once stocked, and later distributed after labeled with the sticker when it became available.

Though much less known, the purple-colored hype sticker version had also been released. As expected, my copy is housed in the "small tracklist" sleeve. Pressed at Columbia Records' Santa Maria plant (matrix number suffixes: -1B/-2C).

Finally, although much less common, there is yet another sticker with purple letter printing. I've seen most of the sticker is printed in red and the purple version is minor in number. I don't know why the latter is rarer, but at least to my eyes, the red sticker stands out more than the purple prints. So, I just guessed the purple sticker could be a short-lived version, or result from a printing error. No evidence for either, though. The table below shows the updated list of stickered copies in my collection (Nos. 1 to 7, see 08/24/2020; Nos. 8 and 9, this post).

— Back to Part1.