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Unedited Under a Blood Red Sky
by Matt McGee
One of the costliest mistakes of U2's early days helped to
create a not-tremendously-rare collectible that is now becoming
more difficult to find with each passing year.
During the band's August 20, 1983 show at the Loreley Amphitheater
in West Germany, Bono included a 27 second snippet of Stephen
Sondheim's "Send In The Clowns," which was not unusual
for him. But a problem developed when Under A Blood Red Sky
was released: U2 failed to get permission and pay the appropriate
licensing and royalty fees to include that piece of Sondheim's
tune on the album. When Sondheim objected, U2 agreed to pay
a $50,000 (US) penalty for the unauthorized use and to press
all future releases with a new version that did not include
the 27 seconds of "Send In The Clowns."
So there are essentially now two versions of the vinyl album
- the original with the full "Electric. Co." running
5:18 and the edited version which runs 4:51. However, the various
CDs pressed around the world are a different story altogether:
- the trifold digipack CD pressed in the U.S. correctly lists
"Electric Co." at 4:51, and contains the edited
version of the song
- later U.S. CD pressings in the standard jewel box format
incorrectly list "Electric Co." at 5:18, but have
the edited version of the song
- some, and perhaps all, European pressings of the CD correctly
list "Electric Co." at 5:18, and have the unedited
version of the song (the same is likely true of other worldwide
CD pressings)
- an Australian pressing of the CD lists the track at 4:57,
but the song actually runs the full 5:18
From a collecting perspective, the easy-to-find unedited CDs
will have little to no value beyond a typical store shelf purchase
price. Your best bet for collecting value is to track down one
of the unedited vinyl versions from the original U.S. pressing.
Remember: the original pressing will say 5:18, while future
pressings on vinyl were corrected to say 4:51. Of course, the
times aren't listed on the outside cover, so you'll have to
check the inner labels (see photos below).
It's likely that between 50,000-100,000 unedited vinyl copies
could have been pressed before the edited vinyl hit the street,
so this not a super-rare item by any means. But in this digital
world, almost ANY vinyl can be called "rare" to some
degree and this item does become harder to find as time goes
on. We currently estimate this original vinyl pressing of Under
a Blood Red Sky with the unedited version of "Electric
Co." to have a value of $15-20 (U.S.).
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