John Mayer – Sob Rock

Released:  2021
Label:  Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment

Notes:

Front cover:  I mean…John totally nailed the 80’s vibe here.  Just nailed it.  I literally bought this album based on the cover alone.  The music is really good (said the R&B guy) but the cover is just a bag of nails.  Major shout out to Jeremy Dean & Carlos Serrao for an amazing design all the way around.  

Sleeves:  Sometimes, LPs just travel well and this is one of those examples.  It’s not terrible; it’s just that the LP busted through the sleeve on the way to me so I had to use tape on it.  I really should have scanned it before I did that.  Oh well.  I cloned out the tape on two of the four sides and had to replace a line of lyric on the first side of the sleeve.  It’s the last line of the song, “Wild Blue.”  I found an exact font match and just added it in.  I wasn’t able to get rid of the very minor folding as it would have ruined the text and necessitated more re-typing, thus making it less authentic.  I felt one re-typed line was enough.  Again, kudos to Jeremy for the design of the sleeve itself.  The 80’s vibe is incredible strong here and I love ever inch of it.

Back cover:  More 80’s perfection on the back.  The only things denoting a current release are the website addresses and the Sony Music Entertainment credit on the bottom.  I even love the font.  Just…amazing. 

Hype sticker:  More nailing the time period.  “Columbia Records & Tapes.”  Gotta love it.  Even the bright purple is a color they’d have used back then.  Only the Sony catalog number gives away its true vintage…and yes, the album IS available on creme-colored cassette (without Dolby).  As fir what I did, I replaced the purple entirely (it was mostly okay but not perfect for a new release) while it was at its largest size as not to hurt the text at all.  Beyond that, this is as it appears.

Nice Price sticker:  …and with this, all bases are truly covered!  I just love it.  This one was fairly easy to scan and I only adjusted the contrast a bit to make it look like it really does.

Labels:  What an odd color, right?  Not sure why they didn’t go deep red like the CBS and later Sony labels were.  Oh well.  I still like these a lot.  Very unique color.  Nailing this shade wasn’t easy but I manipulated the color at the scan stage to nail it.  Beyond that, the labels are in amazing shape.  Just scanned, removed spindle hole with some cloning, and uploaded.