When life gives you Lemonade, you get punked.
When life gives you Lemonade, you get punked.
Beyoncé fans got a taste of a different flavor of “Lemonade” upon the European release of the vinyl of Queen Bey’s latest album. Instead of the first three songs, “Pray You Catch Me,” “Hold Up” and “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” side A of the vinyl played five songs from Canadian punk band Zex.
According to Pitchfork, the processing plant in Germany, where Columbia Records’ parent company Sony presses vinyl, experienced “human error” and side A of the record was mispressed with songs from Zex’s latest album “Uphill Battle.”
Columbia Records apologized for the error, promising to refund fans and replace their records with all Beyoncé.
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The lesser-known punk band, based in Ontario, found out about the error from a friend who works at a UK record shop where someone returned the album, Guitarist Jo Galipeau told Slate on Monday. But fans of Queen Bey were also tagging the band on social media, with videos of the incorrectly placed tracks.
Not many people showed upset about the missing Beyoncé tracks, choosing instead to get into Zex’s sound.
“They thought it was either funny, and a few people (…),” Galipeau said, “have bought the record, and a lot of them have said, “Oh I like the surprise that I got on the other side, it’s good music.”
The band shared a video on their Facebook page, where their fans hoped for a collaboration between the two acts or Beyoncé to bring Zex on tour. Beyoncé has yet to comment.
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It’s unclear if Zex will get any compensation from the mix-up. Galipeau said they couldn’t discuss it, Columbia is offering a refund for the remixed records, and some owners are selling what quickly becoming a collectible record. There is already one album for sale on the website Discogs for $6,768.
Some owners of the record even tried to charge the band for their own music. “Some people have been writing to the band offering to sell their copy to us, at exorbitant prices, so we’re not really that interested,” Galipeau said, but they’ve received their own copies.
“It’s pretty shocking,” Zex lead singer Gretchen Steel told Slate, “but we’re all laughing really hard. We think it’s really funny.”
