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Underground – UK vinyl single #1 (April ’96)

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I have a confession to make; I don’t have an original vinyl pressing of the first Ben Folds Five album. As a teenager growing up in 1996, vinyl was decidedly uncool and CDs were the future. So it passed me by. In recent years I’ve picked up a re-issue which hangs proudly on my bathroom wall, I’ll track down a 1996 pressing one day.

All that said, I think today’s release is a lot cooler. This vinyl release of ‘Underground’ was to my knowledge, the first commercially available Ben Folds Five vinyl in the UK. The original 7 inch pressing of ‘Jackson Cannery’ holds the mantle of being the first ever Ben Folds Five vinyl release, but this version of ‘Underground’ comes a close second.

Why is it cooler? Because this release proceeded the launch of the eponymous album in the UK by around a month. So this was the only way that you could experience ‘Underground’ and ‘Sports and Wine’ on a turntable for about 30 days. Okay, I admit it, I’m reaching!

The history of ‘Underground’ in the UK

This will be my sixth blog about the release of ‘Underground’ in the UK. It’s a fascinating story that I’d encourage you to check out or revisit in these posts:

Timing really is everything. Since writing the blog posts above, I’ve learned that this first attempt to launch Ben Folds Five to the UK market only sold around 500 copies. But that wasn’t the end of the story, and ‘Underground’ charted much higher when it was re-released later that summer on a wave of good reviews and industry buzz.

A similar thing happened with ‘Brick’ in later years. It was released in the summer of 1997 but didn’t really get any traction on US radio. But Sony didn’t give up, they gave ‘Brick’ another strong push in the autumn of ’97 and it went on to be the bands biggest hit.

Legacy

At the time of writing it is just over 25 years since this vinyl was released. Twenty. Five. Years. And it still plays, and sounds as fresh as it did to my adolescent ears all those years ago.

Interesting tidbits

  • The lead track is an edited version of the album track ‘Underground’. It cuts away the introductory section and comes right in at ‘We could be happy Underground…’
  • The B-side is interesting as it only appeared on this single release (and CD version). The album version of ‘Sports and Wine’ is included here. Future releases didn’t really include album cuts and focused on covers, live versions and discarded / alternative tracks from album sessions.
  • The artwork features the iconic photograph of Ben Folds leaping onto the piano. This photograph featured on a number of promo and commercial releases during the marketing campaign for the first album.
  • The sleeve art features the classic Ben Folds Five logo on a dark green background. Note that the reverse background is actually a ‘deep zoom’ of the curtains on the front side.

To find out more about other ‘Underground’ releases from Ben Folds Five, click on the #underground tag below.