Decisions, Decisions

Anyone who has gone out to buy 8 Diagrams will have noticed that there are several versions of the record available for purchase. There are two covers available, one featuring the Clan somewhat badly photoshopped together (even though the cover does look better in person) while the other features a sortof 8 Diagrams comet-UFO heading for planet earth. It was my intention to get both, but at the Best Buy I went to they were sold out of the UFO. Best Buy is the retailer of choice in the States for this release, because they include Tar Pit as a bonus track, which means people shopping there get to hear George Clinton's madnesses officially. Other U.S. versions end with Life Changes & the Heart Sutra, whereas the U.K. & other international versions include both Tar Pit & 16th Chamber. RZA was quoted as saying that he left 16th Chamber off of the American release because he couldn't get the sound quality up to snuff, & thought Americans would turn their noses up, while Europeans could handle it. It frankly sounds like some shit but who knows. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the performances ended up on other albums as the years went by, Meth's on Tical (Release Yo Delf) & Dirty's two verses on various things put out by Electra, who perhaps still owns the publishing rights? Who knows, this is just speculation on my part.

8 Diagrams also gets the deluxe treatment as pictured above, which features an extra DVD along with a limited edition Wu-Wear shirt all housed in a metal box. It won't be available until next year though, in late January, on the 28th, & I believe it's Euro only.

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The continuously excellent Wu-Tang Mountain blog has just put up mp3s of Tar Pit & 16th Chamber for those of us who don't have them on our copies.

8 Diagrams Preorder

This preorder has just appeared on the UK Amazon site. A few other sites, primarily Japanese, have been listing the preorder in recent days--interestingly with an added bonus track (though there are still no final tracklistings) & also with a (presumably outdated) November release date. The difference here is that a cover image has been included, pictured above. There are similarities to the cover of The GZA's 1999 album Beneath the Surface. Also, the December 10th date, which is one day sooner than the States will receive it, on December 11th.

A tracklisting will hopefully soon follow. Wikipedia has listed upwards of twenty-some tracks over the past weeks, compiling every track that had been mentioned since the announcement of the album. Very recently, however, the wikipedia tracklist has been trimmed down to 16 tracks--perhaps this will resemble the final vesion.