Split Enz-True Colours

Split Enz-True Colours

Cover has normal wear and tear for the age. Cover is in original shrink with hype stickers. Cover is graded VG. Record is etched with “True Colours”. Record is graded VG. FIRST PRESS!! CANADA ISSUE!!

True Colours is the fifth studio album released by New Zealand band Split Enz, and was their first major commercial success. Released in 1980, the album featured more pronounced contributions from co-lead singer and songwriter Neil Finn. Credited to him is the album’s New Zealand and Australian #1 single, “I Got You”, which also broke them internationally. The US release of the album featured “Shark Attack” and “I Got You” in reversed positions due to the latter’s success on the single charts.

The album cover was initially released in four colour combinations – yellow and blue, red and green, purple and yellow, and blue and orange – but would ultimately be given another four makeovers with releases in lime green and pink, hot purple and burnt orange, gold and platinum (to mark its sales milestones), and finally yellow, blue and red.

When it was later released on the A&M label, wild, imaginative shapes and patterns covered the vinyl using a technique known as “laser-etching”. When light hit the record, these designs would protrude and spin about the room. The album was the first to ever use this technique, originally designed to discourage the creation of counterfeit copies.

Crombie later said, “There was a lot of resistance initially. For some reason they thought people would get confused. It was just playing with it really. Why not? In the end there were 11 covers. The rarest one is the black and white one that got sent out to the press. There’s about 100 of them, with Textas to colour your own. So, if you’re really keen, you’ll have 11.”