Earlier today, Sub Pop acknowledged that the deluxe edition of Father John Misty’s new album, I Love You, Honeybear, had a manufacturing defect that led to the many of the LPs being warped. The label explains: “In short, the extra, bulging thickness of the pop-up art in the Father John Misty jacket creates a lump that, when the LPs are sealed and packed, pushes into the LPs, causing the vinyl to warp and making that handsome, painstakingly and expensively produced jacket an elaborate record-destroying device.” They continue: “This oversight, and any attendant suffering, is our fault, and we are very sorry. We promise to be less ambitious in the future.” Sub Pop is offering replacement LPs for those that were affected. Check out the details of how you can get yours swapped out below, and watch a video showing off the very cool pop-up book cover.

Thank you for buying the fancy, colored-vinyl, deluxe version of Father John Misty’s new album, I Love You, Honeybear! Also, we are sorry that many of these fancy, colored-vinyl, deluxe versions of Father John Misty’s new album, I Love You, Honeybear are, it appears, warped! In our efforts to replicate the “wow factor” of such legendary album packages as the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers zipper cover by Andy Warhol, we wound up accidentally replicating the “defect factor” of the same. In short, the extra, bulging thickness of the pop-up art in the Father John Misty jacket creates a lump that, when the LPs are sealed and packed, pushes into the LPs, causing the vinyl to warp and making that handsome, painstakingly and expensively produced jacket an elaborate record-destroying device. This oversight, and any attendant suffering, is our fault, and we are very sorry. We promise to be less ambitious in the future.
We are currently making 100% non-warped, colored-vinyl LPs to replace these damaged LPs. We hope to have a delivery date for those soon, and we will update this page as soon as we have that information.

Please contact your place of purchase for instructions on how to obtain replacement LPs. If you got it from Sub Pop’s online store please email websales@subpop.com with your name and address, and we will ship you replacement LPs as soon as they arrive, which will likely be around March 3rd.  And, if you bought this album from Father John Misty’s website, please contact them for replacement LPs here:http://help.merchline.com/customer/portal/emails/new. Please keep the jacket – we will be replacing only the vinyl itself. To reiterate, if your copy of I Love You, Honeybear is warped and you got your album anywhere other than Sub Pop’s website, or Father John Misty’s website, please contact your place of purchase

In the meantime, please accept our apologies, and we hope you can enjoy the unmolested music of Father John Misty via the download code provided with your LP, and maybe also at one of his exciting, upcoming live shows.

Other things worth mentioning here and related to Father John Misty’s new and very good I Love You, Honeybear album…
In response to several emails on the subject, here’s info on something we did with this album on LP (both the deluxe and regular editions) that was NOT an accident: due to its length and the wide audio spectrum of the recording, we at Sub Pop, together with Father John Misty, decided that the album sounded much better cut at 45 RPM over 2 pieces of vinyl. Though we all prefer the listening experience of a single piece of vinyl, we decided in this case to prioritize audio quality (an admittedly very subjective determination). You’re welcome!

I Love You, Honeybear is Stereogum’s Album Of The Week. Read our review here.