The Catalogue Collection (2025)

[StrangeLastName]

AGH... I spent so much time and money chasing down the OG pressings of some of these. (AHDO, OWB, and Barking, really) I wish there were some more photos so we could see what the new design/packaging details are other than the spines.

[saintrik]

[aphasein]

Wow. "We heard you. These are for you." Are they though?

Missed all this while at work today, and not to quibble, but it's apparently what I do now. I'm sure we've been asking for reprints on all of these, but doubt anyone's been looking for a redesign of them. Fans tend to want the originals for nostalgic reasons. Deluxe editions are a great time to give an old design a twist or refresh, but these are straight catalog replacements.

Underworld is generally amazing on the design work and these are fun, but the spine treatment definitely sets them apart, can't really use them to fill in holes in a previous collection. Seem as much marketing idea as design inspiration (got to recollect them all to match now, even if you have already them). I know everyone double-dips, but always rubs me wrong. They probably just see it as an exciting way to rejuvenate what's old to them, though.

Am glad they'll all be back and don't look a gift horse etc., but these past few years of this last album cycle have really thrown me with their choices and communication. Also surprised they are all at once and with CDs as well - guess this might be the final nail in the coffin for more Deluxe CD editions, we'll see.

Really hoping they still finally do a Riverrun collection in the fall (being the anniversary year), even if it's only all the original tracks with no extras. Definitely glad I snagged one of the anniversary Dubno vinyl reprints last year, even at $60 (which Amazon now has on sale at $50 if anyone wants that version; Drift also still available for $27).

Looks like they are up for order for anyone on the Underworld site, despite some confusing two week exclusive pre-order for mailing list info in the email. I do really like that they are all gatefolds now, as non-canon as that is. Always something... bring on that 30 years of Born Slippy drop.

[TheBang]

Originally Posted by aphasein

Wow. "We heard you. These are for you." Are they though?

Maybe not for you, but there are a lot of new fans and vinyl collectors who want the albums on vinyl. Like I said, the demand is there, and vinyl copies of all their albums have been going for $75-200 on the secondary market for a few years. Just look at the discussion here, there are a lot of people that are buying some or all of them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/underworld/...xpecting_this/

[aphasein]

Originally Posted by TheBang

Maybe not for you, but there are a lot of new fans and vinyl collectors who want the albums on vinyl. Like I said, the demand is there, and vinyl copies of all their albums have been going for $75-200 on the secondary market for a few years. Just look at the discussion here, there are a lot of people that are buying some or all of them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/underworld/...xpecting_this/

Sorry, guess my point was missed on this. I know and mentioned that reprinting them has been wanted/needed - it's not the availability, it's the redesign that I doubted was for us. As a fan, I'd like the original, the classic. Maybe that's not a big deal for new fans.

It is a fun design and guess it's minimal enough being mainly the spine different, but seems unnecessary and changes the wraparound style up. I will mention again how glad I am to have them - ended up ordering four of them as actually only had the two others I mentioned on vinyl. Just been in a paradoxical mix of excited and thrown by their recent releases, but guess that's me.

For those interested - outside the UK it seems to be really affordable on shipping the vinyl, which was very surprising currently. Only $12 total, so came out to $3 each for me, which is what sealed the deal.

[Yannick]

I was surprised too, im used to pay the same or maybe more for shipping than the actual record.

[purlieu]

This is the end of the deluxe editions, isn't it? They've had eight years to prepare AHDO, and yet the next reissues we get are vanilla ones. Given that the plan was to do all the albums up to OWB, it perhaps isn't so surprising that the two least well rated albums of that era end up not happening.



I will very happily be proved wrong, but I'm not holding my breath for any more boxsets now.

[2dreamofluv]

i don't see why reissuing these VERY basic editions of most of their out-of-print back catalog on vinyl has any bearing on future deluxe editions. they are serving two different purposes.

[aphasein]

Originally Posted by 2dreamofluv

i don't see why reissuing these VERY basic editions of most of their out-of-print back catalog on vinyl has any bearing on future deluxe editions. they are serving two different purposes.

I don't know... you are right, it is totally possible and one doesn't preclude the other. Guess it just feels highly unlikely now, given that they all came out together previously (Deluxe CD box, vinyl, regular CD, Blu-ray audio).

It was the CD repackaging for all of them along with the vinyl that was the surprise to me (after no hint of that from their email or video teaser) and makes it feel like this is all that's planned for them. We'll see, definitely still hopeful, just not optimistic.

[aphasein]

Speaking of the CD repackaging - anyone else have thoughts on the varying CD cover choices for Dubno and STITI?

Dubno seems to have the vinyl cover on outside and CD cover on its booklet, while STITI totally drops it's CD cover anywhere, sticking with the vinyl cover on the booklet and a cropped version of it also for the outer cover. Bit revisionist.

BF keeps it's classic different circle CD cover for both, though. May just be the product mockups, but kind of odd.