Physical Release Of Car Seat Headrest's 'Teens of Denial' Pushed Back Due To Legal Issue
Friday, 13 May 2016
Written by Huw Baines
The physical release of Car Seat Headrest’s new record has been pushed back from May 20 to mid summer due to legal wrangling.
‘Teens of Denial’, Will Toledo’s first album of new material for Matador, is still set to emerge digitally on the planned date, but physical copies have been recalled.
The reason is the song Just What I Wanted/Not Just What I Needed, which contained elements of the Cars’ new wave classic, Just What I Needed. In a statement, Matador said:
“The release date for the Car Seat Headrest album Teens Of Denial has been pushed back from May 20 to later in the summer due to a recall of physical product, so that a song containing elements of a composition by RicOcasek (of The Cars) could be removed and replaced. Matador had negotiated for a license in good faith months ago, only to be told last week that the publisher involved was not authorized to complete the license in the United States, and that RicOcasek preferred that his work not be included in the song. Matador regrets that it was not informed of this much earlier, and has made changes to respect Mr. Ocasek’s wishes.”
In a further message, Toledo explained that the song has since been reworked and is now called Not What I Needed.
"Life happens and sometimes not in ideal ways. If you’ve heard anything about the new album, then you’re probably aware that one of its songs made use of The Cars song “Just What I Needed.” Now, obviously, when we called the record ‘done’ and sent it off to be printed, we were working in full confidence that we had the legal side of it all worked out. We found out last week that this was not the case. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of email chains and invested parties; suffice it to say that Matador (and I) were neither pulling a Banksy nor operating in ignorance of the law, but that we truly believed we had the issue resolved months ago, until last week.
"As you may have heard, vinyl is being pulled from stores right now. There’s a total recall out, and all copies with the original version of the song will be destroyed. Nevertheless, Teens of Denial WILL COME OUT ON MAY 20TH, at least digitally. I spent the last 48 hours working on an alternate cut of the track, which is now called “Not What I Needed”. It’s not merely an edit - it is its own thing, about half a minute longer than the original track, and goes in a much different direction. Honestly, despite the apparent clusterfuck, I had fun doing it, and I think it’s a stronger song now. In any case I’ve grown up accustomed to working on an album right up to its drop date, so this is not a freak-out scenario for me. The album is going to come out on time and it’s going to be good.
"The physical release will not come out on time, obviously. We’ll likely see a street date of sometime in July. I’m very sorry to everyone who was anticipating a preorder (it does sound GREAT on vinyl). It will be in your hands eventually. But it was very important to me that we keep the digital release for May. We’ve all been waiting long enough. Most of my music only exists online anyways, so it makes sense that this album should start the same way. Thanks for your continued support, and I am very excited for this fucking record to come out already."
Car Seat Headrest Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon June 20 2016 - BRIGHTON Hope and Ruin
Tue June 21 2016 - LONDON 100 Club
Wed June 22 2016 - MANCHESTER Deaf Institute
Thu June 23 2016 - GLASGOW Broadcast
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