Seeing as how this blog is a celebration of physical media, today I thought I’d share with you some of the physical formats I bought for the new Paul McCartney album “The Boys of Dungeon Lane”.
Having just been released last Friday you’d think I’d have all the variations I was going to get but most of the variations available come form different stores and Websites so it took a bit of time to locate and receive the variants I bought.
Now there are a plethora of variants out there – enough to make you go bankrupt, trust me – but I chose to buy just, just mind you, two CD versions and two vinyl versions (see photos above and below). It’s kind of mind blowing to see just how many variations there are for sale but lucky I stopped at just these four. Really, that’s good for me. I know, I know but I am getting better.
(Note: Just so you can peruse the various versions available, there’s a handy chart that details all of the variants for “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” courtesy of Beatlesblogger.com: https://beatlesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/dungeon-lane-variations-215.jpeg)
The ones I bought are (drum roll please):
“The Boys of Dungeon Lane” – regular issue CD
“The Boys of Dungeon Lane” – Target exclusive CD with lyric card (smaller, different photo collage than the vinyl)
“The Boys of Dungeon Lane” – Gatefold cover, black vinyl issue, paulmccartney.com Exclusive
“The Boys of Dungeon Lane” – Target exclusive red vinyl issue with lyric card (larger, different photo collage than the CD)
I didn’t receive the vinyl copies until yesterday so I based my last blog review of the album on the CD version I got last Friday. Now that I own the vinyl I must say the vinyl issue may be the way to go as it’s a better listen. It sounds more open and dynamic and my pressings sound very quiet and quite good.
Now that I own the red vinyl, I’m glad that I got at least one of the colored vinyl issues. I certainly don’t need all of the various colors but the red vinyl matches the sleeve well and looks and sounds great. I also like that the gatefold and the red vinyl covers are different.
The gatefold sleeve has a pure white with embossed writing (ala the “White Album”) and I love that inside the gatefold the photo collage is spread out and easy to see. By the way the inner sleeve of the red vinyl version has the same photo collages but they are on the inner sleeve, one on each side. It’s much easier to see the collage all as one spread on the gatefold so it’s nice having both.
Truth be told I was very tempted to order the green vinyl exclusive from paulmccartney.com but with the shipping added it was too cost prohibitive – at least for now lol.
Well, that’s all I have today. I just wanted to share some groovy photos of the variants that I own (currently) and share the link above for the list of the complete variants from Beatlesblogger.com – a truly great Website for Beatles info.
And who knows if I decide on another variant I’ll be sure to post it here as well.
Until next time be well and see you soon!
Records, CDs and Music: 
