I was once again in Target just now and was so shocked to see that they had the Spanish language version of This Year's Model in their extremely limited CD racks that I bought it, despite having had no interest in it previously. I have no clue what the last Elvis Costello album for sale at Target might've been, but I'm sure it's been a while.

The album itself sounds pretty good, but it's freaking This Year's Model, so of course it does. I doubt I'll ever listen to it more than once, not being a Spanish speaker myself - though the different vocalists are interesting enough, I might dig it out on occasion.

Still, I have no clue why in the world this particular release made the cut for one of the 20 or so spots on the Target CD racks. If they had ANY other Spanish language discs for sale, I might understand it - a couple of towns south of me has a sizable Hispanic population and the WalMart there has long had Spanish language CD and DVD sections, but not so much in the town I live in. It's so random that it turned up in my local Target that it jolted me into buying it.

So it's not EC singing?

Nope - it's a bunch of different Latin music artists. The only names I was previously at all familiar with a re Luis Fonsi and Juanes, but I don't know much about their own music. Just have heard their names before.

It seems that it was just released today (or at least, the only version currently on discogs is on vinyl, from the Netherlands, with today as the release date). So it's likely it was the same date for its US release.

There are so few physical releases these days, that this might qualify as a major release - especially as a few of the artists listed are fairly big names in Latin America. It would explain how it would make it onto the new releases rack at some random retailer, for lack of competition. But I agree it's strange. It's also strange that they just dubbed the vocals on the original musical tracks, and did not attempt to make actual cover versions. I don't recall seeing that before.

Here is some info on why:

[www.rollingstone.com]

I just happened to be in a Target this evening, so of course I looked… no EC in ANY language. Your locale might be one of a lucky few.

No ‘empty box’ Lorde for that matter, either. Lots of vinyl copies of Imagine Dragons if you’re interested; hopefully for their sake SOMEONE is…!

That's so weirdly cool, I totally get buying it! The new ABBA® singles are available on CD single and and are only $5.00 each [possibly with one track] and it took a little will power to not hit the "buy button." Some ABBA® is fantastic, but the bulk of it is schlager time. So, not a dyed-in-the-wool fan.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®