To the delight of stans everywhere, Beyoncé‘s Lemonade was finally made available on vinyl this month, over a year after the album’s initial release. But in a truly oops-all-berries mishap over at the record pressing factory, side A of the two-disc set includes several songs from the Canadian punk band Zex embedded in the track list.
Zex (whose album Uphill Battle contains tracks like “Burn the Flag,” “Child Soldier,” and “No Sanctuary”) shared a video about the mistake on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/zexzexzexofficial/videos/838006423041806/
Guitarist Jo Galipeau also described to Slate how they discovered the misprint. “We first found out through a friend who works at Rough Trade East in London,” he said. “One copy was returned because of [the mix-up], and they found out it was Zex because they seemingly used something like Shazam which determines what an artist is. And then my friend alerted me, and then within hours there was tons of very confused Beyoncé fans writing to us who had also done the same thing.”
According to Columbia Records, neither Beyoncé or Zex had anything to do with the misprint—it was all the result of “human error” at the German plant where the records were made. The label released the following statement:
Due to human error at the Celebrate Records plant in Germany, which Sony uses to manufacture vinyl, a small amount of the European run of the Beyoncé Lemonade vinyl included music from Canadian punk band, ZEX, on Side A. Beyoncé and ZEX were not aware of or responsible for the mispress. Fans who purchased the vinyl will be refunded and given a replacement copy. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.
Right now, it looks like most of the Lemonade vinyl for sale on eBay is unopened, but something tells us these misprints are about to be some very special collector’s items.
Update 10:34am CT, Sept. 20: Pitchfork is reporting that, unrelated to the misprinted LPs, Zex has been dropped from its label Magic Bullet Records this week “over some sexual assault allegations that have been brought up against guitarist Jo Capitalcide [legal name Jo Galipeau].”
A statement posted on the label’s website explains that they received emails about Capitalcide’s alleged history of assault and were “able to corroborate some details after talking to Zex singer Gretchen Steel (who is in a relationship with Capitalcide).” As a result, Magic Bullet has decided to immediately drop Zex.
The statement goes on to state that the label plans to donate money to RAINN and Cornerstone Housing For Women in Ontario, and will be offering refunds “to anyone who bought Zex’s most recent album.”
Earlier this year, New York punk duo PWR BTTM were dropped from their label and removed from streaming services after facing similar allegations.
