Beyoncé’s Lemonade was finally released on vinyl this month, but a perfect mixup at the record factory (right?) means that several songs on the first side of the album aren’t Beyoncé at all, but a Canadian punk band called Zex. This is great.
Zex, whose album Uphill Battle contains tracks like “Burn the Flag,” “Child Soldier,” and “No Sanctuary,” alerted the confused public to the mishap on their Facebook page:
I want to imagine Zex is thrilled—if just a fraction of Beyoncé fans suspend their rage long enough to open their hearts to punk, surely Zex will see their record sales skyrocket, right? But in an interview with Slate, guitarist Jo Galipeau was really just extremely chill about the whole thing. Too chill.
“I think it’s a bit funny. It adds to the daily circus that is Zex,” she said. “I mean this is a regular Monday for us. It’s always one weird thing after the other.”
Is it, Jo? A regular Monday where your relatively unknown band gets accidental exposure via the biggest star on Earth? I somehow doubt that. Asked whether the band is fond of Beyoncé, Galipeau said:
“I just heard of Beyoncé. I had heard of the name; I’d never heard the music.” SEEMS UNLIKELY BUT OKAY, JO. OKAY.
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Columbia Records, meanwhile, released a 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.
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If Zex are true punks, they engineered this whole thing themselves. It’s unclear whether Bey’s missing works, which include “Pray You Catch Me,” “Hold Up,” and “Don’t Hurt Yourself” wound up on Zex’s vinyl or elsewhere, but I hope they are happy and safe.
