Music

Will Jack White be the first to play a vinyl record in space?

by Jeremy Mersereau

Label owner, rocker and incognito potlucker Jack White is up to something once more, and this time it might really be out of this world. Wait, where are you going? Don’t you want to hear about whatever gimmicky bullshit Jack has up his sleeve this time? What if I told you it involved the terrifying infinite void of space? Dude, come back!

“July 30th, Third Man Records is going to make vinyl history again,” begins a cryptic teaser on the Third Man Records Facebook page.. Those words are followed by a floating golden record that spins epically for awhile before shooting towards the viewer. Just before the disc leaves out orbit, it reveals itself to be “A Glorious Dawn,” the late astrophysicist Carl Sagan’s 7″ release on Third Man [read: Youtuber John Boswell’s 2009 composition featuring Sagan samples].

Jack White/TMR fans are now guessing what the mysterious communiqué could mean, with the craziest/most intriguing possibility being that White plans to be the first person to somehow play a vinyl record in space. Fans are pointing to a 2012 interview between White and astronaut Buzz Aldrin that lends credence to the theory, wherein White pointed to a “secret project” involving one of his releases being the first record (presumably, “A Glorious Dawn”) played in space.

The plan, as described at the time, would involve sending “a balloon that carries a vinyl record” up into the stratosphere before somehow dropping a needle and playing the thing. Man, how much money does Third Man have to fund these kind of research projects?! How many Patrick Carney-lookalikes buying up old Dead Weather reissues are we talking about here?

Anyway, the other, duller possibility: TMR is just reissuing “A Glorious Dawn” here on plain old Earth. Either way, we’ll find out for sure on July 30th. I want to believe, though….want to believe this’ll be the last vinyl gimmick Jack White foists on us!

[H/T The Vinyl Factory]