Thousands of copies of Car Seat Headrest's new album recalled

AP 335 recommended artist Car Seat Headrest have encountered an unusual obstacle with the release of their new album, Teens Of Denial. Here's the weird story: the album was supposed to drop on May 20 via Matador Records. However, now thousands of copies of the album are being recalled, and the release date has been pushed until later in the summer (no official date yet, pending for July). Why?

Read more: Car Seat Headrest perform NPR Tiny Desk Session

The reason behind the date change, according to the official legal statement, is to allow time for “a song containing elements of a composition by Ric Ocasek (of The Cars) could be removed and replaced.” Apparently, Matador correctly negotiated to use the sample months ago, but, just last week, the record company found out the publisher they worked with was unauthorized to handle the transaction. “Ric Ocasek preferred that his work not be included in the song,” says the legal statement.

Don't worry Car Seat Headrest fans: the album will still be available digitally on May 20. Will Toledo, the force behind Car Seat Headrest, has worked on an alternate version of the song that will be ready to release next Friday. Here's a statement from Toledo:

“Life happens and sometimes not in ideal ways. If you’ve heard anything about the new album, then you’re probably aware that one of its songs made use of The Cars song “Just What I Needed.” Now, obviously, when we called the record ‘done’ and sent it off to be printed, we were working in full confidence that we had the legal side of it all worked out. We found out last week that this was not the case. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of email chains and invested parties; suffice it to say that Matador (and I) were neither pulling a Banksy nor operating in ignorance of the law, but that we truly believed we had the issue resolved months ago, until last week.

As you may have heard, vinyl is being pulled from stores right now. There’s a total recall out, and all copies with the original version of the song will be destroyed. Nevertheless, Teens of Denial WILL COME OUT ON MAY 20TH, at least digitally. I spent the last 48 hours working on an alternate cut of the track, which is now called “Not What I Needed”. It’s not merely an edit – it is its own thing, about half a minute longer than the original track, and goes in a much different direction. Honestly, despite the apparent clusterfuck, I had fun doing it, and I think it’s a stronger song now. In any case I’ve grown up accustomed to working on an album right up to its drop date, so this is not a freak-out scenario for me. The album is going to come out on time and it’s going to be good.

The physical release will not come out on time, obviously. We’ll likely see a street date of sometime in July. I’m very sorry to everyone who was anticipating a preorder (it does sound GREAT on vinyl). It will be in your hands eventually. But it was very important to me that we keep the digital release for May. We’ve all been waiting long enough. Most of my music only exists online anyways, so it makes sense that this album should start the same way. 

Thanks for your continued support, and I am very excited for this fucking record to come out already.

-Will Toledo aka Car Seat Headrest”

And here's the thousands of copies of Teens Of Denial being recalled:

Beginning as Toledo's solo project, Car Seat Headrest released multiple albums independently on Bandcamp before getting signed to Matador Records in 2015, around the same time Teens Of Style, a compilation album, was dropped.