Purple Toupee (EP)
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EP by They Might Be Giants | |||||
| First released | Scheduled for release c. July 1989 Release details / collectors: Show | Hide |
Tracks | 4 | |||
| Label | Bar/None / Restless | Length | 9:13 | |||
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Purple Toupee was a four-song EP planned for 12" vinyl, CD and cassette, promoted as an upcoming release in 1989, but ultimately canceled. Its intended tracks appeared on the 1989 Don't Let's Start LP compilation in Europe, and two years later in the US on Miscellaneous T.
In an interview with Hatchet in February 1989 after the release of the They'll Need A Crane EP, John Flansburgh elaborated on the proposed plan of Purple Toupee being released as a single:
What we're struggling with right now is that we're thinking about [releasing the song] "Purple Toupee." A lot of people responded really well when we recorded it, we thought it was going to be the first single off the record, but the weird thing about it is, if it became a hit, what would happen? If it became a hit record, would we suddenly be faced with 20 drunk guys wearing purple toupees in the front row of our shows, thinking it's all a joke?
After radio stations began to pick up the song that month[1] , Bar/None representative Jerry Rubino announced that Purple Toupee would be the band's next single as the band began shooting the music video in May 1989.[2] The promo CD for the single was announced for a June 23rd release[3], while promotional 8-tracks began to appear around the same time.[4] Advertisements for the single began appearing in magazines and newspapers after the music video premiered on MTV on July 2nd[5], suggesting an EP release distributed by Bar/None and Restless would have most likely been planned around this time, but the single would not be mentioned afterwards apart from a brief writeup on one of the 8-tracks in August 1989.[6]
When asked about the EP's cancellation on Tumblr in 2018, Flansburgh said:
When we got signed to Elektra, everything regarding our original label Bar/None and our distributor Restless Records shifted a couple of positions to the right. From that moment on, the value of those yet to be released tracks for future purposes by Restless became far more important and valuable than their use for short term promotion of a single. Restless were contractually able to release compilations of songs they controlled, and I suspect the idea of being able to say “three unreleased tracks” on a comp to be released AFTER our major label debut was a way for them to make the most of their deal.
The Then: The Earlier Years booklet states that the EP was "recorded virtually simultaneously" with Flood. "Hey, Mr. DJ" was recorded at Skyline Studios where Flood was recorded, while "Lady Is A Tramp" and "Birds Fly" were recorded at Hello Studio, John Flansburgh's home studio.
Track listing
| # | Title | Length | Lyrics | Guitar Tab |
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| 1 | Purple Toupee | 2:40
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| 2 | Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal | 3:48
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| 3 | Lady Is A Tramp | 1:20
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| 4 | Birds Fly | 1:25
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Gallery
Magazine ad
Magazine ad
Press release
US Promo
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Single by They Might Be Giants | |||||
| First released | June 23, 1989 Release details / collectors: Show | Hide |
Tracks | 1 | |||
| Label | Bar/None / Restless <EPRO-190> | Length | 2:40 | |||
A one-song promotional single CD containing just "Purple Toupee" was released in the US on June 23rd, 1989.
Track listing
| # | Title | Length | Lyrics | Guitar Tab |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Purple Toupee | 2:40
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Gallery
CD
Back cover
Promotional 8-Track
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Single by They Might Be Giants | |||||
| First released | c. June 1989 Release details / collectors: Show | Hide |
Tracks | N/A | |||
| Label | Bar/None / Restless | Length | N/A | |||
Purple Toupee was "released" on 8-track tape in 1989 as a promotional stunt, with the band putting custom labels on existing tapes that contained other music.
Purchase
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Description
John Flansburgh once mentioned that the tapes were purchased in bulk from Motown Records. By the time that the cartridge was released in 1989, 8-tracks had been widely phased out for several years, and this "release" was simply a promotional stunt. Due to the random nature of the tapes, several different shell colours are known to exist, including black, white, yellow, and purple. Similarly varied are the contents: the music contained within includes Cheech & Chong's Let's Make a New Dope Deal, a Stevie Wonder anthology, and Marvin Gaye.
Chicago Tribune, Jul. 21, 1989:
To call attention to the single "Purple Toupee," by They Might Be Giants, Bar/None Records recently mailed out promotional copies-on 8-track tapes, which are about as likely to get played these days as cylinder records. Actually the format didn't matter all that much because the tapes didn't really contain "Purple Toupee" anyway, being instead old, remaindered 8-tracks to which Bar/None applied They Might Be Giants labels. The mailing, says a Bar None staffer, was a tongue-in-cheek response to the declining fortunes of the vinyl single: if the vinyl single is disappearing, you simply find another format. (The label did send out CD singles of "Purple Toupee" to radio stations.)
You've gotta love Bar/None Records for coming up with a clever promotional goodie on behalf of They Might Be Giants. It's a copy of the duo's "Purple Toupee" on, of all things, 8-track. We noticed that our copy originally contained a Motown album...
A blurb about the Purple Toupee 8-track was featured as a "Did You Know" article on Wikipedia on July 12, 2013[7]:
Did you know... that in a 1989 promotional stunt, Bar/None distributed deprecated, irrelevant 8-track tapes with labels advertising They Might Be Giants' single "Purple Toupee"?
![[5]](https://tmbw.net/wiki/File:Purpletoupeepr.jpg){kind=link}