The rare purple/light blue Target CD of Linda Ronstadt Lush Life
October 29th, 2009
Back in May, I featured an unusual West German Target CD of Linda Ronstadt Greatest Hits issued by the Columbia House Music Club (click here). Today I am writing about another rare Ronstadt Target CD, as well as a common variation. The discs that are the subject of this post are color variations and involve Ronstadt’s 1984 pop standards effort with Nelson Riddle, Lush Life (Asylum, catalog number 9 60387-2).
The two color variations of Lush Life are West German Target pressings. Both discs are standard retail issues, as opposed to Columbia House mail-order releases. The common version of Lush Life, and it is rather common as Target CDs go, has a royal blue target and yellow paint coating. The rare version, and it is extremely rare in my experience, has a purple target and light blue paint coating. You may be thinking that a Target CD on the Asylum label should have a purple target and light blue coating. Well, it depends. Asylum Targets that bear the older lower-case ‘a’ logo were issued in the purple/light blue combination (see the aforementioned post on the Ronstadt Greatest Hits Target). However, Asylum Targets that bear the later capital ‘A’ over a “sunrise” logo (see the pictures below) were issued in the royal blue/yellow combination.
Lush Life was issued with the newer Asylum logo, so the royal blue/yellow combination would be expected. I suspect the purple/light blue disc is either a simple error or a test disc. Pictures of the two variations are shown below. Both discs have the same matrix code — “7559 60387-2 2895 184 02 #”. They also have identical inserts, which were printed in West Germany.
As stated above, the purple/light blue version is very rare. I just obtained it this week, after years of searching. By contrast, I have seen the royal blue/yellow version in used CD shops and on eBay many times over the years.
The common West German Target pressing of Linda Ronstadt Lush Life (Asylum, catalog number 9 60387-2). This color combination is typical of Target CDs that bear the newer Asylum logo showing a capital ‘A’ over a “sunrise”.
The very rare West German Target pressing of Linda Ronstadt Lush Life (Asylum, catalog number 9 60387-2). This color combination is typical of Target CDs that bear the older lower-case ‘a’ Asylum logo. It is believed that this pressing of Lush Life is an error or a test pressing.