Hey there. We bet you’re here because you noticed something strange in this month’s announcement email, or, perhaps, saw what was in that email on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or your Tik-Tok. Or even the headline above. Well, your eyes didn’t deceive you. We’re so excited about the Essentials albums we have planned for later this year that we decided to announce them all right now. We’re here to answer the questions you have about that right here.

So yes: October’s Essentials Record of the Month is The Flaming Lips’ breakthrough LP The Soft Bulletin. It’s a devastating, beautiful album, and you can read more about it right here, and right here, and members this month will get to be a part of an exclusive AMA with Wayne Coyne. Sign up for it here.

Our November Essentials Record of the Month is the White Whale, the record people have been asking about basically as soon as we pressed our first exclusive Record of the Month: Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf. Our special edition will come on colored vinyl, pressed at Pallas, and we’ll tell you about more details when we officially launch this title in late October. These will be shipped starting in the first two weeks of November.

Our December Essentials Record of the Month is Aretha Franklin’s masterpiece, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, which teaches everyone a little bit about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. This one will come on colored vinyl as well, and we can’t wait to share other details with you when we launch this title in late November. These will be shipped starting in the first two weeks of December.

You Actually Really Need to Read This Part

We’re telling everyone these titles early for a couple reasons: 1. These are three of the biggest titles we’ve done in Essentials and we’re excited about them and 2. Because we expect signups to go crazy for all three of them, and since we no longer have our one-month option the only way to ensure that you’re for sure locked in our three month sub to get Queens of the Stone Age and Aretha Franklin is to sign up soon (perhaps for Flaming Lips) (current Essentials members would just need to keep their membership active through November). If you sign up for the three-month sub now, you’ll get Flaming Lips, QOTSA, and Aretha as your three records, but also have the option to swap out for something in our catalog if you don’t like any of those three.

It bears repeating: The only way to ensure that you’ll get these three albums is to sign up for our three-month Essentials subscription now, which you can do over here.

New to Vinyl Me, Please? You can go here to learn how a membership works.

Sign Up Here To Get Flaming Lips, Queens of the Stone Age, and Aretha Franklin as your Essentials Records of the Month for the next three months.