The fourth and final of my submissions to VMG was this sealed vinyl single of Public Enemy’s “Hazy Shade of Criminal”, released in 1992.

I love this single for its loud, gritty, and incendiary style. The song focuses on police brutality but in a way that would make this song seem ahead of its time even if it were released today. The cover features a historical photo of a lynching that occurred in Indiana in 1930. I obscured the image because it’s not fun to look at, but the cover photo epitomizes PE’s message on this track: We can’t avoid the results of institutions that fail society.

I’ve searched for this single on eBay and Discogs multiple times per week in the past year (this is the kind of time you have when you’re single with no kids) and this is the only copy I’ve found in sealed+mint condition. There are multiple reasons for this:

1. It was released on vinyl and CD during the transition period between the two mediums, so I’m sure lots of people passed on the vinyl offering.

2. It didn’t receive a ton of airplay because Public Enemy was moving out of their prime and some of their recent releases (namely “By the Time I Get to Arizona”) scared away some mainstream play.

3. It didn’t reach any meaningful heights on music charts.

As a result of these factors, a majority of the vinyl copies in existence have “cutouts,” which means the distributors literally cut off a corner of the album or drilled a hole in the barcode to demonstrate that the record was distributed at a discount to prevent stores from getting full credit on any returns. Imagine if sports card companies clipped cards from poorly-selling sets!

All things considered, a sealed 6.5 on this album is an incredibly strong grade, and it’s probably among the top-10 favorite collectibles I own.