Ramones on vinyl: Ramones on Liberation Records

From 1985 the biggest independent label in Australia, Mushroom Records, had a foreign licensing division called Liberation Records.

In 1989 they got the license deal for the new Ramones album, Brain Drain. Liberation released the album for the australian market along with the single Pet Sematary. The single was issued with a different picture sleeve compared to the rest of the world – but things got wrong.

The writing credits on the back of the sleeve are mixed up and the sleeve was withdrawn. The single was sold in an australian CBS company sleeve. Still it's not that hard to find a copy with the picture sleeve so I guess a lot of them ended up for sale anyhow. Read more about the single here.

After Brain Drain Liberation released three older albums in reverse order. Halfway To Sanity came out in 1989, Animal Boy and Too Tough To Die was released the year after, in 1990.

Brain Drain has the printed inner sleeve, the rest of the albums came in a plastic inner bag only. For some reason the first two releases have a barcode but not Animal Boy and Too Tough To Die.