No doubt you’ve heard by now there’s to be a brand spanking new Paul McCartney solo album called The Boys of Dungeon Lane – due in stores from May 29. Very exciting to get a whole album’s worth of new material from the master – especially after a five year wait.

A new Paul McCartney release means inevitably there’ll be lots of variations to collect. Already there are 8 different vinyl colours you can pre-order, plus four different CD packages. Based on his last solo release (McCartney III), there’ll no doubt be more….

If you are collecting, here’s a bit of a guide to what’s available so far. And please bear in mind we haven’t seen the packaging in full as yet, so who know what artwork will be on the rear covers, spines, etc.

However, with the guide below you need to note some subtle differences between some of the versions – especially if you are a real packaging nerd. A few come with slightly different features (inserts, etc.), so we’ll try to point these out for you as we go along.

OK. Lets start off with the most obvious, and it’s the black vinyl. It is available from the official McCartney store, at Universal Music stores in various parts of the word (Australia for example), and seems to be widely available at most other places too from May 29:

The black vinyl includes embossed cover artwork (with red and black lettering), a printed inner sleeve and a 12-page lyric booklet.

There’s also a green vinyl which looks pretty nice. This is a McCartney store exclusive (plus at various Universal Music outlets – Umusic Shop Canada for example):

As you can see above, this comes with a unique cover with green and black lettering on the front (not red and black). It includes the store-exclusive green vinyl LP, a lyric card, and the 12-page lyric booklet. So, different to the black vinyl.

The gold vinyl will be available from Barnes and Noble stores in the US and is most probably the same gold vinyl as the Rough Trade exclusive offering.

The Rough Trade listing says “Includes 12-page lyric booklet and embossed cover artwork”. The Barnes and Noble listing is a little more vague as to what this version contains packaging-wise, but the hype sticker clearly states “Includes Photo Print”:

Now, until the launch of The Boys of Dungeon Lane last week we’d never heard of TalkShopLive. A quick Google reveals it is “the live streaming, social selling online network for anyone, anywhere, to buy & sell almost anything!” Hmmm. Still not exactly sure what that even means….BUT, the site has a purple vinyl exclusive. Could this have the potential to become the rarest version?

There’s precious little detail of what the packaging is for this TalkShopLive edition.

At the other end of the spectrum is the big online retailer, Amazon. They get a white vinyl Amazon exclusive:

Pressed on Amazon exclusive white vinyl, this LP includes the 12-page lyric booklet and embossed cover artwork.

The red vinyl is going out as an “exclusive” to a number of the big bricks-and-mortar stores like HMV in the UK, Target in the US, plus other large chain stores (like JB HiFi in Australia, fnac in France, jpc in Germany, etc.). This actually looks pretty good:

The red vinyl edition comes with the lyric card and the 12-page lyric booklet and embossed cover artwork.

Actually, jpc in Germany has quite clear images of the labels (which are common across the variants). Obviously they’re printed but look to be originally hand-written by Paul?

The pink vinyl is going to quite a lot of independant record stores (both bricks-and-mortar stores and online) right around the world, including Rough Trade, the SuperDeluxeEdition store, Juno Records in the UK, Badlands in the UK, the iMusic online store in Denmark etc., etc.:

This Indie-only pink vinyl features an embossed sleeve and comes with a 12-page lyric booklet.

So as you can see there are a number of little packaging wrinkles amongst the coloured vinyls.

But the biggest variation (so far) is probably the Amoeba Music exclusive just announced. It has completely out there alternate cover artwork (riffing on the Amoeba store’s official logo), and is on exclusive limited edition yellow vinyl:

No word on what else is included in this love-or-hate packaging! This looks to have unique labels as well.

As far as CD’s go it looks like there’s the widely-available standard CD: white disc, embossed cover with red lettering. Includes lyric booklet.

There’s an exclusive “green cover” CD: white disc, green lettering on front cover. Includes a “Paul McCartney photo print”, and lyric booklet. This again is a McCartney store exclusive (plus through various Universal Music outlets – Umusic Shop Canada for example):

Meanwhile in Japan there are two different SHM-CD variants available for pre-order. The first is the standard SHM-CD:

Not a lot of detail about what you get here, but it is almost certain to come with a lyric booklet and an insert with a Japanese translation of the lyrics.

There is also a limited Deluxe Edition SHM-CD described as a “Cardboard Sleeve (mini LP) in a 7-inch cardboard sleeve. Bonus item(s) are planned. Includes commentary, lyrics, and a Japanese translation”. Both SMH-CD’s do not have any bonus tracks.