Missing Out on Superdrag's "Regretfully Yours" Can be a Super Drag

Superdrag’s reissue saga, Beatles surprises, and the sweet science of patient collecting

The author's 2013 pressing

Superdrag – Regretfully Yours (Elektra – 61900-2, SideOneDummy Records – SDR 1511, 1996/2013)

Superdrag has long held a place in my personal pantheon of underappreciated American bands — a secret favorite, if you will. Though they never achieved household name status, their influence runs deep, and their fanbase, while niche, remains intensely loyal. With little warning, it was recently announced that Regretfully Yours, their 1996 major-label debut, would be reissued once again — this time as part of Elektra’s 75th anniversary series. ((along with Public Image Ltd.'s This is What You Want… This is What You Get and The Sisters of Mercy's First and Last and Alwaysbut we'll talk about them another time).

Side B!

When it first appeared, Regretfully Yours was a CD-only release. A limited vinyl pressing emerged in 2013 via SideOneDummy, and over the ensuing years it attained cult-grail status, with copies fetching upwards of $1,000 on the secondary market — an eyebrow-raising sum for a record that initially slipped through many listeners’ fingers. Demand for a repress never subsided, and now, more than a decade later, it is being fulfilled: this new edition will reportedly use the original flat audio master and be pressed on opaque pink vinyl, with mastering credited (tentatively) to Sterling Sound.

A mock-up of the new pressing on opaque pink vinyl

The album arrived at a significant personal juncture for me - 1996, the year I graduated high school. Sonically and thematically, it mirrored my emotional landscape of that moment: euphoric and uneasy, raw yet melodic. The music offered something few records on the airwaves could at the time. While radio was dominated by ephemeral pop (“Macarena,” Celine Dion, Mariah Carey) Regretfully Yours was equal parts catharsis and confrontation, with detuned guitars, sometimes barely holding pitch and evoking a visceral turbulence.

And yet, these sonic squalls always resolved into hauntingly beautiful, tightly constructed melodies; a nod to British Invasion classicism filtered through East Tennessee grit.

Curiously, and fittingly, the announcement of this reissue coincided with another unexpected resurrection from the vinyl afterlife: the Beatles’ long out-of-print The Beatles in Mono box set briefly returned to the official Beatles webstore this week. Of course, it sold out almost instantly, but its reappearance echoed a broader lesson familiar to collectors: that truly beloved records have a way of returning when the moment is right, even if only briefly.

The fabled Beatles in Mono box from 2014

I had every intention of securing my Superdrag preorder the moment it went live on May 31. But, as often happens, Saturday morning slipped away, and by the time I revisited the site, the band’s webstore was already sold out. Thankfully, with a little digital legwork, I located a copy from another retailer. If you're still searching - that's a super drag - but, it's not too late. Here are a few details that may help guide along your vinyl journey:

Catalogue: EA-781164

Barcode: 081227811648

So what can we take from all this?

Perhaps simply this: the things we fear are lost to time often return; sometimes when we least expect them, and sometimes with a more modest price tag. Collecting, like listening, rewards those who are both patient and persistent.

And, one final note: should anyone at Superdrag HQ be reading: it’s time for Last Call for Vitriol (2002) to receive its due on vinyl (shhhh, it's my favorite Superdrag album). I’m willing to wait. But not forever.