The Cure – Friday I'm In Love

Limited edition of 100 copies.

In December 2011, Talenthouse invited famous and anonymous designers and creative from all over the world to submit withing 3 months their concept for a song amongst 7 chosen songs. This operation purposed a charity event for an association called Teenage Cancer Trust, in the UK. It was called 'Secret 7"'. Each song was produced by a band or an artist as follow:

1 The Cure - Friday I'm In Love
2 Florence + The Machine - Only If For A Night
3 Bombay Bicycle Club - Lights Out, Words Gone (Rub A Dub)
4 CSS - City Grrrl
5 DJ Shadow - Come On Riding (Through The Cosmos)
6 Noah & The Whale - Old Joy
7 Ben Howard - Black Flies

Sleeves concept were submitted at Talenthouse websites and got vote from the public.

In March at the Secret 7" website, Kevin King claimed to have received all the test pressings, no sleeves yet, a general paper sleeve, and white labels.

End of March, a contest is organized on Facebook. In the end someone won a set of 7 x 7", they come in a generic cardboard die-cut sleeve. They contain the definitive releases, but the covers are blank, they are not test pressings.

About 700 people's work got selected, 100 sleeves per artist and subsequently in April 2012 and in partnership with Record Store Day, their work was exposed at the Idea Generation gallery in Shoreditch, London. The idea behind the Secret 7 operation was for the people to look at the covers and guess what was inside, not knowing either who designed it. For a minimum of 40£, someone could buy a disc and only when done so, could open the sleeve and discover what artist/song he got and who was the person behind the design.
Also, none of the designers who won were known, names were given only after all records were sold.
The records were for sale on the 22nd of April.

From Talenthouse blog: "As well as designs by Talenthouse members and the host artists, the exhibition will include work by a crack team of creatives from across the world of art and music. Teenager who have been helped by the charity will also be getting involved designing sleeves."
From secret 7 website: "The exhibition has an added air of mystery as no-one will know who designed each sleeve, or which of our seven tracks is housed inside."

When the exhibition closed on the 22nd of April 2012, the Secret 7" website announced the remaining sleeves to be sold at an auction website in May 2012 to permit international found rising.

This operation was created by Universal Music UK and Kevin King (producer at Universal Music Group) was the curator for the operation.

All records for a same artists are the same, but each sleeve is unique. All those 7" come in a stickered numbered plastic sleeve containing the unique sleeve printed on high quality paper. Hand stamped on the back of the sleeve is a special designed Secret 7" seal saying "Thank you for being part of Secret 7" 2012", followed by a hand written number (sleeve number as part of the 700) and a 1/1 number to underline its uniqueness.
It also comes with a heavy weight blue cardboard card with Talenthouse logo, it says:

"Our 7 hosts invited designers from around the world a chance to design their sleeve using Talenthouse. Thousands were submitted and whittled down by each of our hosts to their favourites. You have just bought one of them."

Handwritten is the name of the artist who designed the sleeve, followed by the chosen track. Back of this card is a large 7" stamp being the Secret 7" logo.

The sleeve contains a die-cut inner sleeve and the heavyweight 7" record. Side A also marked the 20th anniversary of Friday I'm In Love released as a single. Side B is pressed but blank and included for reasons unknown.

Cat# S74 appears on labels and matrix (side A). Side B doesn't have signs in runout grooves.