Seventeen Going Under turns five on crystal-clear vinyl

Six deluxe recordings reach 12-inch for the first time, with alternate artwork and video stills beside them. The 2021 set that brought a first Mercury Prize nomination still anchors the catalogue.

Sam Fender released a special two-LP crystal-clear vinyl edition of Seventeen Going Under on 19 September 2026, five years after the album first appeared. The reissue carries alternate artwork and marks the first 12-inch vinyl release of six deluxe recordings: Better Of Me, Pretending That You're Dead, Angel In Lothian, Alright, Good Company and Poltergeists. The original album tracklist sits on the first LP; the deluxe tracks occupy the second.

The announcement coincided with the release of behind-the-scenes photographs from the music videos for the title track, Spit Of You and Get You Down. The edition is available through the artist's official store and selected retailers. No further physical formats or anniversary events were announced.

Seventeen Going Under earned Fender his first Mercury Prize nomination, and the title single achieved double-platinum status in the UK. That pairing of a major shortlist place and lasting sales is why a fifth-anniversary pressing still lands with weight: this is the album many listeners still reach for first.

High tenor, Geordie grain, rock roots

Samuel Thomas Fender is an English singer, songwriter and musician known for his high tenor voice and Geordie accent, layered over a roots-orientated rock approach. His songwriting joins a traditional American musical upbringing with a classic British rock sensibility — plain-spoken melodies, open guitar lines, and a delivery that keeps the accent in the frame rather than sanding it off.

The early run is mapped in the singles of 2017: Greasy Spoon, Millennial, Play God and Start Again. Dead Boys arrived as an EP in 2018, with Friday Fighting and Leave Fast released during the same period. Seventeen Going Under followed in 2021 and became the fixed point of the catalogue — the record that took him to the Mercury shortlist. By 2025, the People Watching album had extended the arc, joined by live recordings from the O2 Arena and from the London Stadium, and by singles including Wild Long Lie, Rein Me In and Tyrants.

Read against that sequence, the crystal-clear reissue does more than mark a round number. It treats the deluxe sessions as part of the same statement as the original album sequence, and it puts them on the shelf in the format collectors reach for. Between the first EPs and the 2025 album, Seventeen Going Under remains the hinge: the work that turned a run of singles into a body of songs with a public life of its own.

Clear vinyl, open questions

Alternate artwork and a transparent pressing make the package a physical object as much as a listening one. For an audience that already knows the songs from the radio and the gigs, the draw is the six deluxe cuts finally pressed to 12-inch, given a full LP rather than left as digital extras. The title track's double-platinum run in the UK underlines how far those songs have travelled since 2021; the Mercury nomination fixed the album in the critical calendar at the same moment.

What the announcement does not supply is any wider campaign. There is no second colourway, no deluxe box, no run of anniversary gigs attached to the date. The behind-the-scenes photographs sit beside the vinyl as archive material from the title track, Spit Of You and Get You Down — a parallel release of stills, not the opening of a new chapter. The record is simply back on the racks, five years on, with its extra songs given the space they had not held on vinyl before.