Getting an album before release date, the earliest instances?

Yesterday i received the forthcoming album by Gnod "Chapel Perilous", its release date is May 4th so i have it 20 days early. I am not a journalist, its not a promo copy. What's the earliest you've got the latest album by your favourite band, can anyone beat 20 days before release.

 

I got Rush's Different Stages about 3 months before it came out in 1998 but it was an advance promo and two songs were added to it later that weren't on the advance.

I've gotten various other Rush and Dream Theater promos before the release date (not a reviewer) but nothing that early and nothing in the last 10 plus years or so. Those days are pretty much over now though.

 

I got a cassette of Richard Thompson's Mirror Blue at least a couple of weeks before its release. The pre-release promo doesn't have the official release cover art; just Richard Thompson - Mirror Blue against a plain blue background.

 

Doesn't happen that often for me. I did get Anthrax's Worship Music about a week early, as it was released accidentally before the release date.

That's the best story I have.

 

I got Metallica's "St. Anger" one day early at Target.

 

If you were a reviewer, this happened all the time in the '80s and 90s-- Cassettes (and later CD's) without cover art would circulate weeks or even months before an album;s release. Things were much looser in pre-internet days.

 

I got Ziggy Stardust in 1972 from the local distributor on the Saturday morning before it was shipped out to retailers the following week.

 

Ex-October Project singer Mary Fahl recorded her own version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. It was set to be released two days after...her label went out of business.

A couple years later I found a couple of copies in a Minneapolis used CD store, and snagged one. Brought it with me the first time I saw her. She said she'd seen promo copies go on eBay for over a hundred, and so was astonished that I got mine for 7 bucks.

Two more years later, a show in a Philly coffee house, where she's selling the remainder of her one carton her label had given her before they went bust. She also announces the album is coming out finally the next October, download only, but it's the first official release of the album.

So technically, you could say I got mine 4-years-and-change prior to the release date.

Also, it's a pretty good treatment of the material, just different. And I'll never get rid of my copy. Because, you can't autograph a download...!