A tightly focused record that many rank among the band’s best, this album had a rich set of formats at release, so which edition of Fear of a Blank Planet should you buy turns on surround sound and limited pressings. The 2007 original is the anchor.

Why this album is a special case

Porcupine Tree made this record a concentrated, vocal-led statement, and unusually its surround and special editions arrived at release rather than years later. For a buyer, the choice runs from a plain CD to a limited two-disc set and a dedicated surround edition, with several very limited vinyl variants for collectors. Knowing that the surround mix was available from the start — on a limited CD and a DVD-Audio — helps you target the right edition rather than waiting for a later deluxe that this album did not need.

The original release

The album was released in 2007 on Roadrunner in the United Kingdom and Europe and on Atlantic in the United States, on CD, with a double vinyl issued through a specialist label. Its original catalogue number is not settled in the sources this guide relies on, so it is left unstated rather than guessed. It reached the UK top forty. An original pressing in clean condition is the collector’s reference for this title.

The reissues that matter

At release the album appeared in a limited two-disc edition of ten thousand copies, pairing the stereo album with a 5.1 surround mix and a large booklet, and in a DVD-Audio edition on a specialist label carrying lossless and DTS surround, high-resolution stereo, related EP tracks in surround and three videos. Very limited vinyl variants — a marbled edition of a thousand copies and a later pink edition of five hundred — followed for collectors.

Remasters and remixes

A 5.1 surround mix appeared in 2007 on both the limited two-disc edition and the DVD-Audio, the latter also carrying the surround mixes of a related EP. No Dolby Atmos mix is confirmed in the sources this guide relies on. For surround listeners, the DVD-Audio is the fullest destination, since it adds high-resolution stereo and the EP material, and the multi-channel mix lives on these dedicated editions rather than on the standard CD.

Which one to buy

If you want the album simply, the standard single CD is the easy choice. If you want surround, the 2007 DVD-Audio is the fullest package, pairing the 5.1 mix with high-resolution stereo and related EP tracks, while the limited two-disc edition is a good alternative if you find one. If you collect, the numbered marbled or pink vinyl variants are the prizes. The choice mostly turns on whether surround matters and how rare a copy you want.

Go deeper

The same edition questions run through the rest of the catalogue, so this reads well beside our guides to In Absentia. If the vocabulary of pressings is unfamiliar, see what 5.1 and surround mixes, the most collectable pressings, vinyl or CD suits prog best actually mean. The overview lives on the reissues and editions guide, and the record itself sits among the best progressive rock albums.

One note on how this guide is put together. Every year, label and format here is checked against English-language discographies rather than trusted to memory, because the surest way to waste your money is to chase an edition that does not exist as described. Where a mix or a pressing could not be confirmed, it is left out rather than guessed at, and where a chart placing belongs to a later reissue rather than the original run, that is said plainly. The point of a buying guide is that you can act on it, so the harder facts are the ones worth getting right. Two habits make buying any of these records easier. The first is to read the catalogue number and the pressing year off the disc or the sleeve, rather than trusting a listing’s title alone, since the same artwork was reused across editions that sound and contain quite different things. The second is to weigh condition against rarity: a common album in clean, complete shape is almost always a better buy than a scarce one that has been played hard, and a reissue you will actually enjoy beats an original you are afraid to handle.

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