Urban Outfitters is generally a safe haven for hipsters and millennials – they’ve gone beyond just selling clothes in recent years, offering new music and even electronics, as well as plenty of branded items. In fact, in 2015, they were an exclusive partner with Halsey to release her debut album Badlands… but that didn’t turn out as planned.
In 2015, Urban Outfitters shipped out copies of her album two weeks early; as if that wasn’t enough, the store then sold physical copies of the album three days before its official release. Halsey was mad but apparently not mad enough as she partnered with the store again for the release of her new album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom.
Surprise… they did it again, two days before the official release. 
Halsey fans have been tweeting at the artist complaining that album vinyls are currently available at the retail store, and they are pissed. Normally, fans would be happy about getting music early, but this is the second time that Halsey has been fucked over by UO and her fans are standing with her in solidarity. Her label, Astralwerks, obviously isn’t that happy about the situation either.
hey ~ can u DM us?
— Astralwerks Records (@Astralwerks) May 30, 2017
Urban Outfitters issued a statement apologizing for the mistake. According to the store, the album was only stocked at one location in Chicago but pulled before any units were sold. Read the full statement:
Halsey’s latest album was inadvertently put on the sales floor in a UO store in Chicago. We communicated with the store team and immediately pulled the albums and confirmed this was isolated to that store only. The SKU for the album was not activated in our system so no units were sold; this precaution ensures that no albums are purchased before official release dates. We apologize to Halsey and her label. We took multiple steps to ensure this wouldn’t happen and are now conducting an internal review to determine how such a mistake could have occurred.
