Editing Meet the Residents (section)

==Release==
In February 1974, in order to promote the upcoming LP, the Residents pressed a six-minute edit of the album onto 4,000 single-sided 8" flexi discs, which were given away for free with Canadian art magazine ''[[FILE Megazine|FILE]]'', and San Francisco magazine ''Friday''. Due to the satirical nature of the cover, most readers interpreted it as a joke, which hindered already-low album sales: reportedly only 40 copies of 1050 were sold within the year,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Meet The Residents - Historical - The Residents |url=https://www.residents.com/historical/?page=meettheresidents |access-date=2021-11-21 |website=www.residents.com}}</ref> with most being returned to the publisher unopened.<ref>''Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses'' liner notes</ref> The album was released on April 1, 1974, six months after recording was completed.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> It was released by [[Ralph Records]],<ref>Meet the Residents ([[Ralph Records]], RR0274, 1974)</ref> a label formed two years earlier to release the ''[[Santa Dog EP|Santa Dog]]'' EP, which featured anonymous contributions from some of the Residents.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Santa Dog - Historical - The Residents|url=https://www.residents.com/historical/?page=santadog|access-date=2021-11-21|website=www.residents.com}}</ref>

Homer Flynn, the group's spokesperson, later recalled that the group's first three albums were hard to find in the 1970s, and that the Residents' homes were filled with boxes of unsold records.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Kopp|first=Bill|date=2021-09-16|title=The Residents Return, Weird as Ever|url=https://www.sfweekly.com/music/the-residents-return-weird-as-ever/|access-date=2021-11-21|website=SF Weekly|language=en-US}}</ref> By 1977, Ralph had sold out of all 850 original pressings of the album, and so, the Cryptic Corporation ([[Hardy Fox]], Homer Flynn, Jay Clem & John Kennedy), who had obtained ownership of the Residents' master recordings the year prior, released an abridged stereo version of the album created at Grove Street Studios, where they and the Residents had relocated to.<ref name="ReferenceA" />