The vinyl reacted to the material used to make the turntable mat. You can see the damage in the runout grooves of side 2 in the sample photo here.

I've had 2 copies go bad. I was thinking it was some kind of reaction to the ink in the printed inner sleeve. Just got a NM third copy and I'm keeping it in a separate sleeve outside the jacket.

I just checked my copy, which I believe was store dead stock. It was in a Japanese style resealable sleeve, so not 100% sure this was brand new, but anyway Side 1 is dead mint. Side 2 - the one facing the slip mat, totally hazed over. It does play, but with hissing. Seems as if the slip mat is the culprit. Anyone reading - If you have this record, store the slip mat separately.

3 of 3 copies we've seen suffer from the same erosion

i have had 2 copies go bad, but it happened when i cleaned it with record cleaning fluid. i have never seen a record do this, and there are many people leaving the same comment, so...let's hope they reissue it.

My vinyl seems to suffer from some strange kind of erosion. never seen something like this before but one side is totaly unplayable. Are there more people around with the same story?

Just checked mine. Ruined. I suspect it's to do with the slip mat. A similar "erosion" happened to a record that had a vinyl window decal stored in it. Dammitalltohell.

My copy was bought new, copied to tape, then stored for years. When I recently took the record out, Side 2 (stored closest to the slipmat) was slightly stuck to the inner sleeve. When I examined Side 2, it appears to have a coating of something on it. The first track has the same bumpy, raised surface throughout the first half of the song. The rest of Side 2 played through with some surface noise. Side 1, though, is perfect.

Just got this record from a friend's collection. One side's got a thin, whiteish layer that creates a bit of surface noise. Nothing overpowering, but you can definitely hear it in quieter passages. Annoying...

Yeah, I have two copies and both are not as they should be. The surface of record #1 is nice and glossy on one side, but side two is quite dull and has a lot of streaks running through it. It plays fine, though. The second record is not glossy, either, and the first track on one side looks like it was blistered by the sun. It has a bumpy, raised surface and in some places the grooves are virtually gone.