Kraftwerk cassettes

COMPUTER WORLD (Greece, 1981) Capitol 14C 262 64370 Things have been a little slow here, again... So about time to present another Greek edition - this time, Computer World! By 1981, I suppose many territories would simplify their output a little - while the 70s albums often came several variants in each different country, Computer World was often only put out in one edition. Whether it was because production was streamlined a bit, or if they made bigger first editions, or even if this album sold less, I do not really know, but this one is a good case in point; I haven't seen any different labels, postal addresses or anything from Greece, just this one. I haven't seen this one around much, either, I think it's slightly obscure... There are two vinyl editions from Greece, the reissue lacks the publisher credit. The fact that this cassette _does_ have the credit, I take to indicate that it was indeed released in conjunction with the first LP edition, although of course it...

TRANS-EUROPA EXPRESS (Poland, 1991?) Mateos  91159 So, another Polish pirate cassette today, but it's not The Mix this time! Poland, as indicated on this blog before, is the one country that has produced the highest number of different Kraftwerk cassettes. Polish copyright law, or possibly lack of law enforcement, made it easy to make a limited run of cassettes without contacting the legal owners, and there are dozens of different labels that have put out one or more Kraftwerk cassettes. Sometimes, it's just a version of one of the albums, other times it's something more elaborate, including "greatest hits" type compilations. Most releases will have some special design feature setting them apart from their competitors.  Another feature I have began to regard as typically Polish, is that they will often have tampered with the tracklist in one way ot another, mostly to bring the playing time down to standard length. Rather than present the buyer with one casette sid...

ELECTRIC CAFE (USA, 1986) Warner Brothers 9 25525-4 (4-25525) It struck me today that we've had USA editions of Electric Cafe on a couple of occasions, but never the standard stock copy, so that's what I'm doing today! Previously, we've had a Club edition , and a "title sleeve" promo , and we've also seen a v/a promotional item with a brief excerpt from the album with a voice-over. As mentioned before, by 1986, the cover design was mostly standardised, you got more or less the same J-cards the world over, and the US one is not much different from many others (click on the "Electric Cafe" tag  below to see others!). Not that I blame them for re-using the original design, either - it was a fairly decent package with three panels plus another full-panel backflap, with the 3-d design from New York Institute of Technology (which was pretty stunning for a pop record of that time!) in three different images. The cassette is clear with white on-body pr...

AUTOBAHN (USA, 1975) Club Edition  Vertigo VCR4-2003 C 114346 A recent discovery today: an early Club edition of Autobahn, probably from 1975. Didn't know this even existed at all, until I saw it! Autobahn came in many editions in the US, being reissued on many different labels (or sub-labels) over the years, and I was of the impression that I had most of them. But I noticed this one online - looking exactly like the first edition except there's an additional catalog number in the top right corner of the front of the J-card. Closer inspection and comparisons revealed it to be a 1975 club edition. Or perhaps a 1976 club edition, but by 1977 Autobahn had moved labels to Mercury and this is on Vertigo, so I bet this one is earlier? Must be.   The  J-card is two-panel, printed on one side. Apart from the additional catalog number on the front, I can not tell this one apart from the shop version . (The second panel has the same advert, to get Kraftwerk fans to buy Bachmann ...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Italy, 1978?) Unofficial - no label, cat.no S.R. 3003 Now here's an oddity... Another unofficial copy of "The Man·Machine" from Italy.    I've posted one before, quite similar, and I know of others too - in fact, every now and then a new variant turns up. In this case, I had to take a closer look at a cassette I already own, but this one turns out to be just very similar. With the Italian "underground market" - ie. that of unofficial knock-off product - I fail to understand why they'd make so many different designs; wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just copy something one-to-one? Did the pirate industry cater for collectors like me, who wanted the same cassette in different covers? Surely not... So why then bother to have their own design for each run of bootleg? It's strange.  Whatever the reasoning behind it though, here is another green themed design, with both the top of the front and the spine bright green. The spine h...

V/A - Suck It And See (UK, 1973) Vertigo 7432 027 And now, a Various artists compilation, haven't had any of those in an age, and this one is interesting, not least in a chronological sense! As mentioned before, Kraftwerk were very tight with their output, and never contributed exclusive non-album tracks to film soundtracks, compilation albums or even their own singles. On this 1973 compilation, which came out on both vinyl and cassette (a double LP on single cassette, quite a good deal I expect!), listeners get the 1970 recording "Ruckzuck", one of the highlights of their debut LP - which came out in the UK in 1972 as a double LP with their sophomore effort. "Ruckzuck" is presented here in its full, near 8-minute glory, among prog rock, hard rock, some psych and folk - track list is in the last picture.  I believe this is the first various artists compilation cassette that Kraftwerk feature on, so it's kind of fitting that they use the opener track of the d...