AUTOBAHN (1985, UK)
EMI/ Parlophone TC-AUTO 1 (EJ 24 0070 4)


Sentimental reasons for putting this one up: It's one of my earliest Kraftwerk cassettes, and was misplaced for a number of years, but has finally turned up again.

Autobahn was of course Kraftwerk's international breakthrough, the single was a hit in the US in March 1975 (reaching #25 on the Bilboards Hot 100 list) and in the UK a few weeks later, launching them to an international career and generally making them what they still are today.

In early 1982, their 1978 song The Model was a surprise hit in the UK, reaching #1 there after it was issued as the b-side to Computer Love. It was to take a year before they had another single out, in 1983, and the record label were expecting their new album "Techno Pop" for months. When this didn't materialise, they reissued Tour De France in 1984, but still no new album. So in order (I suppose!) to keep the record buying public interested, the album Autobahn was reissued in 1985.

It was promoted as a new mix, and for UK buyers, there was the benefit of a new cover design, featuring Emil Schult's landscape painting from the German original LP (whereas the original UK LP had the famous road sign,). Autobahn did reach the lower regions of the UK charts in 1985, and perhaps it sold better than expected, as there are a lot of different variants of the UK cassette edition. 

This version comes in a clear shell, which I suppose was a later feature? To me, at least, the light grey or off-white cassettes look earlier. Furthermore, the cassette cover has an "XDR" logo on the spine, short for "Expanded Dynamic Range", a popular feature for cassettes at the time - I don't know anything about the process but it appears to mean "better sound" than other cassettes. Oh sure.








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