THE MAN·MACHINE (The Netherlands, 1978)
Capitol 5C 262-85444


Time for an early edition; I won't say "first edition" because I find it hard to tell! I think this came in 1978, and I do not know of any variants of this edition, so I guess it's at least "one of the first", but we're crossing the border between philately and philosophy here, so maybe just leave it.

The Netherlands saw many different versions of The Man·Machine on cassette, which I take as a sign it didn't really stop selling; year after year, they had to print up another run of cassettes to meet the market demand. I know of many different versions that appear to be from the early eighties; not unnatural that after Computer World came out, listeners would be interested in checking out what their previous album was like. Several later editions have the "XDR Quality System", a sound-improving process which was introduced in 1982, and you find this album released under many record labels; Capitol, EMI and the FAME reissue series. These had J-cards in white or cream colour, though, while the original edition (or editions?) had red background colour, with the LP front in miniature size (ie. not a cropped album photo, as per the German editions).

The catalogue number uses the "5C" prefix, which I think of as a sort of country code; the prefix changes from country to country for Kraftwerk's "Capitol years" - Germany is 1C, 2C is France (although, being French, they would also use 2A), Italy is 3, Belgium 4, and The Netherlands would use 5C. (Sweden 7, Spain 10, Portugal 11... Brazil 31...). For the Computer World editions, this had changed, and The Netherlands used the prefix 1A. By the time of Electric Cafe, of course, The Netherlands pressed up records for most of the European Community.

But I digress.

For this, the supposed first edition on cassette in The Netherlands, I would say Capitol and the local subsidiaries EMI-Bovema didn't waste money. The 1-panel J-card is printed on paper, not card, and I can suggest no other reason for using a blue shell for this very red release than that they had a lot of them lying about... the cassette case is also blue, though, so it could be a matter of esthetics, after all. It's by no means certain, but as we know, tastes differ... It's a fairly unusual item, though, so many collectors would be happy to add it to their collections regardless!






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