Kraftwerk cassettes

  KOMETENMELODIE 2 (1976, France)  Philips 7299 415 A fascinating detail when you collect Kraftwerk items from around the world, is how the collector community will deal with all the different languages. I remember seeing an LP advertised as "Autopista"; it was in fact the Argentinian pressing of "Autobahn", with the title translated on the front cover. An early live bootleg LP took it's title from the robot voice in The Robots, which says (in Russian) "Я Твой Слуга Я Твой Работник"; Western dealers quickly transcribed this to the latin alphabet as "...R TBON PAGOTHNK", which sounds more like something you'd need Alan Turing to decipher. And a French compilation LP was known for years to English-speaking fans as "A Tout Collection", although its name was stated on the cover and spine as "Kometenmelodie 2" - in the compilation series which is actually called "Collection A Tout". The compilation came out on LP

  ELEKTRIC MUSIC: ESPERANTO (1994, Sweden/ Scandinavia) Promo, no cat.no (EastWest/ no label?) A surprising oddity here: A "title sleeve" promo cassette of Esperanto.    Not much information to go by here, I had never even heard that this should exist before stumbling upon it in an online auction. It came, supposedly, from the collection of a record company executive in Norway... Well, I remember seeing promo CDs in the second hand shops there at the time, so I know Esperanto was promoted there, and Elektric Music were touring in Sweden and Denmark in 1994, so I guess it's possible that cassettes like this one were sent out to whip up some interest for an Oslo gig?   The item consists of a 1-panel inlay, on red paper, and a cassette labeled with glossy stickers on both sides. In fact, the same sticker on either side - it doesn't say which side is A or B! The J-card is printed on 80g/m2 paper, I think - standard copy paper, but red in colour. Whether the red paper was

  TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS (France, 1978) Capitol 2 S 266 - 82306 France is another good source of items for the Kraftwerk cassette collector. France was one of their biggest markets, famously their record label representative there had a very German sounding surname (Maxime Schmitt) and would work closely with them, even helping them adapt some of their lyrics to French. Kraftwerk's earliest documented concerts outside of Germany were in Paris, where they played several times in 1973. The first two albums eventually came on cassette here (in 1977), and of course the Trans-Europe Express goes from Paris to Düsseldorf in the title track on today's cassette.   Many Kraftwerk albums had multiple French editions, and TEE is no exception. After the original sold out, it seems to have been marketed again, as it was re-issued with a new catalogue number (well, prefix - the original is "2C" instead of "2 S", a different colour on the spine and back flap of the J-card, a

  THE MAN·MACHINE (Portugal, 1978) Capitol 11C 266 85 444/ 11C 274 85444 I just wanted to do a quick follow-up on yesterdays post, and write a little about the later Portuguese editions of The Man Machine. I posted yesterday about the first edition of this, which has a red stripe at the top of the front cover. Seeing as they sort of belong together and I even posted a picture of the two later editions in that post, I felt it fitting to add some more pictures of the next two ASAP. As mentioned, later editions came with a blue stripe, or a yellow stripe, on the front cover, and again, the one with a red stripe is the only one with paper labels, the other two have on-body print.   A detail I forgot to mention in yesterday's post, is that the catalogue numbers differ from release to release; as seen yesterday, the first edition has the "8E" prefix. The two others have substituted this for "11C", which is the same prefix I knew of from other Portuguese releases, b

  THE MAN·MACHINE (Portugal, 1978) Capitol 8E 266 85444 Today we're going back to Europe, and a recent addition to my collection - the Portuguese first edition of The Man Machine on cassette. Portugal has many collectible editions of Kraftwerk product, but mostly on vinyl - well, I suppose vinyl is more commonly collected anyway. Portugal has had some cool versions of singles and albums, and generally, quite collectable too - I expect for a country about the same population as Sweden the market for Kraftwerk releases was limited, so Portuguese pressings will be comparably rare, certainly less common than, say, Spanish editions.   Cassettes from Portugal are quite rare, again I suppose it's simply a matter of quantity. Discogs still has not had listings for every album on cassette, but The Man·Machine comes in as many as THREE different editions. A sign, perhaps, that the market was bigger than Capitol Records had anticipated? Or that the album kept selling, long after it droppe

  THE MIX (Uruguay, 1991) EMI - 501788-4 A trait I've found in many collectors, which surprises people who do not collect stuff, is that we're often fans of statistics and lists, as much as piles of records or very rare items. As I add items to this blog, I realise I put a lot of cassettes here for statistical reasons more than anything - I flick through my cassettes and think, hmm, when was the last time I had a "Man Machine", or how long has it been since I added a German issue, or - in my previous post - I realise I haven't had a cassette single yet and hurry to remedy that situation.   So when I noticed that I've only posted The Mix in pirate editions, it seemed pretty obvious that I'd have to feature an official cassette of that album soon. Here it is!   1991 was a big year for cassettes, and even if Kraftwerk were not at the height of their commercial success, The Mix exists in a lot of editions. At this point though, the band had taken more control

  TOUR DE FRANCE (1984, Australia/ New Zealand) EMI, TC-ED-90 So, after twenty cassettes on this blog, I've tried to show the variation of product underneath the umbrella "Kraftwerk cassettes"; I've presented official and unofficial cassettes, I've had first editions and reissues, I've had German releases and many other countries, all the core albums and various compilations - but I haven't had a cassette single yet?? How can I hope to achieve anything in the direction of an ultimate cassette blog without the singles?   So. Cassette singles were first released in the UK in 1980, and spread out worldwide quickly thereafter.  and already the following year, Kraftwerk's UK label issued 'Pocket Calculator' on cassette. The follow-up, 'Computer Love' b/w 'The Model', did not get the cassette treatment, even if it was released twice (the b-side received attention from DJs, so they switched sides, thus scoring Kraftwerk's only numb