AUTOBAHN (1977, Canada)
Mercury MCR4-1-1154


Dear old Autobahn. Issued at a time when Kraftwerk was not yet an international success, and when bands could see their albums from a year or three back, issued on new formats in new territories.

Autobahn was originally released on Philips in Canada, on LP and 8-track cartridge. It must have sold more than the label had expected, as there are several variants of the original 1974 LP edition, and it was reissued on Mercury a couple of years later. Mercury must have felt that the time was right to try a cassette version as well, but it was not a particularly flashy affair: it came in a 1-panel J-card with print on just one side, and the tracklist was not put on the cassette labels. For some reason, the LP facsimile on the front has been slightly cropped on the bottom and right sides, to the point that the Mercury logo from the original LP cover is cut off after the "M"! 

Even so, I must say I find the item pretty stylish, nice clean design, and "quality parts"; good sturdy cardboard for the J-card, proper paper labels instead of on-body print on the cassette. 








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