Kraftwerk cassettes

Computer World (1981, Argentina)  EMI 18954 Back to Argentina for this one, a somewhat battered copy of Computer World. I said in an earlier post ( here ) that there were all sorts of weird variants of the Argentinian releases, but on closer inspection, the supply seems to have dried up by the time of this release, as I've only ever come across this one Argentinian release for Computer World - for The Man Machine, there are two completely different J-cards designs, and for both that and its predecessor, Trans-Europe Express, there were a lot of different editions, with a multitude of catalogue numbers. Here, though - just the one. Well, as far as I know now. The front cover is lifted from the UK edition, with some local appendages - an extra EMI logo (in addition to the one on the spine), for some reason; the catalogue no. in large print; the word "CASSETTE". All surely correcting a fault of the UK original, even if it is unclear to me exactly which fault. I liked it bett...

  ELECTRIC CAFE (1986, New Zealand) EMI TC EMC 3517 One aspect of collecting is, it's fun when you can get some variants that look a little different. It's not necessarily to do with the aesthetics per se, you get another item for your collection no matter if it looks great or not - unless you collect strictly items that you think look good, of course, I suppose that's possible too. Anyway, collecting cassettes nearly 50 years after they were made is probably as much about the thrill of the chase as it is about listening to the music, and getting a rare item is fun whether this item looks great or not... I just thought of this, because I was so thrilled to get the New Zealand cassette of Electric Cafe. I don't think it's particularly handsome to look at, and it's not going to sound great compared to any other way of listening to it, but as an item it stands out in one respect - it has blue background colour. Most territories issued Electric Cafe in a fairly lavi...

  THE MIX (France/ EU, 1991) EMI - 1C 268 7 96671 4 I've discussed it before, but the European Union manages to both simplify matters and complicate them at the same time...  This cassette is made in France, clearly stated on the labels (or "on-body print", as the cassette is not actually labelled). However, this edition was sold in neighbouring countries at the time, most notably in Germany. This copy has a hype sticker on the front of the case, which is in French. I haven't seen any hype stickers on copies sold in Germany, and as it neatly covers the "English Version" print on the front of the J-card, I suppose that would be reason enough not to have any stickers on the German copies - since they also had a "Deutsche Version" for sale there, and needed to see the difference between the two. The design follows the blueprint of the Deutsche version; A 4-panel J-card, with full-length backflap, featuring two pictures of the robots in addition to the...

  AUTOBAHN (1974, Germany) Philips 7105 181 Today's post is one of the key releases, an item that should be in every collection: The German original edition of Autobahn. At least, I suppose it came out at the same time as the LP, and it's listed many places as a 1974 release. Again we see that Kraftwerk took cover design seriously and at home, did not just print a tiny muddled facsimile of the LP cover and left it at that; the cassette art work went a different route and used the "road sign" graphic, in a narrow black frame.   The German LP has the beautiful landscape painting by Emil Schult, while the UK edition (and others) had a different "road sign" image. The original design from the German cassette is slightly narrower, with less space between the road lanes, and has the band name and title above the graphic. To me, it is a tidier design than the UK cassette, where the wording is smaller, in a more "hippie" style font and placed in as part of...

  DIE MENSCH-MASCHINE (RE, orig. 1978, Germany) EMI 264 1 32843 4 Internationally, Kraftwerk's legacy is linked to their development of electronic music equipment; equipment which changed the way pop music is made, and of course, a fine legacy per se. But Kraftwerk's influence - in their home country, in other German-language territories and indeed in more far-away places - has at least two more factors of music-changing proportions: Firstly, they were consciously getting away from the blues-based chord progressions, typical in American and English pop music. Songs like Autobahn, The Robots and Tour De France stand out from other pop records of their time because they are electronic, but more because they are written over some exceptional chords. (OK so the "more" here is a matter of taste, bear with me). And secondly, Kraftwerk sang in German at home in Germany. At a time when artists with international aspirations would necessarily sing in English, Kraftwerk took co...

  RADIO-ACTIVITY (1976, France)  Capitol/ EMI/ Pathe Marconi 2 C 244-82087 This, if I'm not much mistaken, is the second edition from France, released pretty soon after the first edition and within the same year, 1976 - which was already long after the album came out in Germany. There are only minor differences, including the catalog number - this edition has the 2 C prefix followed by 244-82087, the other edition has number 2 C 242-82087. Not sure why there were two different cat.no's for this, but it matches the LP (which has either 2C 062-82087 or 2C 066-82087), and actually it matches the German release as well, which came as either 1C 062-82087 or 1C 064-82087!). The title track was a big hit in France, after being used as the theme tune to a music show on radio, so perhaps it is not so surprising that there were two editions of the album as well? On the other hand, if it follows the German numbering, it may have nothing to do with the single. The J-card is a simple 1-pan...