Kraftwerk cassettes

Computer World (New Zealand, 1981)  EMI TC-EMC 3370, OC 262-64 370 I said in my previous post that the UK cassette releases appear to have been a sort of "blueprint" for the releases in some other countries, so with that in mind, it feels logical to do a follow-up with this New Zealand release - which seems to be more or less a copy of the UK version. This editon has the exact same catalogue numbers as the UK release, and they appear in the same place as on the UK J-card, too. The whole J-card is lifted from the UK version - the band name is repeated in the very trendy "dot matrix" typeface on the  upper right panel with the track listing, the back flap has the track list again in this typeface (and oriented the same direction as the rest of the J-card). The colour is a much darker yellow, and on the right panel, the tracklist has been moved upwards to make room for some slight NZ credits - they didn't even take out the UK's "Credits overleaf", wh...

Computer World (UK, 1981)  EMI TC-EMC 3370, OC 262-64 370 With the UK one of the big referential countries in terms of collecting, you'd think I would feature more UK cassettes... The UK is one of the places where Kraftwerk's commercial success is measured: They were a German band who had a big hit with Autobahn in the USA in 1975, and in the UK, The Model went to Number One in 1982. I know they did well in France, but I've never heard mention of their chart positions there. Possibly they had big hits in other markets too, but these two hits are cornerstones for their international carreer. But I digress! All of this was just to say that the UK was an important market, and the multitude of releases from the UK should be scrutinised by every collector. For cassette fans, there are many releases (all the albums 1974-1991 came on cassette in the UK), some interesting variants, a couple of UK-only compilations of early material, even a range of cassette singles. Furthermore, th...

 TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS (France, 1977) Capitol 2 C 266 - 82306 Back to one of the best countries to collect Kraftwerk from - France. I've posted a later edition of this before, but here's the original 1977 edition! There's a lot of different editions for many of the albums from France, and some fascinating content as well: Showroom Dummies was translated to French, entitled Les Mannequins, and this version was prominently featured in France, on all editions on LP and cassette. (There are also mid-80s, "Fame" reissues of TEE, with different sleeve design. I'm sure I'll post those on this blog at some point.) If we compare the two early editions of TEE from France, the cat.no is very slightly different, the prefix 2 C was substituted for 2 S on the second edition. On this edition, there's no Capitol logo on the front, and there are other minor differences that set them apart; notably the spine and backflap of the J-card are blue on the first edition, while...

ELECTRIC CAFE (1986, India) EMI (STCS EMD 1001) A recent acquisition, a rare item and a bit of an anomaly - India has of course a large and varied selection of obscure cassettes, and unless you're in India, I suppose most will be hard to come by. Many of the Kraftwerk cassettes from India had slight variations in design, and Electric Cafe is no exception - for this, a simple repro of the European sleeve would have looked nice enough, but they opted for the LP cover, and amended it their own way... The album image is placed slightly lower than the middle of the front of the J-card, with black background above and below. The band name and album title are repeated in white near the top, together with logos for Dolby and EMI, while the lower section has a bold claim: "Beware! Pirated cassettes damage your equipment. Buy only genuine EMI cassettes". I have no information in support of this, although I must confess to know less than I would like to about Indian pirate cassettes...

AUTOBAHN (1974, Australia) Philips 7149 005 If I'm perfectly honest, today is kind of a cleaning out of my picture catalogue - I've had these images on my computer for a year, and decided to post them so I can dig out some more cassettes and take pictures. I hope the item itself is interesting even through the blur of the jpg's! Australia is an interesting market, with a lot of product and some fascinating anomalies. Today's cassette is one out of two known variants of Autobahn, both from 1975 (not sure if the 1985 reissue was even published in Oz?); only a bit of copyright info sets them apart. This cassette has the legend "Distributed by Phonogram Pty. Limited" printed on both labels (lower left corner on the pictures). This is substituted on the other edition for a slightly amended bit of text: "Manufactured & Distributed in Australia under license". The version with this text on the labels also has the same message on the cover, again the onl...

  ROBOTS (1986, USA) Capitol, S41 56714 I've posted this compilation cassette before , but this is a variant! As said in that other post, two editions exist - both from the USA, both from 1986, sounds and look very similar; the only difference is the cat. no and the bar code. So to recap, this compilation came around the time of Electric Cafe. That new album came out in November 1986, in most countries, so I suppose the "Robots" compilation could have come out earlier the same year, sort of building up to their long-awaited new album - but it's also very possible it was released just before Christmas, like a "starter kit" for Kraftwerk's mid-70s output... I think it'd make the most sense to release this in advance of Electric Cafe, but I don't know.  Moving on, the track selection is worthy of a mention. Radio edits were used in some cases, so if you want to hear the last five minutes of Neon Lights you're in for a bitter disappointment; in a...

    THE MAN·MACHINE (Canada RE, 1982) Capitol 4XW-11728 The Man·Machine hasn't featured in a while, so here's a Canadian reissue, which claims to have improved sound quality to the original. It's actually a fascinating story (which I found on Wikipedia , look it up!): Capitol Records in Los Angeles, USA, had worked on improving the duplication process for cassettes, and had come up with the XDR, "Expanded Dynamic Range" system. The Canadian branch Capitol, hearing about this, started doing their own research, I assume based on what they knew from the LA branch, and came up with a simpler system, which they called "Super Dynamic Range", or SDR. And because Capitol was Capitol, in both countries, I suppose they couldn't sue themselves over sneaking their own idea?  The idea was sold pretty heavily on the front cover, with "Super Dynamic Range" in big letters across the bottom of the front cover against a yellow stripe. Still, to the average l...