RADIO-ACTIVITY (Italy, 1976) 

Capitol 3C 264 82087

An early Italian edition here, possibly the first one... the blue edition of Radio-Activity. In Italy (and many other countries), the follow-up to Autobahn was not released before 1976, when it came out on LP and cassette. Possibly it didn't really take off internationally until the title track was used as theme tune for a music show on French radio, making it a hit there.
 
As usual in Italy, there exists a couple of different versions. This, as mentioned, is blue, and I've seen another edition with the same cat.no - and identical J-card - with a white or light grey cassette. A later edition, with cat.no's beginning in 54 appeared later, 1983 or so. With a slow but steady seller as this, I'm a little surprised that only two variants have popped up from the first seven years after it was released...

In addition to the blue cassette with white on-body print, the cassette was released with a blue shell. Since the spine and backflap of the J-card is blue, and I've seen many Italian cassettes in blue shells, I assume this was Capitol's standard background colour in Italy. The J-card is 2-panel, printed on one side on sturdy glossy card.
 
As customary, the spine of the J-card has a stamp with the letters S.I.A.E, indicating that the Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers) have received the royalties on behalf of the publishers, so at least theoretically, Kraftwerk were paid after this cassette first was sold. A reassuring fact, I'm sure! Joking aside, I do like the physical indication, they would not just print the SIAE logo on the cover, but stamp it on afterwards.

And apologies for the wonky pictures, but you're more or less used to that by now. Better luck next time!






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