Kraftwerk cassettes

Computer World (Indonesia, 1981) Yess 363 Some music is relatable across the continents. Kraftwerk appears to be seen as quintessentially German by many people, and so it's fascinating to see how far their music would travel - case in point, they were listened to in Indonesia. And here's the Indonesian cassette of Computer World. YESS is an Indonesian label, apparently not connected with the Western European or international labels that would elsewhere release Kraftwerk... So is this a "pirate" cassette, or "bootleg"? Well, yes, purely speaking it is. However, according to some sources (quoted in Discogs), the cassettes released on YESS were apparently seen as "official" in Indonesia, the company paid their taxes at home (if not necessarily setting aside funds for royalties to Europe!) and, well, Europe was very far away... That doesn't make it legit, obviously, but in Indonesia, they probably regarded this as official - if they even thought ab...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Canada, 1986?) Capitol, 4N-16380 Another Canadian issue, another sound improvement scheme; this time, the Dolby HX Pro... The system works, in short; it's a system to ensure less distortion, even at high input - which again means you can record the cassettes at a louder volume, thereby making the music rise out of the hiss and bob's yer uncle. A good idea around the advent of the CD, I suppose? For me though, a better selling point of the Canadian cassette reissue is the cover design; the album cover is presented against a grey background, with the band name and album title repeated in blue. It's both a quite stylish effect, and a welcome change from other international editions, where - if they didn't amend the LP cover to make it fit the cassette front, the background would simply be white, or at a push, black. (It's a bit sad that no other country based their cover design on the German cassette !) So. Being a mid-80s reissue from Canada, it's ...

TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS (Spain, 1977) Capitol 10C 264-85.110 (SW-11603)   Another post, another not-quite-first edition... and another case of me being not-quite-sure when it came I suppose! Anyway. Spain is one of the countries that put out a lot of different variants for each release, and there are various J-cards, using multiple types of card even, and several colours of print on the white or blue cassettes. My theory is that all Spanish first editions, ie. for all releases on Capitol and EMI, would have yellow paper labels. The cassette I present today, as seen in my jpg's, has on-body print. In theory, the cassette would have remained in print up to 1985, when a reissue was released on the FAMA imprint. so this variant could be from any time in the late 70's or early 80's. The cover is based on the German original, with the Maurice Seymour portrait on the front, and the tracklist has a quaint printer's error, listing the title track as Tarns-Europe Express inside th...

  THE ROBOTS (USA, 1991) Warner Bros. 9 4-64869 Time for another single, methinks! Also a nominee for the "least collectible item" category, finally something dealers will throw at you if you say you collect Kraftwerk cassettes... Too good an item to leave in the bargain bin! Cassette singles had done well for many artists as the 80s turned into the 90s, and so it was decided to try the new Kraftwerk single on the format. I have no better indication on the success of this item than the fact that my copy is a "cut-off"; there is a saw mark on the spine to show that it is to be sold at a reduced price. This is normally done to items, logically, that did not sell at full price. In other words, sales must have fallen short of expectations. Radioactivity, the follow-up, was not issued on cassette in the US, and in fact this is the only US cassette single as far as I know. Where the UK cassette single reproduced the tracks from the 7" single, with the Single Edit of ...

  ELECTRIC CAFE (Canada, 1986) Warner Bros. 92 55254 Canada took the long route with this release, and presented it in a 3-panel J-card with print on both sides, including both images from the inner cover of the LP. The backflap is about an inch, where many other releases had a full panel. Canadian cassettes often come with stiff, thick J-cards, and this is a case in point; where the EU, UK and US releases all use a thin, glossy stock, Canada went for a more traditional cardboard - glossed on the outside, and slightly rough on the inside. The cassette is black, with grey (or silver!) on-body print. These details all point in the same direction: If you compare it to the clear-shelled cassettes from other places, the Canadian cassette looks sturdy and a little old-fashioned. An insteresting detail is the big "C" logo on the spine of the J-card: This cassette, we are informed, is a "Super cassette" - details of this are found inside the backflap, in both English and Fr...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Argentina, 1978) Capitol 118030 One of my favourite places as far as Kraftwerk cassettes go, I've posted cassettes from Argentina before , but strangely not "La Maquina Humana", which came in so many variants in Argentina!  As I have said before, often there are variants of the catalogue numbers to Argentinian cassettes - in this case, the number 118030 is followed by a similar edition with 18030, and another version with different sleeve (which I hope to post about later!) has the cat.no 16128. Vinyl editions carry the cat. no 108030 and 8030; according to Discogs, the latter is a reissue. If true, this tells me that they were not released in numerical order - one might assume the 18030 came before 118030, but it could be the other way around as per the LPs. A further indication of this is that the 118030 edition comes with paper labels, whereas 18030 versions all have on-body print... Still, I'm only making assumptions here. It gets worse: On the la...