EXCELLER 8 (France, 1976)
Vertigo, 7149 007


I haven't had a compilation cassette in a while, and when I mentioned Exceller 8 in a recent post, it dawned on me that I had never posted it here! So today I'm putting in a French edition of that seminal early works compilation.


What has been said before though, is that the chart impact of Autobahn, especially in the US, paved the way for a whole bunch of compilations of their earlier product (as well as reissues of the previous album Ralf & Florian, but let's leave that for later!). I've written about a few of these before, but the single most famous one is Exceller 8, having been released as an LP and/or cassette in many countries all over the world. Apparently first compiled for the UK market, it was also released in France, Portugal, Israel, Canada, New Zealand and Australia (most places on LP only). The French cassette seems to have been put out after the LP, it is dated 1976, so it's possible that they made yet another edition after Radioactivity was a hit in France.

The J-card is a lovely 2-panel, printed on both sides of the light card stock. Two slight variants exist, the only difference being that the spine is either yellow or white with black print. This one is the white one. Cassettes are grey with white labels, and the tracks have been jumbled compared to the track list of the LP; at a guess, it makes the sides more similar in length, saving the manufacturer a bit of tape, and the listener a bit of winding. (The UK cassette has the same, amended tracklist as this; the Canadian cassette and the 1979 France reissue follow the original LP.)







 


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