THE MIX (Australia, 1991)
EMI 796671-4

The Mix, that 1991 collection of re-recordings of well-known songs that has served as one of the 8 albums in their "Der Katalog" concept, came long after the era of 'local design', and well into the era of multinational companies, so it's no surprise that most editions look like each other; and while I've tried to present some of those editions that deviate from the norm, we should not forget how this release was meant to look - so here's a - relatively speaking - "standard" issue!


The Australian edition is similar to the US, European and UK versions in most aspects - it's a clear cassette with a sheet of foil inside, it comes with a 4-panel J-card including a full-panel backflap, bearing the same design with only minor details keeping them apart (cat.no and such - in fact, looking closer now I see this edition has the photos cropped tighter than US and German versions, but they're all the same pics in the same places). However, one detail surprised me a little when I first saw it: The Australian cassette case does not have the "stops" on the back, those things that hold the cassette in place, which means the J-card backflap does not need the two holes that other editions have. It's not a big difference, admittedly - it allows a bit more space for the barcode, I suppose that's it really - but the insert looks nice without the holes, doesn't it?

 







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
RADIO-ACTIVITY (Portugal, 1976) Capitol 11C274 82 087 Every blog should have a certain amount of posts starting with "I haven't been posting in a while", for the benefit I suppose for readers who do not posess a calendar. It's summer, I was busy and I haven't received a lot of items recently to fascinate me. But sure, here's an item, a nice return to Portugal and to Radio-Activity!   I love these Portuguese items , they have their own style! At least during the "Capitol years", ie the albums Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express and The Man-Machine, each cassette came out in several slightly different editions. Each one presents the LP cover quite simply, except where Portugal gives us a coloured stripe across the upper front of the J-card. Bright, clear colours, and whenever one edition sold out, they changed the stripe. Hence I've seen red, yellow and blue editions of The Man-Machine, and at least a red and this blue one of Radio-Activity (if y...
Read more
Image
AUTOBAHN (Poland, 1996?) Unofficial Reggae, 90208 Although there has been a lot of Polish releases on this blog before, I can't remember even one Autobahn? Well, here's the first, then, and it's on the surprisingly titled "Reggae" label. Apparently based on the German 1985 edition , same front illustration at least. The cassette is clear, without any info, not even which side you're looking at. The cover is a simple 1-panel J-card, on fairly cheap-looking thin paper, and printed on one side only. In fact, the only actual connection to the official item is the "motorway sign" design on the front; they haven't even bothered to put the track list on the cover! It just says "Autobahn I-V", which surprises me, as if they had access to the illustration on the front, surely they had the tracklist too? Maybe they were sent a postcard of it. I stated above that this came out in 1996, I base this on a stamp inside the cover. However it's bar...
Read more
Image
The Model (Poland, 199?) Unofficial Euro Star ES 2213 Time for another Polish pirate cassette! This time, though, a compilation, one of the few that weren't "curated", so to speak, in Poland...  "The Model 1975-1978" was a compilation on the US Cleopatra label, released in 1992. It features tracks from Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express and The Man Machine, some of them in their original single edits, and Les Mannequins which had been issued as the b-side to its English-language counterpart Showroom Dummies on a promotional "disco" 12" single. There are several Polish editions of this, this one has all the tracks from the compilation - not in the same order, though, they have been jumbled around, I suppose it was an effort to make two programmes of equal lenght. Apart from starting the cassette with the title track, which is not unjustified for a best-of compilation with a title track, they somewhat surprisingly placed Trans-Europe Express on Si...
Read more