Kraftwerk cassettes

ELECTRIC CAFE (Spain, 1986) EMI 274 24 0644 4 So, the last post of 2022; here's the Spanish standard edition of Electric Cafe. This was the first version to come out on cassette in Spain, bearing the standard international version of the album, as issued in most countries - the one with the subtitle "English Version" in some countries. (-of course, this subtitle is wildly inaccurate, the lyrics coming in French, Spanish and English, but at least the title helps distinguishing between the "Deutsche Version" and this). Electric Cafe came in two different variants on cassette in Spain (in addition of course to the highly collectible Edicion Espagnola which I featured a while back). This one has yellow paper labels, and there's another with black on-body print on the cream-coloured cassette. I think they both came in the same J-card, though; a small 1-panel card printed on both sides. The spine and backflap are blue, as was known to happen with Spanish cassette

V/A - Banana Jack - 32 Frisch Geschälte Chartbreaker (Germany, 1991) EMI Electrola 1C 2 MC 286-797004 4 I'm broadening the scope of this blog today. So far I've featured nearly a hundred Kraftwerk-related cassettes, from the very rare to some that are still fairly easy to find, some beautifully designed ones and some strange or even hilarious - but this various artists compilation must be the least dignified item yet! 1991 was a tumultous time in the record industry. Record buyer loyalty was waning in the wake of the dance music revolution and its anonymous artists, and compilations seemed to be the answer - even more than before, the market was flooded with compilations of recent hits. Soon, record companies had to get creative to find a "concept" for their various artists compilations, in the hope that those who liked volume 1, would follow on to volume 2 in a few months. I feel the Banana Jack series took this principle to its logical conclusion. A sort of cartoon

  TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS (Spain, 1977) Capitol 10C 264-85.110 (SW-11603)   Time for a quick one: Another Spanish edition of TEE, and I think this is actually the first edition. Spain put out a lot of different variants for each release, with the insert printed on different types of card, die-cut backflaps or not, 1-panel or 2-panel J-card etc. My theory (and yes, I repeat myself ) is that all Spanish first editions, ie. for all releases on Capitol and EMI, would have yellow paper labels. As with the previous Spanish cassette I posted for this, the J-card is 1-panel, printed on one side. In fact, I can't see any difference to the insert except the card stock used; this edition looks more white, while the other one I posted is printed on a slightly greyish card. Apart from that, the labels here are yellow paper labels, and the print is slightly different, although made to fit the same mold -  a different typeface, some surprising punctuation, and the paper labels have better print,

AUTOBAHN (France, 1975) reissue Philips 7149 005 A personal favourite, the French edition of Autobahn, I'm surprised I haven't posted it here before - I've had the first edition for years, but only recently realised there was a later reissue, so today's post is a recent acquisition. The French edition of Autobahn originally came in 1975, and while the first edition is not very hard to find, it did go out of production at some point, to be replaced with this second edition. Both have the same front cover, a tight crop of the Emil Schult painting, with band name and album title in blue. Both editions have 2-panel J-cards, printed on both sides. Labels and cassettes are identical. I suppose the French price code system must have changed in the mid-70s sometime, the only significant difference between the two editions seems to be the price codes. The first edition is marked with price code Y on the spine, while this has "PG 400" printed on the back flap.  There ar

THE MAN·MACHINE/ RADIO-ACTIVITY (Saudi-Arabia, 1981?) Unofficial - 747, 7724 Another day another unofficial release... From Saudi-Arabia! The '747' label is a fairly prolific label, putting out lots of different releases of Western pop music of different kinds. They put out a fair bit of Kraftwerk, but the thing that makes it a little more interesting is, that instead of releasing the albums as they were, they have re-assembled the tracks. In the case of this one, it's a C-60 cassette with the 35 minutes that are The Man·Machine, followed by selected tracks from Radio-Activity! Four tracks are left off: Airwaves, Radio Stars, Uranium and Transistor. Transistor was released on another cassette in Saudi-Arabia though, it's a bonus track on the label's issue of Trans-Europe Express (I will feature that one some other time, it's also rather interesting!). The J-card is a hi-quality glossy 2-panel card. It is printed on both sides, but the inside is just a list of o

RALF & FLORIAN (Australia, 1975) Vertigo 7149 006 I have relatively few of the early albums on cassette, and should perhaps save them for a rainy day... But I felt like presenting this, so here we go: the Australian Ralf & Florian, a 1975 Vertigo release. This cassette actually came out in 1975, as a follow-up of Autobahn. I've already pointed out how the surprise chart success of Autobahn in the USA called for immediate re-marketing of their previous record, which was named after the members.  In fact, at this point in their history I suppose the steady line-up of Ralf & Florian must have been something of a watershed to themselves, as the band had been a very floating, free-form collective of musicians in the early days. A dozen people are documented to have been in and out of Kraftwerk in 1970-1971. For example, Ralf and a drummer (possibly Klaus Dinger) played in Aachen 19th Dec, and a week later, Florian did another gig with Charly Weiss and Eberhard Kranemann.