AUTOBAHN (UK, 1974)
Philips 7149 005


We haven't had an Autobahn in a while, so here's one of the "key editions", so to speak... An original UK 1974 cassette. The UK was the first export market to feature Autobahn on cassette; only Germany and the UK got cassettes of Autobahn in 1974.


There were a couple variants of Autobahn in the UK; Some copies add a production credit to the labels. On this copy, though, you're left to browse the J-card for such information - leaving the labels more open and elegant, I think.


The J-card is as small as they come, just the one panel, and printed on both sides. The sparse credits go to Hütter and Schneider only - the beginning of a whole series of disputable credits on Kraftwerk's releases: Emil Schult is of course normally credited for co-writing the lyrics to Autobahn, but he does not get a mention here.
 

In many countries, the J-card would use Schult's landscape painting on the front, but in Germany and the UK, they used variants of the motorway road sign. The UK road sign is quite different to the German original, uncredited but possibly developed by famed in-house designer Barney Bubbles at Vertigo. There was also a later mid-80s reissue from Europe that used an amended version of the German road sign... Anyway, this version is unique to the UK 1974 editions, so there's that!







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