Kraftwerk cassettes

THE MAN·MACHINE (Sweden, 1978) EMI/ Capitol 7C 262 85444 Sweden is not much frequented on this blog - they barely put out cassettes themselves, surely prefering to import. In fact, The Man·Machine is the only Kraftwerk album that came out on cassette in Sweden. The release itself is fairly straightforward, coming in a 2-panel, 1-sided sturdy J-card. The LP cover takes up the upper section of the front panel, with the band name and album title repeated in black on white underneath, and a large Capitol logo and the catalogue number below. The track list on the second panel gives full writing credits for each tracks, and some more information, including both the track lengths for each track and a total for each side. (Note that the sides are only 8 seconds apart!)   Labels are blue, cassettes are grey. I have yet to see any variants of this, would be fun if there were different versions!

Computerwelt (Germany 1981) EMI Electrola 1C 264-46 311 Today's post is another recent purchase. The German editions of each album are high up on every collector's list, and although Computerwelt has been featured on this blog before , today's post may be a first edition; at least it's an early one. All the German albums from 1974-1991 came in several variants on cassette, as stated before. Cassette shells can be yellow, cream, black, or clear - possibly more colours exist, too. Today's post is a very slight variation on the previous " Computerwelt " post, I can only find a couple of details that differ:     -The backflap on this edition states "Made in Germany"; later editions were "Made in E.E.C.".     -The spine is white; later editions have a yellow background      -The J-card is printed on glossier paper than the E.E.C. version - the inside of that later edition is a little rough.  (Additionally, the "Made in Germany" v

ELECTRIC CAFE (Australia, 1986) EMI TCEMD1001 Back to Australia, and one I've been looking for without much luck, the Straya edition of Electric Cafe! On a personal note, I ordered a copy of this during the pandemic, but it has yet to materialise... A rare occasion of things getting lost in the mail for me. Hope it's not going to happen more often in the future! For me as a collector, with many different editions of each release, the ones that look a bit different are often the ones I find the most interesting - even when they don't look that fascinating per se. I've shown a few editions of this release from countries that didn't splash out on the full , 2-sided/ 4-panel J-card, some countries made a relatively "budget" release on cassette... Australia did an interesting variant, where they steered clear of the all-black custom design, but at least, the J-card was printed on both sides. And the inside is simply an image, the one which was on the inner cove

THE MIX (Poland, 1991?) Takt 1430 Here's another unofficial Polish edition, Actually the third Polish The Mix pirate cassette on this blog! What can I say, they continue to fascinate me, with their combination of attention to details, misunderstandings, and DIY design. As mentioned before, Polish editions of The Mix would routinely cut the original 65-minute album down a little to make it fit a standard cassette. Sometimes, they'd splash out on a c60, but here, you get only 50 minutes of The Mix, 8 of the 11 tracks. They've taken out Pocket Calculator/ Dentaku and Homecomputer, which means they keep songs from all the albums. What astounds me though, is that they have spread the 3-track Trans-Europe Express "suite" across the cassette! "Abzug" is the middle section on the official release, here it's put at the end of Side A, while the first part is track B1, and "Metal On Metal" is jammed in between Autobahn and Music Non Stop! I wonder how

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Spain, 1975) Capitol 10C 262-82087 Spain. That great country of Kraftwerk cassettes, where every album was released (ok, up to The Mix), most of them in several editions. Here's one of Radio-Activity - a 1970s version, the 1985 reissue was already posted here before. As always, I'm not certain, but I suppose this is an early reissue, and that there is an edition with paper labels. Variants exist with the cover printed on white or slightly darker grey card stock, either 2-panel or 1-panel, with more or less the same print (where the 2-panel has print on one side only). This copy has a 1-panel card, on the brighter variety of card, and the cassette is white with blue print.  There is one more discrepancy between this and other variants, and that is the copyright info and record company postal address. On this version, this info is only printed on the inside of the card, across the spine, while others have this info on the back flap. I'm sure I'll post oth

Computer World (Indonesia, 1982) Unofficial release Concert CC-1930 Breaking new ground here today, with a label I haven't featured before: Here's another Indonesian edition of Computer World. I say Indonesian, in spite of some strong indications of this being a Japanese cassette - both the cassette shell and outer case are injection molded with "JAPAN". Makes it look like the country of manufacture was Japan, but Discogs has the Concert label down as Indonesian, and although I know that Japan has a thriving unofficial record industry, I've never seen a Japanese pirate cassette, so I'll go with Indonesia until I'm told otherwise by someone in the know. It's an odd release, in some ways. It's clearly marked with "1982", famously the year after this album was released all across the world. The buzz words on the front are surprising - did they really know what a "digital recording" was in Indonesia in 1982?? (Computer World was not