THE MIX (USA, 1991?) Club Edition
Elektra 9 60869-4/ C 102677


I wanted to celebrate a round number with style: Today is my 150th post on this blog, and it would have been fun to have something spectacular to show for it. Instead, I present an anomaly that is perhaps more typical of this blog: it's another obscure US edition of The Mix, a Club edition which I just chanced across recently and which was not listed in Discogs before I added it a few days ago.


The Club Editions were as discussed previously, specially made for music clubs, subscription services from which people would get their music through mail order. In the 70s and 80s, there were a few such Club editions issued with more simplistic J-cards, but in the case at hand today, the Club membership were treated to a full 4-panel J-card, printed on both sides like on the standard edition sold in shops. The most significant difference that I can see (and feel free to check for yourself!) is that there is no bar code on this edition, and that it has a second catalogue number.


Turning to the cassette itself, it's light grey with black print, where almost all other editions had a clear shell - I've posted The Mix cassettes from Brazil and Uruguay before which had white or light grey shells, but US, UK, EU, Australia, even the Turkish edition was a clear shell cassette. My impression is that this was the norm as the 80s turned to the 90s; if so, then today's edition could simply be a case of leftovers - ie. that the BMG Music Club had some grey shells to spare and used them for this edition. I doubt that any aesthetical considerations would go in to the creation of a Club edition.

 






 

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