Kraftwerk cassettes

Computer World (France, 1988) EMI/ Fame 1643704 Still a few gaps to fill in: I've posted the French reissue of Computer World a while back, so here's the original. There are a lot of nice French releases, both in terms of design and sometimes even music - Computer World of course has one song in French. The J-card has a facsimile of the LP cover against a grey background, tres douce, and the album title in very small letters. Just the one panel, and inside we find some technical info on the backflap: information on the Dolby B system, and how to cope with cassette programmes of un-equal length; turns out you fast forward the tape when the music stops. This text is the same as on the reissue, fi donc! In fact, the only difference between the insides of my two French editions, is that the re-edition has a note of "re-edition", and the strange changed compounds... It's fairly typical of Kraftwerk, of course, that the album "Computer World" will have a t...

ELECTRIC CAFE (USA, 1986) Club edition Warner Brothers W4 25525 Today we're back to the USA for another favourite thing of mine - another club edition, this time it's Electric Cafe! When I began collecting Kraftwerk on cassette, I knew of exactly ONE US Club edition - the most common one of Computer World (which, I'm surprised to say, I have not posted here yet!). I've since discovered that most releases were made available in Columbia House and similar record and cassette clubs, and I've even found a different Club ed for Computerworld - this I have posted before . The editions themselves are often not that special, of course - sometimes, it's just a 1-panel J-card with the LP sleeve and track list on backflap, but for this and The Mix , the versions were nearly identical to the versions available in shops. 3-panel J-card, even the same bar code as other US editions. In fact, there's not much to set it apart from the standard cassette you could buy in shop...

THE MAN·MACHINE (The Netherlands, RE 1981) Capitol 1A 264-854444 Trying to cram some cassettes in between all the "life" that tends to get in the way, today it's one of the many Dutch re-editions of The Man·Machine! In the mid-80's, with EU regulations opening up the borders between at least some Western European nations, reissues would typically be "Made in Holland" for general distribution. I've shown before how Electric Cafe was manufactured there for German export. This, however, is earlier, a fact made evident for once by the year of manufacture stated on the label.   The Man·Machine underwent several reissues, and later ones will have the "FAME" logo, but that wasn't until 1982. The FAME ones have several variants, too; some have the standard cream-coloured background on the front of the J-card, some are white, and there are stuff like XDR logos, "Budget price" hype stickers and what have you. I like this one though, bec...

THE MIX (Spain, 1991) EMI 278 7966714 It's been a busy couple of weeks, not unusual for December I suppose, but today I'm here to present the Spanish edition of The Mix. Yes, Spain is another of the countries that were still making their own pressings, in spite of the EU regulations easing trade across borders... The Spanish edition is for the most part based on the same design as other "Western" editions; a multi-foldout J-card, printed on both sides, with a lot of pictures of the robots and a bit of credits. There are a couple of differences though, that makes the Spanish cassette release stand out: This one does not have the full-panel backflap, just a "normal" one-inch one, and the credits inside are somewhat rearranged ("musico data mix"?). More surprisingly though, the album title on the front is white, where every other edition has it in bright yellow. The cassette is cream-coloured with black on-body print.  

TRANS-EUROPA EXPRESS (Australia, 1977) Capitol TC-ST-11603 Back to Australia for this one, there still quite a few releases from that great country that I havne't presented here! The standard design of first-issue cassettes from Australia is pretty straight forward - either based on the UK cassette counterparts (like Autobahn), or a very simple version with the LP sleeve against a white background. The front of this, which I suppose to be the first Australian cassette edition, has the band name and title in larger letters underneath the picture. (I have seen later issues, a mid-80s reissue with the cat.no TC-MID-116109 - MID surely must refer to the price range? - and one with the cat. no beginning in TC-SW, with a pink background on the front.)   The J-card is 2-panel, and although it does have print on both sides, with the inside giving a list of "do's and dont's" on how to care for your cassette. It seems kinda cute these days, but otoh, if you followed thes...

AUTOBAHN (Germany, 1985) EMI 264 24 0070 4 Here's one I've wanted to post before, as it's both "key" and quite nice in itself - but I've postponed it in case I'd find a better copy! Here's the German 1985 edition of Autobahn, in a rather battered condition.   So anyway. I claim that the country of release is Germany, but as you see from the pictures, it has "Made in Holland" inside the spine. However, the credits are written in German, and even the copyright info and legalese is presented in both German and English. It could theoretically still have been sold in other EU countries, but pending further info, I'll list this as a German release. (I've previously presented an edition of Computerwelt , with "Made in E.E.C." on both J-card and cassette shell, which was clearly only made for the German market, and the "Deutsche Version" of Electric Cafe was probably manufactured in Holland as well) This German reissue h...