Kraftwerk cassettes

ELEKTRO KINETIK (UK, 1981) Vertigo 7143 066 From Polish pirate compilation to something at least reasonably official, although I'm willing to bet it was released against the wishes of the artists in question! I rather like this one, though. As stated before, a lot of compilations of Kraftwerk's early works were put out after Autobahn was a hit, and for years ahead. I expect this was put out to capitalise on - well, take your pick: It was released in 1981, before The Model reached #1 in the UK charts, but Pocket Calculator was a modest hit, Computer Love did ok that summer (in fact, both went to #39, just inside the Top Forty) and the Computer World album started it's long chart run at #15, and add to this their upcoming UK tour, I suppose that's enough general interest in the band that Vertigo thought a compilation of back catalogue would be worth a try... again . The J-card is pretty nice, all things considered: A simple design, with the band name at the top, the album...

HITS (Poland, 198?) Unofficial HiTs H135 I have not forgotten the Polish pirate cassettes! Feels like it was a while ago since I featured one here, but there are plenty of them, and as I've said before, they're often interesting, even if "interesting" means "ridiculous" at times...  I was tempted to list this as "Kraftwerk", or even "Untitled", as "HiTs" is apparently the name of the label. However, that's what it says on the front, so I'll go with that - I suppose the confusion is a selling point? I mean, you look at the front, it says "Kraftwerk" and "Hits", you will assume it's a best-of compilation, right? Anyway, this is a compilation of tracks from different sources, and opens with the most known song from the 80s - "The Model", which was their biggest song in the charts in the UK, and which always received a rapturous response from live audiences on the 1981 tour.  The front cover...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (USA, 1975) Capitol 4XT-11457 There have been a couple US editions of Radio-Activity on the blog previously, but not the original, so - here it is! The first US cassette edition came in 1975, and while that seems to have been before many other countries, the release was not a very flash or lavish production - in keeping with the black and white front cover, the J-card is kept to a minimum - just one panel, no colours, and printed on one side only. Apart from the track list, this edition provides no additional information - if you wanted to know who wrote, performed or produced it, you would have had to get that info elsewhere. As for the track list, again one tries to save where one can, and in order to make each programme of similar length, they've moved a couple tracks from the end of Side A to the beginning of Side B - so you have four tracks on Side A and a whopping 8 tracks on Side B! Well, at least you get the full album, not a given with cassettes of Radio-...

Computer World (Portugal, 1981) EMI 11C276-64370 So, without further ado, here's the Portuguese edition of Computer World. It's one I think is rather rare - I mean, Portugal is not a large country, and I haven't seen this for sale much in recent times. On the other hand, there's only the details to set it apart - in the 70s, many countries would put their own spin on the cover design, but by this point, they're mostly very similar.  The J-card is based on the UK edition , though it's printed in a warmer shade of yellow, and there's a bit of copyright info on the front of the J-card. It's still mostly the same; a 2-panel J-card, printed on both sides, with the credits on the inside - along with the detailed instructions on what to do if your cassette has sides of different lengths. They've even reproduced the UK EMI address, although they did take out the "Manufactured in the UK" bit. The cassette is light grey with paper labels, white with...

TOUR DE FRANCE (UK, 1983) EMI, TC-EMI-5413 Soon exhausting my vaults of cassette singles, here's one I've kind of saved for later... Today's blog entry is the UK cassette single for 'Tour De France', which came in 1983. The song did of course get released twice, in 1983 and then again in 1984 featuring some new remixes. The UK put out the 1983 version on cassette, then the following year, the 1984 remix also came out on cassette, but only in Australia and New Zealand . The UK cassette has three versions of the track, the same as on the original 12" - the "Long version", the single mix and the "2eme Etape" - the second instrumental version which is only the cycling noises, the heavy breathing and the percussion. This comes packed in a 1-panel J-card, with the front cover presenting the band as a trio! To make a rectangular front cover from the square illustration, they've simply cut the fourth biker out - Florian Schneider, if my eyesight...

AUTOBAHN (Greece, 1985) EMI/ Parlophone  262 240070 4 A rare, Greek edition of Autobahn from 1985 today, whee! Like the Italian edition I did a piece on before, this too is based on the UK 1985 version . It comes in a similar 2-panel J-card, fairly heavy, glossy card stock, printed on one side only. A few differences: The UK ed had a barcode, this doesn't, and it would seem like XDR was just too much to ask for in Greece at the time, as the XDR logo on the spine of the UK edition was replaced with an EMI logo.  And as per several other editions - the Spanish one springs to mind - the only band member receiving a detailed credit is Klaus Roeder. ( The UK edition lists Hütter, Schneider, Flür and Schult under the Side A tracklist, then Klaus is placed underneath Side B, as he performs on Mitternacht only). The cassette is grey, with blue on-body print. I'm slightly disappointed that there are no Greek letters at all anywhere on this release, but apart from that, I'm happy...