Kraftwerk cassettes

THE MAN·MACHINE (The Netherlands, RE 199?) EMI/ Capitol 1A 238 15 7597 4 Another follow-up of earlier posts, today it's a Netherlands/ Europe reissue of The Man·Machine! This one does not have the FAME logo anywhere; there's no XDR logo on the front, either, but they're printed on the cassette. Otherwise, it's fairly similar to this one which I featured earlier: It comes with a simple one panel J-card in thin glossy paper, printed on both sides. The J-card front still follows the standard FAME design palate, placing the LP design in the lower part of the front of the J-card, against a white background. The band name and album title above this, and further north, the Capitol logo, "Dolby System" and cat.no. The spine of the J-card has an EMI logo, no Capitol there, and the cassette has both (again like the FAME edition posted earlier). Although the XDR logo is on the cassette, the inside of the J-card does not replicate the info about the "XDR syste

THE MIX (Greece, 1991) EMI 14C-264 7966721/31 Official product again today! And it's the Greek release of The Mix. This Greek edition is a bit surprising, really: As we've seen here before, most countries had a full, 4-panel J-card, with pictures and graphics and credits and bells and whistles. This one, on the other hand, is a one-panel effort, with the track list printed in black on white on the inside. Not only that, but the cover is pretty badly reproduced; the white marks on the front, above the band name, are all printed, not flaws on my copy. I actually was worried that my copy might have a reproduced cover, but Discogs has a picture of a still sealed copy with these blemishes clearly visible! The cassette is grey, with on-body print in two colours. Oh, and the front of the cassette case has that strip of Greek info that I think was on all cassettes in this country (cfr this post for another example).

COMPUTER WORLD (Italy, 1981) EMI 3C 264 64370 Haven't had an Italian one in a while, so let me present this early Italian edition of Computer World! We've seen the reissue of course, in a previous post. That had a different take on the design, while here we see a more conventional approach - the whole front in yellow, with the grey terminal showing the four silhouettes of Kraftwerk, and the band name and album title above. Note that Italy went for hi-viz here, the album title is printed in larger letters than most other territories, similar in size to the German original. The cassette comes packed in a 2-panel J-card, printed on one side, and stamped on the spine as I think was the rule in Italy at the time. Speaking of spines, this one is blue, as on most Italian cassettes - whether it's an EMI standard, or an Italian standard or what, I can not say, but have a look round the blog for other Italian examples. The cassette is off-white with black on-body print. Very nice!

RADIOAKTIVITÄT (1975, Germany)  EMI Electrola/ Hör Zu 1C 244-82 087 Welcome back to my Kraftwerk cassette blog, and today I'm presenting a variant of the German edition of "Radio-Aktivität"! I'm saying "variant" because I've had one Radioaktivität before ; that cassette was black but this is blue. I know of several editions even of the blue cassette, with different coloured label print. This has blue labels, or rather, the print is "negative"; the on-body print is the light blue background. The J-card is nearly identical to my first post on this German cassette; a 2-panel J-card printed on both sides, but the tracklist is only printed on the inside, and the right panel, where you'd expect to see the tracklist, is blank. One funny detail on the J-card is that on this copy, the spine has the catalog number from top to bottom, ie the same direction as the band name, album title and "Kling Klang" (which I suppose is kind of their own

AUTOBAHN (1985, Canada) Elektra 92 53264 Back to the Canadian "Super Cassettes", and today it's Autobahn. Fascinatingly, this post will not exhaust the supply of Canadian Super Cassette releases of Autobahn! So. The "Super Cassette" or ("Super C Cassette"?) was an idea for better sound reproduction, which I've already dismissed elsewhere on the blog. OK, I'm sure it isn't as bad as it could have been, but by 1985 we already had the CD, so cassettes were cheap and convenient, but probably not the audiophile's format of choice. Anyway, this came in a 1-panel J-card with print on both sides, and a full-panel backflap (so, a 2-panel U-card, then?). The re-touched Emil Schult painting was used on the front here, as with most other places; in Canada, the cover is reproduced at the top of the front panel, in full, with band name and album title below. The slightly cropped backflap has the tracklist and a little bit of credits. The inside is w

Elektra Entertainment June 1991 New Releases (USA, Promotional sampler, 1991) Elektra (PR-8381) It's time for another compilation today, and it's a promo! This one has much in common with the November 1986 Guide from a previous post, a style of promotional item I find it interesting on many levels. This cassette runs more or less like a promotional radio show, with short snippets of tracks from 19 releases, plus voice-over. There are entries from Natalie Cole, Queen and Barry Adamson here, among others (jazz saxofonist David Sanborn, famous producer Desmond Child etc). The tracks are often mixed without pauses, so you go from a bit of Gipsy Kings to the familiar intro to The Robots... The voice over sounds kinda robotic, too, and the stuff he says is the kind of thing you'd expect from modern AI today:  "Kraftwerk returns with their new release, The Mix. The band has gone through its entire catalog, selecting songs that would best benefit from and demonstrate their ne