Kraftwerk cassettes

TRANS EUROPA EXPRESS (Germany, 1977) EMI ELECTROLA 1C 264-82 306 German cassette today, it's Trans Europa Express! You may recall the mid-80s reissue posted here earlier, this is - I think it's the first; at least a 70s edition.  The 1977 edition had a 2-panel J-card, to make room for a panel of other releases on EMI. I suppose Kraftwerk were a little difficult to market at the time, before electronic music was a thing? So here, EMI Records hope that if you like this album, then you're probably into schlager... Of the six releases, five are compilations of hits (well, one live album), and titles like "Abendland", "Super Oldies", "Alle Meine Jahreseiten" exclude us from the "Hits for Kids" section. Rock'n'roll this is not! Maybe the marketing genius in charge took a look at the front cover, and decided that four white men in suits would probably make music for the elderly... The front has the EMI Electrola logo on the top and...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Portugal, 19?) Unofficial - Black, 058 A quick one today: YET another unofficial copy of "The Man·Machine", this time from Portugal!  I don't really have a lot of information about this one, but "Black" is a Portuguese cassette pirate label, that ran from at least 1978-1981, maybe before, maybe after. They jumbled up the track list, omitting "Metropolis", and dividing the rest into two 15-minute programmes.    The cover has blue background, a strangely cropped picture of the LP cover (including "AFTWERK" in the top left corner!). The cassette is black, with white paper labels.  

  RALF & FLORIAN (Spain, 1979) Philips 71 05 147 Another Spanish cassette already? Sure. We've had some early works compilations, but it's a while since I had an actual, full early album on the blog... So today, I bring you a Spanish issue of Ralf & Florian, from 1979! I think it's the last time this album was reissued on cassette officially... Surprisingly, this edition is more "German" than the German edition - design is quite similar to the German LP. The German cassette, elsewhere on the blog, used a different typeface on the front, and yet another on the spine, whereas Spain went for the gothic lettering on the front, and the cassette standard on the spine. Strangely, they use the German "Seite 1" and "Seite 2", rather than Spanish indicators like "Cara" or "Pista" which I've seen on others, or even the English "Side", as per some other early one s. Possibly they copied the information from a G...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Spain, 1978) Capitol 10C 246 85444 A Spanish cassette edition of The Man·Machine today, sometimes I get new items in, and immediately write about them, but here's one I've had for years... It's a nice item, too, like so many Spanish cassettes! Famously, Spanish pressings of most if not all Kraftwerk releases from the 1970's had the titles translated to Spanish. In this case, the international artwork is pictured on the front, with it's English title as usual, but printed above it is the legend "El Hombre Maquina". For some reason, this sparked a lengthy musing on my part about whether "Hombre" translates as "Human being" in the same way as "Man" does in English; after all, the German title uses "Mensch", not "Mann", and, well - but realising we need not go into this, I'll just crack on. The Spanish market is ripe with variants and interesting items, and - well, at least until recently,...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Italy, 198?) Capitol 54 1820874 As I delve deeper into my cassette collection, there are a few variants - items that are quite similar to ones I've posted here before, but not identical. Today it's another version of an Italian reissue, with a couple of notable differences to a previous post .   The reissue - ie the one with the "54" cat.no, which replaced the earlier edition with the cat.no starting with 3C - came in a couple of variants. This one has a clear cassette shell with black on-body print. The J-card is 1-panel, printed on one side, although replicating the print from the 2-panel version I posted before . And although it's simply guesswork on my part, I do think this edition came after the white one. So there you have it, kind of an interim post today, but I hope you like it!       

KOMETENMELODIE 2 (France, 1976)  Philips 7299 415 Another one in my "variants" series today, here's another copy of the "Kometenmelodie 2" compilation from the "Collection A Tout" series! As we have seen before, many cassettes would be released in different editions - it's kind of the point of this blog, really! I've posted reissues and original issues, I've touched on " Printed in Germany " and " Printed in EEC ", I've had three different Portuguese editions of The Man Machine... But sometimes, the differences are so small that it's taken years to even notice them! In this case, the printer's credit is moved. Today's cassette has the "Imp. C.I.D.I.S. Louviers" on the inside of the back flap, while on the one I posted here before - 4 years back, in fact - has the credit on the outer flap. Cassette shells, labels and the rest of the design of the J-card are exactly the same. Wait, no, there...

AUTOBAHN (USA, 1975) Club Edition  Vertigo VCR4-2003 C 114346 A recent discovery today: an early Club edition of Autobahn, probably from 1975. Didn't know this even existed at all, until I saw it! Autobahn came in many editions in the US, being reissued on many different labels (or sub-labels) over the years, and I was of the impression that I had most of them. But I noticed this one online - looking exactly like the first edition except there's an additional catalog number in the top right corner of the front of the J-card. Closer inspection and comparisons revealed it to be a 1975 club edition. Or perhaps a 1976 club edition, but by 1977 Autobahn had moved labels to Mercury and this is on Vertigo, so I bet this one is earlier? Must be.   The  J-card is two-panel, printed on one side. Apart from the additional catalog number on the front, I can not tell this one apart from the shop version . (The second panel has the same advert, to get Kraftwerk fans to buy Bachmann ...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Italy, 1978?) Unofficial - no label, cat.no S.R. 3003 Now here's an oddity... Another unofficial copy of "The Man·Machine" from Italy.    I've posted one before, quite similar, and I know of others too - in fact, every now and then a new variant turns up. In this case, I had to take a closer look at a cassette I already own, but this one turns out to be just very similar. With the Italian "underground market" - ie. that of unofficial knock-off product - I fail to understand why they'd make so many different designs; wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just copy something one-to-one? Did the pirate industry cater for collectors like me, who wanted the same cassette in different covers? Surely not... So why then bother to have their own design for each run of bootleg? It's strange.  Whatever the reasoning behind it though, here is another green themed design, with both the top of the front and the spine bright green. The spine h...

V/A - Suck It And See (UK, 1973) Vertigo 7432 027 And now, a Various artists compilation, haven't had any of those in an age, and this one is interesting, not least in a chronological sense! As mentioned before, Kraftwerk were very tight with their output, and never contributed exclusive non-album tracks to film soundtracks, compilation albums or even their own singles. On this 1973 compilation, which came out on both vinyl and cassette (a double LP on single cassette, quite a good deal I expect!), listeners get the 1970 recording "Ruckzuck", one of the highlights of their debut LP - which came out in the UK in 1972 as a double LP with their sophomore effort. "Ruckzuck" is presented here in its full, near 8-minute glory, among prog rock, hard rock, some psych and folk - track list is in the last picture.  I believe this is the first various artists compilation cassette that Kraftwerk feature on, so it's kind of fitting that they use the opener track of the d...

HIGHRAIL (Germany, 1979) Philips, 7172 299 Today, let's go back to the realm of early works compilations! The German "Highrail", another recent acquisition. I'm glad I got this one, at long last, as it has escaped me quite narrowly on several occasions. I'm not particularly superstitious, but I was beginning to feel like I'd never get it... But here it is! Highrail came in 1979, and in the Reflections series - a sizeable reissue program originally on the Fontana label, with best-of's and compilations of scores of artists. The name "Highrail" and the locomotive on the front cover follow on from 1977's Trans-Europa Express album, of course, and I believe this came in 1979, one of the last of these compilations of pre-Autobahn material. In fact, I'm beginning to speculate if the later " Pop Lions " compilation is a kind of companion to this? Considering the track list (where only Autobahn overlaps), the (supposed) connection to the...

EXCELLER 8 (UK, 1975) Vertigo, 7149 007 I suppose I'm a sucker for the oddities and obscurities and variants, so if there's a choice between a cassette I expect a lot of people would be familiar with, and a barely different variant, I go for what I expect to be the more obscure. Today's post is kind of the "standard edition" of this compilation, I suppose - I've posted other editions of Exceller 8, but I think it originates from the UK, and I've never posted that, so - well, here's the UK edition! Exceller 8 is perhaps the most well-known compilation of their early works? It was released in 1975, after Autobahn had surprised the record company by soaring up the singles charts and basically creating a market for more Kraftwerk product. The 7" edition released in the UK was different to the German one, whereas the US would use the German single version, so when this compilation has that UK 7" edit, it leads me to believe the whole compilatio...