Kraftwerk cassettes

COMPUTER WORLD (Italy, 198?) Unofficial release Stereo Teen 355321 I haven't posted any Computer World cassettes in over one year, so it's about time! A recent purchase, this is an unofficial Italian edition of Computer World! This one may be from around the same time as the official edition , it has a strangely home-made appearance - labels glued "in the vicinity" of where they should be, and on the J-card a lot of fine lines, where you can clearly make out that they've assembled the cover from many little cut-and-pasted pieces... The front cover image is kind of a close-up, compared to the LP design, with the colours "inverted" - ie the background is black, while the computer (ok, the "terminal", then!) is dyed a greyish yellow. Although it's dark, you can still clearly make out the four silhouettes on the screen. The surroundings seem to be standard for this unofficial and beautifully named label, with the band name and album title in la...

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! ...

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...

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...

COMPUTER WORLD/ LANDSCAPE - FROM THE TEA-ROOMS OF MARS... (Saudi-Arabia, 1981?) Unofficial - 747, 6839 Another unofficial release from Saudi-Arabia today, and it's a split cassette! I've had one item from the Saudi '747' label before, a C-60 with one-and-a-half Kraftwerk album. In this instance, it's another C-60, with 30 minutes of Computer World followed by a different artist altogether! Landscape were originally a jazz funk outfit, but hopped the New Romantic bandwagon and made  a couple albums of synth pop, of sorts. Anyway, on the B-side here, you get 7 of the 11 tracks that make up the album "From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars .... To The Hell-Holes Of Uranus". The J-card is a hi-quality glossy 2-panel card, printed on one side. Again, as was the case with the previous cassette on the 747 label, the front cover has a unique design, a rather clever merging of the Landscape album cover with a re-assembling of the heads of the Kraftwerk dummies, as seen on t...

Computer World (Poland, 19?) Unofficial release Mag Magic M-0401 Had a few nice additions from Western Europe recently, which I'm looking forward to posting - but today I'm back to the Polish editions! Here's another version of Computer World. You gotta love these pirate versions! Now, I've touched upon the attraction of these un-official , more or less cottage industry Polish cassettes before, but one thing I seem to have forgotten to say is how to tell they're actually Polish. It doesn't necessarily say so on the cover, and they generally use English language on the cassette covers - although exceptions exist - but in many cases, the Polish copyright bureau ZAIKS is mentioned, giving the game away. Of course, if this mention indicates any other contact with the copyright authorities, such as paying the musicians royalties for their work, one might debate how un-official these Polish cassettes really are. I'll leave that for a rainier day though. Anyway, ...

Kraftwerk (Poland, 199?) Unofficial TomZo 0090 The Polish takeover continues with another pirate cassette, today it's a compilation! Well, kind of.   I've touched before on the anything-goes attitude, typical in Poland in the late 80s and through the 90s. Today's item is a brilliant case in point; nearly a two-for-one, it has most of the The Man-Machine album on side one, and most of the Computerwelt album on side two. Yes, one in English, the other in German! 'Neon Lights' is omitted from the first, while Computerwelt is presented here without 'Taschenrechner' _and_ 'Nummern'. All three are key tracks, although I suppose nearly every track is key on these two releases... It's especially baffling that 'Nummern' is not included, since it's sort of a medley with the next song, 'Computerwelt 2', so this one starts rather abruptly after the ending of it's counterpart. In fact, the cassette is a c60, so it wasn't even neces...

Computer World (Poland, 1990?) Unofficial release Tact 037 Been quiet here for a while, but I'm back today with a Polish edition of Computer World. I've featured many Polish pirate cassettes recently of course, and in fact, I haven't been able to add much else to my collection for a couple of months, so there's that. Also, I've been waiting for some fantastic rarities from a friend, but they have yet to materialise, so we're back to the boots again. It's ok though, they're nice, although there's little left for me to say about the Polish cassette industry . I have of course touched upon the fact earlier, that some of these cassettes look genuinely baffling, some quite hideous, but today's example I find rather pretty actually. It's green, as visible from the pictures, and the green background compliments the original yellow album design nicely while also being of a quieter tasteful style compared with some of the more garish eye-catching co...

Computerwelt (Germany 1981) EMI Electrola 1C 264-46 311 Today's post is another recent purchase. The German editions of each album are high up on every collector's list, and although Computerwelt has been featured on this blog before , today's post may be a first edition; at least it's an early one. All the German albums from 1974-1991 came in several variants on cassette, as stated before. Cassette shells can be yellow, cream, black, or clear - possibly more colours exist, too. Today's post is a very slight variation on the previous " Computerwelt " post, I can only find a couple of details that differ:     -The backflap on this edition states "Made in Germany"; later editions were "Made in E.E.C.".     -The spine is white; later editions have a yellow background      -The J-card is printed on glossier paper than the E.E.C. version - the inside of that later edition is a little rough.  (Additionally, the "Made in Germany" v...

Computer World (Indonesia, 1982) Unofficial release Concert CC-1930 Breaking new ground here today, with a label I haven't featured before: Here's another Indonesian edition of Computer World. I say Indonesian, in spite of some strong indications of this being a Japanese cassette - both the cassette shell and outer case are injection molded with "JAPAN". Makes it look like the country of manufacture was Japan, but Discogs has the Concert label down as Indonesian, and although I know that Japan has a thriving unofficial record industry, I've never seen a Japanese pirate cassette, so I'll go with Indonesia until I'm told otherwise by someone in the know. It's an odd release, in some ways. It's clearly marked with "1982", famously the year after this album was released all across the world. The buzz words on the front are surprising - did they really know what a "digital recording" was in Indonesia in 1982?? (Computer World was not...

Computer World (Canada, 1981) Warner Brothers XW5-3549 Sometimes, the more basic editions have a charm the more lavish ones dont - case in point, this Canadian edition of Computer World. The Canadian edition comes in a very simple 1-panel J-card, only printed on one side. Furthermore, the design is a standardised 'LP-to-cassette' style, where they simply put the album cover as a facsimile on the front, with the lower bit of the panel listing the band name and album title, in neutral lettering that looks the same on every cassette issued at the time (ie so no "computer printout" letters like the US edition went for). Plenty of space for a large Warner Bros. logo, and there we are.  The track list is printed on the back flap, along with the record company's postal address and a warning that the A-side is shorter than the B-side; I'm sure this was a real pain for some record executives in the 80s, where cassettes would sell by the truckload... What to do when the...

Computer World (France, 1988) EMI/ Fame 1643704 Well, what do you know: As I prepare a new post, again it turns out there are multiple variants I don't know about. In this case, the French reissue of Computer World. The French reissues are easy to spot, as they are marked with "reedition" and the year of manufacture. In this case, on both sides of the J-card it says "reedition the 1988", so France decided on a reissue the year before Italy. How come? I expect I shall never know. I have a few reissues on the Fame label, and where the LPs would substitute the designed labels and inner sleeves with adverts for more reissues, the cassettes don't really have neither designed labels or inners, and so the difference will sometimes be a moot point... Sometimes, the Fame cassettes will reproduce the Fame LP cover (ie with the Fame logo on the facsimile), but on this, we get the original LP cover against a white background, and the Fame logo is in the top left corner...