Kraftwerk cassettes

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.  

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,...

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...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Greece, RE 198x?) Capitol 14C 262-854444 Time for a Greek re-edition of The Man·Machine! I don't have that many Greek cassettes, but let's at least see the ones I have... It's been nearly a year since I presented the original ! The Man·Machine came in several variants in Greece, but the differences are pretty minor. EMI changed address at some point, so the address printed on the J-card is different on this than on the original, and this edition has on-body print instead of paper labels. (There is also another reissue which has green on-body print, which I hope to put up in a future post!) The J-card is still 2-panel, printed on one side only, and the design is almost the same as the first edition, except the contact details as mentioned. It's the details that make for a collection!

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 MAN·MACHINE (Greece, 1978) Capitol 14C 262-854444 Time for a Greek edition of The Man·Machine! I haven't posted so many Greek cassettes here; in fact, I don't even have that many, but let's bring them forward, they're generally nice items! The Man·Machine is one of few Kraftwerk cassettes that I know came in several variants in Greece, (even if I only have this one...). EMI moved sometime after 1978, so the address printed on the J-card is different on later issues, and this edition has yellow paper labels, where later ones have on-body print. The J-card is 2-panel, printed on one side only, and the design is pretty basic - album title and band name in large friendly letters on both the front and the right panel, while the spine only has the band name. Oh, there's also a spelling mistake: "Tne" Man·Machine. Not in the track list though, just in the "headlines". That's pretty much it, I suppose? Nice one! Both companies are represented ...

THE MAN·MACHINE (The Netherlands, RE 198?) EMI/ Capitol 1A 238 15 7597 4 Following up on a recent post here, today it's another Netherlands/ Europe reissue of The Man·Machine! So. As I said in the previous post, most reissues from the mid-80's onward were "Made in Holland" for export to a few other markets within the EU (or EC, depending). I'm not exactly sure where other than the Netherlands you could go in a shop and buy this, but the UK, Italy, France and Spain all had reissues of their own, so maybe Germany and BeNeLux? I think I saw these Holland cassettes in shops in Scandinavia too back in the mid-to-late 80s.   This is released on the FAME sub-label. It comes with a simple one panel J-card in thin glossy paper, printed on both sides. As evident from the photo, this one has XDR logos on the card front and both sides of the cassette itself. The FAME mid-price series had a standard design palate, placing the LP design in the lower part of the front of the J...

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 MAN·MACHINE (Italy, RE 1987?) Capitol 54 1854444 Welcome back! Today it's the Italian late 80s re-edition of The Man·Machine! One of those reissues which have "reissue specific" design features... Well, at least it's something to make it stand out, there's no denying this one looks different to most other releases! Italy had a reissue series in the late 80's, putting out at least three of the albums; this, Trans-Europe Express and Computer World ( Autobahn had been reissued in 1985, and Radio-Activity a few years before, so possibly these were continued? Or they still had some left in 1987, and didn't feel the need for another edition?). Discogs has this release listed as part of a "Talent" reissue series, but I can't find any allusions to it on the release in question - the word is not mentioned on shell or j-card. Maybe there should have been a sticker or something, maybe it was known in Italy, like "Nice Price" or "...

THE MAN·MACHINE (France, RE 1990) EMI/ Capitol 7460394 I always feel that this album gets overrepresented on my blog - I suppose it's the one which came in most editions, released at the height of the cassette time, sold well over a longer period, and not least before the European Union's export trend, so there's more editions from the European countries. So I was a bit surprised when going through my collection, I found that I haven't posted the French editions of The Man·Machine here yet! So, here's one, a reissue of 1990. The French had a fairly straightforward approach to reissues, at least, many of them were issued with a message that clearly stated " Réédition " followed by the year. For the 1990 reissue of The Man·Machine , some minor changes were done to the design of the original French J-card; the album title appears in smaller, black print, where the first issue has the same white print as the band name, and all record company logos, cat.no...

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...