Kraftwerk cassettes

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Canada, 1982?) Capitol, 4XT-11457 A Canadian issue of Radio-Activity today, which, although long after the fact of the first release of the album, is earlier than the previous Canadian entry on this blog. Cassettes were rife with sound improvement schemes in the eighties; they must have had a bit of a bad reputation amongst consumers. Welcome back, "Super Dynamic Range"! For the low-down on the "Super Dynamic Range" thingy, check this cassette of The Man-Machine which I posted a while ago. Whether it worked or not, I suppose it's a matter of taste, and 44 years of tape deteriation later it's kinda hard to tell to be honest. Still, we must appreciate the effort!  These SDR cassettes were presented more or less as a series, so as on other releases, The album cover is presented against a black background, with yellow lettering and that big "Super Dynamic Range" legend across the lower front. The cover is a simple 1-panel affair, wit...

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!       

RADIO-ACTIVITY (France, 1983) EMI/ Fame 1820874  Another post, another addition I was glad to get. I think this is fairly obscure, if not necessarily valuable in terms of Euros? Anyway, here's a French reissue of Radio-Activity!   Sometimes, with these cassettes, it can be hard to find any actual information... I don't often know much about the item at hand, unless the info is printed on the actual item itself it has generally gone down the rivers of time. Especially when it comes to the release year of a particular re-issue, in most cases you rely on guesswork and hearsay. France is an exception to the rule, however, their reissues would generally print the year on the J-card. So this copy of Radio-Activity, on the Fame imprint, came out in 1983!  The release year was a little surprising to me, as I have a Fame reissue from France of Trans-Europe Express, which is dated 1985. It would make sense if they put out reissues of all the Capitol albums in 1985 - the same year a...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Spain, 1976?) Unofficial Crown (no cat.no.) And we're back, with another unofficial item. It's been a quiet autumn for my cassette collection, I don't find much new to add, and what I do receive is generally pirate stuff. When I started collecting, I wasn't really that interested in the unofficial side of things... That said, I was glad to receive this Spanish boot of Radio-Activity!   I haven't posted any Spanish pirate cassettes before, simply because I didn't have any. Furthermore, this is my first unofficial cassette of Radio-Activity! For some reason, even the Polish pirate market seems to have given Radio-Activity the miss, Discogs has ONE Polish boot of this album listed. Compare that with other albums like The Mix or The Man Machine... As Spanish pirate cassettes go, Discogs has only one entry? Which is another Radio-Activity - ie, no Autobahn, no The Mix, nothing else in between. I suspect we're treading unchartered territories here,...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Portugal, 1976) Capitol 11C274 82 087 Every blog should have a certain amount of posts starting with "I haven't been posting in a while", for the benefit I suppose for readers who do not posess a calendar. It's summer, I was busy and I haven't received a lot of items recently to fascinate me. But sure, here's an item, a nice return to Portugal and to Radio-Activity!   I love these Portuguese items , they have their own style! At least during the "Capitol years", ie the albums Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express and The Man-Machine, each cassette came out in several slightly different editions. Each one presents the LP cover quite simply, except where Portugal gives us a coloured stripe across the upper front of the J-card. Bright, clear colours, and whenever one edition sold out, they changed the stripe. Hence I've seen red, yellow and blue editions of The Man-Machine, and at least a red and this blue one of Radio-Activity (if y...

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 ...

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-...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (UK, 1987) Capitol/ EMI, TC-EMS 1256 - 18 2087 4 Back to the United Kingdom today for another reissue of Radio-Activity - the 1987 edition, which I think is the last one they issued. I've posted two UK editions before: The first UK issue, which had a brown stripe across the top of the J-card, and the 1982 reissue , which was far prettier. There's also one with a FAME logo on the front, I suppose there are variants of that too, and then there's this. The year of release, or so I believe, is printed in the bottom right corner of the second panel on the J-card - "8708 MWE" corresponds with "7610 DP" or "8201 DP" on the two earlier editions I've posted here. Anyway, like both the earlier ones, this too comes in a good sturdy 2-panel J-card, printed on both sides. Where the 1982 reissue gave more credits than the original, on this, bizarrely, Emil Schult's credit for artwork is no longer present... The cassette is clear wit...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Netherlands, 1976) Capitol 5C 264.82087 Another Netherlands original issue here, it's like waiting for a bus isn't it! This time, the lovely (and I think quite rare) Radio-Activity!   These first editions from the Netherlands, and indeed also the Fame reissues, were not the most lavish editions; as far as I recall, they all came in 1-panel J-cards of rather thin paper. Radio-Activity is no exception, no fold-outs here, and in fact, no liner notes either, apart from the track list. Those wanting to know who wrote or produced the music, would have had to look elsewhere. I love how they chose to brighten up the original sleeve design with a bright pink background, though! (The spine was originally the same colour as the front; must have been left in the sun at some point). The cassette is bright blue, with black print directly onto the plastic (ie. no paper labels). The rights society is STEMRA, BIEM is not mentioned. I have a notion that "BIEM" was used ...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Italy, 1983?) Capitol 54 1820874 An Italian reissue here, we haven't been to Italy in ages... I have a feeling this came in 1983, because that's when the LP with similar catalogue number was out (according to www.discogs.com).   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 white cassette shell with black on-body print. There's also another with a clear shell. The J-card is 2-panel, printed on one side on sturdy glossy card, while the clear-shell copy I know of, has a 1-panel J-card, with the same print, just spread to both sides of the card. In 1987, Italy had a reissue series with a different style of front design, but I have no indications that Radio-Activity was part of that? (if you know anything about it, please let me know!)   Typical to Italy, the spine of the J-card has a stamp with the letters S.I.A.E, indicating that the...

THE MAN·MACHINE/ RADIO-ACTIVITY (Saudi-Arabia? 1983?) Unofficial - Golden GL, GL 1328 Today's unofficial release was a bit of a mystery...Except I think I may have solved it! This cassette was recently sold on ebay, but the ad did not suggest any country of origin. The pictures showed the cover and the labels, but neither state any country (which is not uncommon among unofficial releases). Worse, the cassette is not listed in Discogs - and the label Golden GL is listed as "from unknown country "!  So what to do? Well, once I got it home, and started taking pictures of it, I thought it was kinda familiar, and it bears an uncanny resemblance to a previous post here , from the Saudi-Arabian '747' label; a C-60 cassette with The Man·Machine backed with selected tracks from Radio-Activity! Although the running order is changed, the same tracks were used, and there's several other similarities; typeface is the same, a couple of printer's errors ("Spacelas...