Category: Small objects of desire

The subject of Gary Numan’s ‘Telekon’ album on CD is worthy of an article of its own and I will come to that in a future post to try and document the various mixes that have appeared on each. It has been re-issued on CD so many times and along the way different mixes of tracks have sneaked on without being highlighted. Meanwhile, in this current series on the Japanese mini-LP issues, I’ll concentrate on documenting the packaging that these fabulous little objects come with.

^ Outer sleeve (front), inner sleeve (front), additional booklet (front), Obi (front), CD label design

The cover and inner sleeve are pretty faithful to the original vinyl issue from 1980 – the CD label design is too (at least for side one of the original vinyl), except for it being blue instead of black, for some reason. But… that is the original UK label design! The Japanese vinyl LP actually had a standard Atlantic records label design (green/white/red)when first issued in Japan. It is also worth noting that while it comes with an additional booklet, this is not the same as per the additional insert that came with the vinyl LP. Continue reading “Gary Numan – ‘Telekon’ Jap mini LP sleeve (Beggars Banquet/Imperial, TECI-24261)”

Continue reading “Ultravox – ‘Systems of Romance’ Jap mini LP sleeve (Island/Universal, UICY-93075)”

On the music side, this CD is as per the UK re-issue from 2006, so as well as the eight original album tracks it features six bonus tracks – ‘Young Savage’, ‘The Man Who Dies Every Day’ (Remix), Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alternative Version), Quirks, ‘The Man Who Dies Every Day’ (Live) and ‘Young Savage’ (Live). So, that is to say it is a bit of a mix up, from various different singles/EPs!

^ Front sleeve and insert designs, front cover of the booklet, label

The early copies of the original vinyl album came with a free 7″ single – it’s odd that only one side of that single is included (‘Quirks’), though the other side ‘Modern Love’ (Live) does feature as a bonus track on the ‘Ultravox!’ CD instead. Continue reading “Ultravox! – ‘Ha!-Ha!-Ha!’ Jap mini LP sleeve (Island/Universal, UICY-93074)”

This Japanese mini-LP of ‘The Pleasure Principle’ comes with 17 tracks in total – the 10 from the original album plus the same seven bonus tracks as found on the UK Beggars Banquet ’20th Anniversary Edition’ re-issue from 1999. As for packaging – it pretty faithfully recreates the UK LP sleeve design, as shown in the photos – outer and inner sleeve.

This edition also contains an additional black and white Japanese text-only info and lyric booklet (8 pages), plus an extra record company contact card and of course the outer ‘obi’ band. The label design is a red Beggars Banquet style as per side one of the original album release.

Musically, this CD includes the nine original album tracks plus four bonus tracks – ‘Slip Away’ (Live), ‘Modern Love (Live’), ‘The Wild, The Beautiful and The Damned’ (Live) and ‘My Sex’ (Live) so, it is as per the the UK CD re-issue from 2006. It comes in gatefold card sleeve featuring the original sleeve design.

This edition also contains an additional black and white Japanese info and lyric booklet (8 pages, mostly text-only, but with different images on the front and back cover) plus the outer ‘obi’ band (not shown on either of the photos here, but you can see it in the post that shows all three albums together). (It’s worth noting that each of the ‘obi’ bands are different on each release.) Continue reading “Ultravox! – ‘Ultravox!’ Jap mini LP sleeve (Island/Universal, UICY-93073)”