The Sensual World - Canadian 7" Single

As far as I remember, The Sensual World was the only single that got a 7" vinyl release in Canada back in '89. Vinyl was starting to be phased out at that time in favour of the stupid cassette-single. And no, I was not a fan of cassette singles.

Although the front and back cover art of the sleeve is exactly the same to the UK release, which you can see here, the Canadian release does vary slightly in colour. It's something that you wouldn't really notice unless you had a side by side comparison. The Canadian release has more of a solid black and white finish to the photo, but the UK one has a hint of brown in it, which warms up the picture entirely and looks better in my opinion. The colour variation is probably more noticeable on the back of each sleeve.

Also, the UK picture sleeve is made with a much thicker card stock, whereas the Canadian one is more of a cheap paper quality. The openings are also different. For the UK release, the record comes out at the side, but on the Canadian release the record comes out from the top.

Cheap paper labels are used on the Canadian release. They're actually more faint than they probably appear in my scans because I darkened them up a bit so that they would show better. They aren't even nice paper labels either. They almost look like they were made out of homemade pressed recycled paper. No joke.

The Whole Story - Canada LP Release

I bought this brand new back in 1986. The jacket exterior is fairly identical to the UK release, except for the distribution information on the back.

This is also a gatefold release. I broke it up into two separate sections so that it can be seen better. You can see that the inner portion is also pretty identical to the UK release. I will say that the UK record jacket feels slightly thicker than the Canadian one though.

The Canadian LP comes in a cheap, clear plastic sleeve. The biggest difference between this record and the UK release are the record labels.

The UK release has some nicely done record labels that feature a small picture of Kate on them, but the Canadian record labels are overpowered by rainbow coloured EMI America logos at the top. They easily eat up nearly a third of the labels alone. A different EMI America logo is then added along the midway point at the side. This leaves little room for the track list.

The Sensual World - USA Promo Cassette

U.S.A. promo advance copy of The Sensual World on cassette. When I had my original photos on here, I showed the cassette without the packaging, which had a store date release sticker on the front - so with these new scans I'm including the sticker.

The back of the cassette shell is solid, but also redundant as it totally covers up all the tracks that are listed on the back portion of the insert.

 The insert is a single-sided one, so no lyrics at all.

Beige coloured cassette, which is clearly listed as a demonstration copy on both sides. It's really the only thing that identifies this as a promo.

This one still turns up from time to time, but it can get a little costly these days.

Cloudbusting - Japan 12" Single

The Japanese 12" for Cloudbusting is a good example of how later releases really lost their individual uniqueness. Everything that made a Japanese release a "Japanese release" was literally gone by this point. Even the obi-strips had become minimal and lost their appeal to me. While I collected a few more singles after this point, this was the very last full sized vinyl record I ever bothered to get.

By the time Hounds of Love was released Japanese releases began to mimic the UK releases more and more. Not only did this include the LP releases, but also CD and Cassette as well. You can see how the Cloudbusting sleeve literally mimics the UK version. Any Japanese text is downplayed and kept to a minimal size on the back.

While this one-sided insert is for just a 12" single release, you can see how drastically they've changed in comparison to much earlier ones.

Even the record labels are completely devoid of any Japanese text by this point. If it wasn't for the red circular printing around the label, you wouldn't even know where this record was from.

Rubberband Girl - France One Track Promo CD

This is a one track promo single for Rubberband Girl that was made in France. It comes in a thin card sleeve, which uses the same artwork that's found on the UK release. However, this photo has been blown up significantly with the remainder of the photo cropped out. Also, because the photo has been blown up more, it's also not as sharp or defined as the one on the UK release.

The back of the sleeve is plain blue with distribution information, etc. Both the front and back of the sleeve, as well as the CD, lists this version of Rubberband Girl as a 'Radio Mix'. Basically, this is just a nice way of saying it's an edited down version. When Kate gets to the line in the song where she says, 'Here I go...', the track fades out very quickly at that point - so about the last minute of the song is cut off.

I think this promo is one of the more difficult ones to come by these days as there weren't a lot of them made,

Wild Man - Promotional UK CD Single

Just like the promo CD for Deeper Understanding from Director's Cut, the  promo CD of Wild Man is the only physical release from 50 Words For Snow.

Even though this is only a promo release, I do have one personal disappointment with it. Unlike the promo release for Deeper Understanding, which came in a proper cardboard CD sleeve, which you can see here, the one for Wild Man is nothing more than a folded piece of printed paper. Personally, I have never seen any official promo sleeve so cheaply done before. It's absolute crap to be honest. I’m sure this was done to cut costs and save money, but it's still a huge disappointment. You really need to keep something like this in a protective plastic sleeve since the CD itself doesn't really have anything proper to rest itself inside of. I just think it's a real shame they couldn't be arsed to make a fully functioning sleeve for it. The opposite side is blank, so I didn't bother to scan that in.

The CD contains two tracks; the edited version of Wild Man and the album version. The CD itself is fairly basic and plain, with a fairly average typeset writing and a very small Fish People logo at the bottom. In fact, if you compare this promo CD to the one for Deeper Understanding it's not nearly as nice.

My scan of the CD didn't appear to come out as well as I would have liked, so I'm keeping one of my original photos here, so that people can see it better.

This one is alright to have if you're collecting all of Kate's individual singles, but spending any kind of real money on this one would be a waste - so skip it if you can live without it.

Deeper Understanding - Promotional UK CD Single

UK promo single for Deeper Understanding and the only physical release from Director’s Cut. The front has similar artwork found on Director's Cut, and the entire sleeve is a sort of two-tone colour of silvery grey and black. This is also a proper cardboard sleeve.

Although the CD is a plain black and white, I do think it looks rather stunning.

Experiment IV - Canadian 7” Single

Like many other Canadian picture sleeves from back in the day (when they actually bothered to issue a single in a picture sleeve, and not a logo company one), this is another very cheap paper sleeve. It always used to amaze me how cheap the Canadian 7” sleeves for any artist were. They bordered on embarrassing really, especially when you compared them to the UK sleeves. These sleeves tended not to last very long, and became damaged quite easily in a variety of different ways.

The front and back of the Canadian sleeve uses the same artwork as the UK release, but the Canadian sleeve has an added photo of The Whole Story on the back.

The record labels are paper ones, and I really had to fiddle with the resolution on these to try and bring the distribution information up better.

Experiment IV - UK 7" Single

UK 7” for Experiment IV, and probably my least favourite picture sleeve. This one does come in a thicker card sleeve, which has normally been the case with most of Kate's UK releases.

The record labels have silver injected moulded ones, and there's no inscription on the run off vinyl.

The Man I love - UK 7" Single

This song was originally from the album 'The Glory of Gershwin' and, like Rocket Man, I was very glad when it got a single release because I had no intentions of buying the tribute album when it first came out. Compilations and tribute albums are not my most favourite thing in the world, especially if there's only one artist or song that I'm interested in, so I usually try and avoid them.

Kate recorded The Man I Love with world renowned harmonica player Larry Adler for the tribute album, which featured 16 Gershwin songs released in honour of Mr. Adler's 80th birthday. Kate covered one song, so on this single she only appears on the A side. The B side is an edited version of Rhapsody In Blue featuring Larry Adler and George Martin. I think it's interesting how on the sleeve Kate's name appears first, but on the actual single her name is placed second. The back of the single has small photos of Kate, Larry Adler and the cover of the tribute album. It also lists the tracks and contributing artists on the album.

The record has silver injected moulded labels, and in case anyone is wondering... there are no inscriptions in the run off vinyl.

Rocket Man - UK 7” Single (with wraparound poster)

I originally got this one when it first came out in 1991, and one of the things I really dislike about this release is the wraparound poster sleeve. I'm not a fan of wraparounds, poster bags or any other kind of release with a poster attached to it for obvious reasons - the main one being the wear factor. You can be careful with these things as much as you like, but eventually it's going to cause all sorts of wear marks. Fortunately Kate didn't do this sort of thing too often with her releases.

This track was originally on the Two Rooms album, which was a tribute album to the music of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. I'm very glad it had a single release because I never had any intentions of buying the Two Rooms album back in the day. If I haven’t made it clear before, I am not a fan of Elton John or his music. I make no apologies for it either.

Besides the wraparound poster, the single also comes in a picture sleeve. The artwork on the front and back of it are pretty consistent with all other formats of this release... as far as UK releases go anyway.

The single has silver injected moulded labels, and in case anyone is wondering, there are no inscriptions on this release,

When the wraparound is completely unfolded, you get a double-sided poster. Both images are from the same photo shoot. This is the first time I have scanned in these posters, which had to be done in sections and then pieced back together. So if they look a bit wonky, you'll understand why.