The Sensual World - Canadian Video Style Promo Box Set

Official Canadian video style promotional box set for The Sensual world. As far as I know these were only produced in two countries for promoting purposes. Canada being one, and the UK being the other. The UK version does differ slightly to the Canadian version, but not by much.

It's pretty interesting how they decided to make this promo box set in the style of a video box though, considering it doesn't even come with a video. It measures about 7" x 7.5" x 1.5" thick. The cover of the box comes with a full wraparound insert, which features a close up of Kate's eyes on the front and a line from The Sensual World on the back. I think it's a shame that the spine was left totally empty. The casual onlooker wouldn't even know what this was if they weren't at all familiar with Kate Bush.

Inside there are a total of four different items:

On the left-hand side of the box is 1 Canadian Cassette Single, which features The Sensual World and Walk Straight Down The Middle. Both tracks are repeated on both sides. To my knowledge this is just a standard issue Canadian release of the single, and not a promo of any kind.

On the right-hand side you get three additional items.

The first item is a first issue Canadian Picture Disc release of The Sensual World on CD. Again, this is just a standard first issue release of the CD and not a promo of any kind.

The second item is a folded biography insert of Kate's career up to the release of The Sensual World. There's information on both sides, with a photo on the front and a flower design on the inside. It measures 6" x 6.5".

The third and final item is a larger version of the Sensual World booklet that comes with the CD. It also measures 6" x 6.5" with a glossy cover and back. It has all the lyrics printed inside as well as 4 full colour photos of Kate.

I personally like this box set. It's nothing overly spectacular, but I also knew exactly what I was getting when I originally got it, so none of it came as a surprise or a disappointment. The downside to this box set, which also goes for the UK version, is that both of them have become quite rare now - so if you want either version, you're going to be paying a lot of money for them.

Shoebox - UK Official Promotional Box Set

Although there were several different types of box sets that were floating around at this time for the Red Shoes, this promotional box set was the only official one issued.

The Shoebox promo box set is very difficult to come by these days, especially in a complete and mint condition capacity. The fountain pen is typically missing from this one, and in some cases the photo slide. If you do happen to come across a complete set, expect to pay a lot of money for it because these don't sell for cheap.

Apart from the box, which features a Red Shoes sticker on the cover and a a black shoe label on the side, the following contents are found inside:

1 promo video cassette: Since this is a UK PAL video, I could never play it on my VCR. I always used to assume that it was the video for Rubberband Girl, but I've had some people tell me that it's Kate's "live" performance of Moments of Pleasure on Ask Aspel. The label on the video is fairly plain and offers no additional information.

1 copy of The Red Shoes CD (Still sealed): It's a normal UK release and not a promotional copy. It was still sealed when I picked it up many years ago, but there have been cases where the CD has been opened.

2 page parchment fact sheet on Kate and her career up to the release of the Red Shoes, along with a complete discography. Everything is neatly kept together with a red velvet type ribbon. This is the first time I have ever unrolled these for scanning, and believe me when I say this wasn't fun to do.

1 photo slide of Kate: The picture shows Kate in a black leather jacket, black tutu and wearing her red ballet slippers. I've finally managed to get some decent shots of this one.

1 fountain pen: There's a gold strip along the pen which reads "Kate Bush The Red Shoes - 1993". The fountain pen has its original tube where the ink was, but the ink was long gone when I got this years ago. The ink was red as there's residue left inside of the ink tube. I also took the pen apart so you can see that it is a proper fountain pen. There have been very few cases where the ink hasn't been used at all, but most often you won't find one with the ink, and in many cases the empty tube has been discarded as well. The fountain pen tends to be the one item that's commonly missing from this box set.

Overall, it's an interesting box set. Everything is nicely contained within the box by use of  a combination built-in and removable cardboard tray. The top portion of the tray is removable - the bottom portion is not. A really nice item to have if you can get a hold of it.