Hounds of Love - Unofficial Cassette

As I mentioned in another post regarding unofficial cassette releases, it's fairly easy to tell the difference between these and legitimate releases in several ways. Unofficial cassettes tend not to have any distribution information printed anywhere on the insert or the cassette shell, which also includes copyrights, country of origin, etc. The artwork also tends to be severely altered in a number of different ways and this cassette is a good example of that. As you can see here the original artwork has been drastically enlarged, cropped and also acts as the wrap-around for the spine and back portions of the insert.

The other thing you'll notice right away on these unofficial cassettes is the number of spelling errors they typically have. Apparently Kate is "Walking" The Witch on this version, not to mention 'Watching You Watching Me', which sounds like drawn out staring contest. The other interesting thing is that The Morning Fog has been tacked onto the first side of the cassette - something you would never see on something official.

Even though I haven't listened to this cassette in some time, if I remember correctly, I think the transfer on this one may have come directly from an official cassette source... just a little lower quality though. You can't expect perfect quality from the majority of these cassettes, especially as the sound quality usually varies from one cassette to the next. But despite all of their flaws they can be interesting things to collect... if you're into collecting cassettes.

Pop Collection - Unofficial Cassette

Here's a rather interesting cassette that dates to around 1983. The artwork and even the lettering is based upon the same artwork as the Mini LP, but with some very interesting alterations... namely Kate's body, which has oddly been coloured blue right up to her neck.

The cassette also boasts of being her best hits, but that hardly rings true when you look at the tracklisting. The cassette literally contains every track from the Lionheart album with a few other songs randomly thrown in - hardly her best hits, but still an interesting cassette nevertheless.

Despite the really nice quality of the insert, and the manufactured look of the cassette, this is not an official release. There are a couple of key areas on the cassette that make this fact quite obvious. The main one is no distribution information printed anywhere on the insert or the cassette shell. Also, if you take a look at the tracklisting on both the cassette and the insert, you'll notice quite a few spelling errors in the titles. Some have also been badly abbreviated - something you would never see on any official releases. Another thing that tells you this isn't legit is the quality of the recording itself. The source material sounds as though it came from vinyl.

There are actually an endless number of unofficial cassette releases that have popped up through the years from various places. The most common places are Poland, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. However, Polish cassettes tend to be more identifiable as brand name recordable cassettes were typically used. Despite the fact that these cassettes are unofficial releases, the artwork on most of them does tend to be pretty unique, and in some cases more interesting than the official releases. The source material on these releases can also vary, so if you decide to collect any, collect them for their unique artwork and nothing more.