Thursday, September 11, 2014

Blancmange: Happy Families (1982)


This album brings up the issue of import versus domestic releases. For some reason, when albums are released in different markets, records companies often screw around with album covers, track order, and even track selection. (Book publishers do the same thing with book jackets). On this release, the version of Waves is different from the original UK release. The Canadian pressing also includes an early version of Blind Vision, which would appear in an alternate format on the subsequent Blancmange album. I have to ask why? The cover art for the Canadian release of Bauhaus's The Sky's Gone Out sucks, especially when compared to the awesome original UK cover. There are lots of other examples, which we will get to, eventually. In any case, this all leads me to quote perhaps the funniest thing I have ever read on Allmusic.com:

"Drummer Laurence Stevens was a member of the band for a short while, but they eventually replaced him with a drum machine."

Image the ignominy of being replaced by a computer? Was it cost-cutting? Who knows?

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