Vertigo Germany has
issued quite some interesting releases, the albums of which can be
divided into two
groups.
The first one contains the German equivalents of the British releases.
Many UK albums were released in Germany too, but the elaborate
packaging was in some cases sacrificed or else substantially altered.
Probably Vertigo Germany did not see the need to cope with the
expenses
of the more elaborate designs. Of course, there are some general
differences too. We will list the releases of which we are sure that
they were subjected to above alterations first.
Secondly we will look at the Vertigo albums that were put out in
Germany only. Opposed to almost all other countries, German Vertigo had
the freedom to sign a lot of German bands, thereby filling in the
concept in their own way. Of these German albums the first one by
Atlantis
was even granted a UK release.
Thirdly we will look at quite some German picture sleeves that were
used to house the singles. There will also be some singles that were
not released in Britain as far as we are aware of. The links at the
bottom of this page will let you access these three divisions.
Austrian releases will be discussed
alongside their German counterparts.
[There are no Vertigo inner sleeves known from German releases.]
HA! So we thought, but thanks to our ever growing contingent of
meticulous readers, we found out otherwise. Please have a look at below
scan.
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Front of the one inner
sleeve we have found so far from Germany. The sleeve was found in a
copy of 6360 050, Black Sabbath's Vol.4. This
is even stranger when looking at the backside to your right.
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Rear of the German
inner sleeve, with small ads for a host of Vertigo releases. The fourth
one from the top row is actually Black Sabbath's Vol.4. This has a totally
different cover to the released record! Also quite strange: the choice
of the downmost segment of the cover for Gentle Giant's debut, visible
as the third cover on the fourth row.
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Another inner sleeve has been found around a German copy of Catapilla's Changes, though it looks exactly like the British version, albeit without any indication of Britain in print. Please look at the first Britain page to see it (3rd inner sleeve variation there). |
LP COVERS
Contrary to British practice, German
covers are mostly laminated on the
outside to protect them against rubbing wear, bar some exceptions like
6360 017. They are constructed out of slightly thinner board than
the British covers. The back cover shows after the catalogue number at
the upper right hand corner a ''D'' in a square (see scan), making it
easy to identify the cover as a German one. When the spine is printed
(which is not always the case) the wording is with some releases
upside-down for
Anglo-Saxon eyes. Since German books have their spines printed the
other way around compared to books in English, this practise is in some
cases maintained on the cover spines. Most covers were
manufactured by Carl v.d. Linnepe in Lüdenscheid, who gets a credit
on almost all sleeves.