Barclay James Harvest Song Index
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Barclay James Harvest CDs
Barclay James Harvest - Mini-LP CDs
History
As CDs began to replace the vinyl LP as the primary mass-market format for albums, one of the main criticisms was that the packaging of the smaller discs didn't do justice to the artwork. This was particularly the case with reissues, where many fondly-remembered albums had originally boasted fold-out sleeves, cut-out designs, embossing or lavish booklets which made the whole experience of acquiring a new record much more memorable. Most early CDs came in identical fiddly plastic cases with a slim booklet and little attention paid to artwork and packaging.
As the market matured, simply making an album available on CD was not necessairly enough to tempt the punters; packaging became more adventurous, albums were remastered to improve sound quality,bonus tracks added and expanded booklets with extra information and photos became the norm. It still wasn't quite the same as the original LP, though, so in the mid-1990s the Japanese, with their love of miniaturisation, hit upon the answer - a complete replica of the original vinyl LP package, including gatefold sleeves, lyric inners, and added extras, but reduced to CD size and containing a high-quality remastered CD instead of the original vinyl LP.
Barclay James Harvest Mini-LPs
The first BJH CDs to appear in this form were Everyone Is Everybody Else and Time Honoured Ghosts, issued in March 2001 as part of Universal Japan's "British Rock Legends" series. These have exactly the same tracks as the original LP, and the UK artwork, with white paper inner and red Polydor label for Everyone, and the pale blue winged woman label and yellow lyric inner sleeve with Ghosts:
Click picture for larger photo of sleeve
One well-known large Japanese chain of record shops, Disk Union, took the concept one stage further, offering the CDs with a free replica "obi" (the printed paper sash which Japanese releases generally have wrapped around them) which was an exact reproduction of the one sold with the original Japanese LP release:
Polydor Remasters
In April 2006, Polydor Japan issued mini-LP versions of all five BJH studio albums which had been issued as remastered CDs with bonus tracks in the UK. These included new mini-LPs of Everyone and Ghosts, easily distinguishable from the original card sleeve copies because of the bonus tracks and new catalogue number. The pink obi also now says "Rock Legend Series" rather than ""British Rock Legend Series". All five are beautifully executed, faithful reproductions, including details such as the embossing on Octoberon and XII and the cut-out sleeve and reversible inner sleeve of Gone To Earth:
The Disk Union shops offered the complete set of five CDs in an exclusive Octoberon design box, together with replicas of the original LPs' obi strips:
Click picture for larger photo
EMI Releases
After BJH's Harvest label albums were remastered and issued in Europe with bonus tracks, EMI-Toshiba in Japan followed suit with mini LP aditions of all four, faithfully reproducing not only gatefold sleeves, where appropriate, but also tiny details such as replicating the textured surface of the debut album's LP sleeve:
Once again (!), Disk Union offered the set of four CDs in an exclusive box, this time featuring the design from, you guessed it, Once Again:
Click picture for different view
Russian Counterfeits
So far, so good, but the picture is clouded by the appaearance in recent months of Russian-made counterfeits of many of the Japanese mini-LPs. Fortunately for collectors, it's fairly straightforward to tell the difference, at least close up. In every case seen so far, the disc itself of the Russian version has a picture of the relevant album cover on it. The genuine Japanese discs reproduce the original LP label: the green Harvest design in the case of the EMI releases, red Polydor for Everyone and the pale blue "winged woman" label for the other Polydor issues:
Genuine Japanese CDs:
Russian Fakes:
Generally, the Russian CDs have lower-quality printing, and spelling mistakes tend to creep in, for example the spine of the Russian Other Short Stories CD reads "Other Shot Stories"! Another giveaway is the location of the seller and/or the price: if the CDs come from Russia, Latvia or somewhere similar, and the price is too good to be true, than it probably is too good to be true.
Finally, a Russian CD which can't strictly be described as a counterfeit, since no Japanese mini-LP of this album has been released yet: Eyes Of The Universe is only available in this format as an unauthorised Russian release, and, whilst by no means perfect, they've not done a bad job on it:
Click picture for larger photo