THIS Vinyl: Russian Track List, Green Label (it seems Blue), Export Version (no price) on Back Cover
Article 04.12.2010 from
http://www.madonnadiscography.pl/article/view/85/
Kato Dewa unmasked
written by Kamil Kaznowski and Maciej Stańczak
pictures by Kamil Kaznowski and Maciej Stańczak
we want to thank for additional help and pictures
to Jan [Madonna Collector] and Luca Scaglia
Publishing market of Eastern Europe was one of the most interesting phenomenon that many of us have ever experienced... Untill 80's many products from Western Europe and America were not released in socialist countries. Records were imported from the West and sold (often) illegally. In the 80's situation has changed for better. It was time when many companies had been founded and they were publishing music from outside the "Iron Curtain". Unfortunately, lack of legal regulations in many of these countries caused massive flowering of music piracy... There were no consequences for those who were selling LPs, CDs, MCs without permission from the music owners. When we look at some memorabilia from the late 80's and early 90's we see some unbelievable freedom in publishing original titles and also these which even didn't originally existed! Take a look at some examples from Poland:
Changes of layouts were not the only changes which fascinated the most... There were released titles which weren't originally released by the artists... The first tape you see above is part 1 of the Polish answer to "The Immaculate Collection". It includes tracks like "Who's That Girl", "I'm Going Bananas" and ... "Turn It Up" by Michael Davidson (!). But even this surprise is not as exciting as "Supernatural" included on "Erotica" album released by Polish Sawiton in 1992:
As you can see the diversity of these releases is very impressive. All of this unofficial work is only funny recollection today. Many of these pressings are truly forgotten but some of them gained importance and they occupy significant place in many collections. Due to the relatively high interest among collectors of Bulgarian edition of "Like A Virgin" album, we decided to sum up a few facts about this releasing. Simultaneously we want to justify why (in our opinion) it is unofficial pressing and it won't be included to our database. There is no denying that even in these wild times there were working corporations which released many of Western records under license of the owners. But nobody controlled that and many pirate records were marked by "under license" or "all rights reserved". There is no evidence that they were indeed released under license. In 95% of cases there were no Warner Bros. or Sire Records logos and any other information that they could be related to the Madonna's label. This situation fits precisely to "Kato Dewa" released by Bulgarian Balkanton
Balkanton was a state-owned record manufacturing company in Bulgaria founded in 1952. Many of the produced records were, or still are available in the countries of the Soviet bloc. Balkanton's plant in Sofia was equipped for all aspects of record manufacturing from recording the masters and pressing the vinyl records to printing the cover. Multi-channel sound recording was introduced in 1972 with equipment purchased from England. In 1982 Balkanton received its own digital recording equipment. By the mid 80's annual LP production reached 9 million units. The company mainly produced LPs and from 1980 it started to manufacture cassettes. Being the only record company in Bulgaria during 4 decades, Balkanton accumulated a vast library of performances of folk, classical, Bulgarian and foreign popular music, theater, poetry and more. After a couple of attempts to reorganize the company in the 90's, it was finally privatized in 1999. (Wikipedia). As you can see, Balkanton was a thriving recording company. It could be said it was a monopolist on the Bulgarian market. They released records of many artists like Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Kate Bush, ABBA, etc. All of these covers are signed by "manufactured under license". In 1985 Balkanton released Madonna's "Like a Virgin" album, also known as "Kato Dewa". It was released under catalog number BTA 11999 with completely different cover mady by Viencislav Trifonov:
"Kato Dewa"
was released with three different back covers:
Manufactured for Bulgarian markets with price in Bulgarian currency:
Manufactured for Czechoslovakian markets with price with Czechoslovakian currency:
Export version (no price):
Next to three different back covers, also there were released many different labels:
Bulgarian track-list, Violet:
Bulgarian track-list, Dark-Blue:
Bulgarian track-list, Green:
Russian track-list, Green:
English track-list, Light-Blue:
English track-list, Red:
English track-list, Stars:
English track-list, Pink:
English track-list, Orange:
Russian track-list, Red:
Russian track-list, Blue:
Also exists "Kato Dewa" with Bulgarian track-list and stars-labels but actually we don't have any pictures.
And finally, the tape (BTMC 7475):
Track-list of "Kato Dewa": Side A: Material Girl * Angel * Like A Virgin * Over And Over * Dress You Up
Side B: Love Don't Live Here Anymore * Shoo-Bee-Doo * Pretender * Stay
Our conclusions - why we are sure that "Kato Dewa" shouldn't be treated as a official equivalent of "Like A Virgin" album?
* there is no connections to Sire Records and Warner Brothers (no information on the labels and front/back covers); no information about the owner of these tracks allows to suppose that this is the unofficial pressing;
* there is no proof that Warner Brothers gave permission for changing covers, layout of the "Like A Virgin" album and order of the songs (two tracks are swapped); if there is any chance that Balkanton got official permission from Warner Bros. to released all 9 tracks, probably each of 9 songs was licensed separately - it allows to released them as a part of collection/medley of songs under different title ("Kato Dewa").
Balkanton was a resilient company. They produced records of Western artist and they distributed them in Eastern Europe. Probably they made official pressings of native artists and there is nothing strange with that because in the 80's and early 90's there were lots of companies which worked half-and-half legally. It was all due to the lack of legal regulation of copyright law.
"Kato Dewa" and "Like A Virgin" have something in common... The track-list. But even with wrong order. Nothing more. Everything is different.
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