More Israeli editions discovered

Lately, I have chanced upon a number of Israeli editions of the UK covers albums, which were previously unknown to me. Israel seems to have been a real hotbed for record releases, and the continual discovery of examples like these suggest to me that there is a lot more out there waiting to be documented. The most interesting of these are detailed in this blog post.

I do not actually own the albums pictured here. I have previously likened this kind of research to stamp collecting, whereby examples are found and saved - but getting the physical copies is another matter! Anyway, without further ado, the first of the new finds:

Readers may recognise the LP from its title, though certainly not from the cover photo. The album was possibly Marble Arch's first UK release of covers material, and the more familiar British edition is pictured here:

As you will see, the front of the sleeve has had a complete make-over, whereas the back has been altered fairly modestly. The track listing is of course the same on both editions. One further point to note is the label. Although from the Marble Arch discography in the UK, the LP was issued on the Piccadilly label in Israel, which was another of Pye's imprints. We do know of later Israeli LPs on Marble Arch, so perhaps this one was issued before it was launched there?

On the subject of that cover photo - it looks strangely familiar. Has it appeared elsewhere, I wonder? If anyone knows, please drop us a line!

Our second find is an Israeli press of the 1973 album, Hot Hits 20:

 

We are on even more familiar territory here, as the Israeli branch of mfp altered the front cover hardly at all. The most interesting feature is the use of Hebrew for the song titles - something which was common practice at the time. The back of the sleeve, full colour in the UK, was changed to monochrome, while the label itself is black.

We currently know of at least ten Israeli editions from the Hot Hits series, nearly all of which have alterations of some kind to the artwork. It is from issue 17 that Hebrew text was used on the fronts, and here are the photos of issues 17 and 18 (sadly, issue 19 we don't yet have):