Top of the Pops LPs... in Yugoslavia!

I made a great discovery today, while browsing around the website, Discogs.com. I stumbled upon details of two Top of the Pops LPs which had been issued in Yugoslavia - and which were previously unknown to me. I knew of the "Leader of the Gang" single, of course, but not whole albums, so I was majorly impressed to read about them, and see photos of a rather well-used copy of one. Here they are, copied over from Discogs...

I'm sure you recognise it as volume 33. The front cover is identical to the UK album, except that the local label - Diskos - have their logo added at the bottom. On the back though, there's been a more radical change - all the sleeve notes have just been deleted, possibly because they were in English.

Check out those blue labels - pretty groovy! Diskos and Hallmark share equal billing, and the track listing matches up exactly with the UK album.

Incidentally, the other Yugoslav LP listed on Discogs is volume 36, but there are no photos of it. However, notice this: Volume 33 has the catalogue number LPL 301 ... Volume 36 has LPL 304. So, it follows logically that Volume 34 appeared as 302 and Volume 35 as 303. That makes two LPs for sure, and probably four in total - at least - released in former communist Yugoslavia!

By the way, that single I mentioned has been in my own personal collection for years. It contains songs - and artwork - from Volume 32. What's the betting that Volume 33 followed as the first Yugoslav LP - with number 301 starting up the sequence? I'd say it's pretty likely. Anyhow, here's the picture sleeve from the single: