ELO Discography of European / Holland (Dutch/Netherlands) pressed or manufactured studio albums.
ELOs first two albums and singles were issued on the EMI Harvest label. They then moved to Warner Brothers for their next two albums, then on to JET Records for "Face The Music" LP, which was marketed by Polydor.
JET Records switched distribution to United Artists Records in 1976, but United Artists did not have their own distribution net in certain countries outside USA and Canada.
So the distributor United Artists Records itself uses the distribution nets of the local countries distributor's.
In Germany United Artists Records were itself distributed by Ariola Eurodisc
In Japan United Artists Records were itself distributed by King Records
In Holland and Belgium United Artists Records were itself distributed by EMI Records
In UK United Artists Records were itself distributed by EMI Records which was not printed on the sleeves but just in the ads!
In France United Artists Records were itself distributed by Sonopress, which was also not printed on the sleeves.
EMI, Warner Bros. & Polydor record companies did their own vinyl pressings in the early 1970’s.
EMI used codes: UK, 0C…, Germany 1C…, France 2C…, Italy 3C…, Belgium 4C..., Holland 5C… etc..
Warner Brothers: Most of the sleeves were printed in Germany and sold with the Holland produced discs (Stemra is stated for Holland)
Polydor: LP Discs were pressed in Holland
United Artists: were distributed in Holland using EMI, so the United Artist issues got the EMI 5C… number.
CBS chooses in 1972 that they would manufacture all their records for Central Europe in a pressing plant in Holland. Germany (West) is the biggest music market in Central Europe with the most inhabitants.
When ELO changed to CBS for Distribution in May 1978, all German Discs, (like Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden etc…) were then manufactured in Holland and issued and available in all Central European Countries.
Here are the main ELO studio albums. Not included are non-official Live CDs or LPs,
or Cassette Tapes as these were to easy to pirate and make non-official copies of.
Click an image below for more info on each album....
All issues from 2001’s Zoom, Alone In The Universe and From Out Of Nowhere were UK/Holland/Europe wide issues and are covered in the UK Albums section HERE.
Holland, being a smaller country, did not need the amounts of records they were pressing/manufacturing. So some "Made in Holland" products were NOT AVAILABLE in Holland and instead released only in Germany ! (E.G. Discovery Half Speed Master Issue & Perfect World Of Music compilation)
So Holland ONLY issues stopped after May 1978. Italy, France Spain and other larger European countries still produced/pressed their own copies / releases.
Later on France and Spain stopped manufacturing their own copies and even later on, the UK started to use the Holland pressings instead of UK pressed copies.
CBS Nice Price Range
When CBS UK decided to produce single sleeves for Discovery and OOTB, CBS Europe changed their minds and produced all the coming "Nice Price" releases with gatefold sleeves and original inner sleeves in this order:
Discovery - 1986, ELO’s Greatest Hits - 1986, On The Third Day - 1986, Time - 1987, Secret Messages - 1988, Eldorado, - 1990, Balance Of Power - 1991, Out Of The Blue 1991.
Credit to Partrik Guttenbacher from FTM Germany for the above info.