ELO Jet Records - Coloured Vinyl's Re-issues & Jet Record Labels in the UK
Due to the “Out Of The Blue” United Artists pressing issues in 1977/1978, Jet Records changed record distributor on May, 6th 1978 from United Artists to CBS, so all ELO LPs numbered JET LP 200 to JET DP 400 were released in 1978 on black vinyl.
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Out Of The Blue was the only coloured (Blue) vinyl which was actually released in late 1978. This was aimed to counter act United Artists flooding the UK market with the USA issues of the album. As they were imports, each one had part of the cover cut out or hole punched in it. (that’s why there are still so many available on UK eBay to this day)
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The “Three Light Years” box set was issued in December 1978 and had an ad for the box set that ONLY stated: Out Of The Blue “Now in Blue Vinyl”
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The coloured vinyl of series of JET LP 200 to JET LP 203 (clear, yellow, green & red) were actually
released in April/May 1979 to support the upcoming release of “Discovery” (1st June 1979)
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Here is an ad for the LP “Discovery” from 16 June 1979 were for the first time ALL the coloured vinyl’s
are advertised. The “Four Light Years” box set was then issued in spring 1981. (not in December 1980)
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The JET/CBS re-issues were first manufactured in 1978, and then every time when they run out, Jet/CBS
repressed new batches (of the same cat.no.) until the albums were again Re-Issued with new
Catalogue-Numbers (1984 to 1987):
Eldorado – 1978: JET LP 203 until 1984: JET 32397
A New World Record - 1978: JET LP 200 until 1984: JET 32545
Face The Music - 1978: JET LP 201 until 1985 EPC 32544
Out Of The Blue – 1978: JET DP 400 until 1987: EPC 450885 1
On The Third Day - 1978: JET LP 202 runs out, in circa 1984, no UK Re-Issue
Different Coloured Jet Labels
In the mid/late 1970’s the ELO Records were manufactured at two pressing plants: 1. Shorewood Packaging, and 2. Robert Stace & Co Ltd. This meant some inner sleeves got 4 corners and some inner sleeves got 8 corners, depending in which printing plant they were printed.
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The plant details are stated on the back cover below the copyright sentence. This “could” explain why some Jet/CBS records used the "older" Jet Label with white/yellow light beams and some the "newer" yellow/pink light beams Jet label. Once the "old er" Jet labels were finished, they used the "newer" Jet Labels.
But then again it could be that every pressing machine had their own stock of labels. So it could be that (for example) one machine used the older labels for Face The Music and the next machine used the new labels for A New World Record
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Or it could be that there was a pattern to the re-issue labels, namely:
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1st 1978 JET/CBS re-issues used Catalogue Number JET LP xxx with sub-number in brackets (UAG 300xx, resp. UAR100) with yellow & white light beams on the label. Early issues had the LP title above the ELO name.
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2nd re-issues used used Catalogue Number JET LP xxx (no UAx sub-number) with yellow & white light beams on the label.
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3rd re-issues used used catalogue Number JET LP xxx (again with no UAx sub-number) now with yellow & pink light beams on the label.
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Credit to Partrik Guttenbacher from FTM Germany for the above info.
