Info re Kraftwerk's "Tour de France" 1984 release dates

[Fred Taghon]

I'm trying to figure out some release date info regarding Kraftwerk's "Tour de France" single. Between Google AI, Wikipedia and Discogs, there is a lot of contradictory information. I always take the AI Google searches with a grain of salt, but they can sometimes at least offer some accurate or presumably accurate context, if not precise release dates.

From what I have found, the ORIGINAL 1983 "Tour de France" single was released in Europe (presumably also the UK) on June 25, 1983. I found a post by someone who stated this and that it debuted on the UK singles chart the following Friday, June 29, 1983.

The track was subsequently remixed by Kraftwerk and François Kevorkian and re-released in 1984, though most, if not all, of these releases still had a 1983 copyright date. I am in the USA and bought the USA 7" and, later, 12" singles. I was 13 at the time and am not real clear on WHEN I bought them, although I'm SURE I had both of them BEFORE Summer or possibly early June, at the latest.

I have found references to the remixed 7" being released in the USA in March, 1984 and the remixed 12" being released in June, 1984. The single apparently peaked at #4 on the Billboard Magazine Dance Club Chart in 1984, but I can't find out the exact date of that issue, which would be a big help. I have also found references that the single was reviewed in Billboard Magazine in DECEMBER of 1983 - but I suspect this may have been a review of the original 1983 single which would have been available as an import at that time.

The song, in the remixed form, was featured in the 1984 film "Breakin" which was released May 9, 1984. It wasn't on the soundtrack, but this release date does seem to indicate it the remix single WAS released in or around March, 1984.

Anyone have any concrete information? Certainly not life or death, but I'm very curious of the actual release dates.

[discoginfo]

Yes well done and good luck with the final dates. I have used what I know in my own discography.
I guess the true dates are still in the record company's archives.
Ralf's bicycle accident would also have postponed the planned LP at the time.

Cheers/Jonas
http://www.discog.info/kraftwerk.html

[Fred Taghon]

Thanks for sharing the information you have! I assume the dates in your discography are the dates each release PEAKED on the charts?

So, I just did a unique deep dive, rabbit hole search regarding "Tour De France" lol...

I was obsessed with music as a kid (which hasn't changed) and also obsessed with music charts (Billboard Magazine here in the USA - though I also kept tabs on UK charts in some monthly teeny bopper magazines).

I also formed a band with my cousin in the summer of 1983, when I was 12yrs old. Naturally, you have to have a fan club if you have a band lol, so beginning in February 1984, I started typing up short fan club newsletters! At the same time, I used to type up MY OWN Top 40 favorite singles EVERY week. I only did a Top 10 Albums chart because, of course, I couldn't afford to buy albums very often at the time. Anyway, to help flesh out our fan club newsletters, I would include MY Top 10 singles and albums charts at the time of writing. I still have ALL of these from 1984-1990!

I browsed through our 1984 newsletters, and in the July issue, I had Kraftwerk's "Tour De France' at #5 and in August I had it at #1!

The closest record store to me was 25 miles away and they didn't have much available beyond the REAL Top 40 hits. So, I do remember having to special order the 7" single from a store called Aardvark Music in California. I ordered the 7" single without having even heard it, because I had only just discovered "Computer World" in early 1984, and when I saw a new Kraftwerk single listed on the Aardvark sales flyer, I HAD to get it! Since I know for certain I owned the 7" BEFORE I bought the 12", my charts tell me I didn't own the 7" single until sometime in June, 1984. It may still have been released in the USA in March, 1984, but I have only found 1 online reference to that date so far.

To this day, most of my record and CD purchases (as far as purchased from which stores) are pretty clear memories, for whatever reason. I assume I used brain capacity for that information rather than any science or math lessons so I am now 99% certain I bought the 12" a little later (probably July or August) at an indie record shop in the nearby city I where I usually bought records at the time. I was just discovering 12" singles at this time, so it makes sense I picked it up AFTER the 7".

Anyway, this still doesn't provide any official dates, but at least I now know I bought the USA 7" of "Tour de France" in June, 1984, NOT in the Spring.

[discoginfo]

No, all the dates in my discographies are release dates, not chart dates.

[Fred Taghon]

Ok, wasn't sure, thank you!

[PKPN]

I had gone down this rabbit hole myself in 2022, culminating in changing release dates to 1984 on a handful of releases in Discogs, and adding all the info you saw in the notes on the Discogs master release page. This is where you saw my mentions of the US 12" being reviewed in Billboard in December '83 and the US 7" being out in March '84.

Here are my references for that info:
• Billboard, 1983-12-24 issue, p. 85 (Billboard Singles Reviews): … KRAFTWERK—Tour De France (6:45); producer: Kraftwerk; writers: Hutter, Schneider, Bartos, Schmitt; publisher: No Hassle, ASCAP; Warner Bros. 0-20146 (12-inch single). Domestic release of an eerie electronic production that's been getting club play for months as an import.
• Billboard, 1984-03-17 issue, p. 63 (Billboard Singles Reviews): … KRAFTWERK—Tour De France (3:50); producer: Kraftwerk; writers: Hutter, Schneider, Barios, Schmitt; publisher: No Hassle, ASCAP, Warner Bros. 7-29342. 7-inch version of previously reviewed 12-inch, Billboard, Dec. 24, 1983.

Billboard issue dates were one week ahead of the actual printing date, with most edits needing to be in by the Thursday prior, so the 45 would have been in the reviewer's hands by the 8th of March. Billboard being a weekly publication, the 45's actual release date is thus probably in that first week of March, otherwise (in my opinion) it would've been mentioned in the previous issue. Mar 1984 is the date showing on 45cat as well, for what it's worth. Similarly, the 12" we can say was probably released between December 9th and 15th, although even if it was the week prior, "Dec 1983" would still be correct.

In the absence of better info, Discogs release dates are the latest copyright year printed on the item, unless there's some reason to doubt it's correct, in which case the date is either left blank or is filled in with a date from a better source, such as a magazine ad or promo sheet. This obviously gets complicated when Discogs has multiple pressings and there's no way to know for sure which one came first. The default being the copyright year (and users' low tolerance for blank dates) results in many releases having bad dates entered, unfortunately.

As for the dance chart peak date, Billboard allowed import and promo-only releases on the dance songs (not sales) chart back then, so the "Tour De France" run started at #58 on October 22, 1983. In subsequent weeks it was at 57, 57, 54, 53, 52, 47, 47, 67, 67, 67, 66, 56, 22, 9, 8, 6, 4 (peak on Feb. 18, 1984), 10, 14, 28, 34, 57, 64, and 78.

[Fred Taghon]

Oh wow, thanks! You have no idea the can of worms you just opened up in pointing me to that website! I had no idea there was an online PDF archive of all Billboard Magazine issues! This will be a wonderful resource, especially since many of the artists I liked in the early 80's tended to be british/european "imports" that only appeared on the Dance charts, and that info is just not easily found.

I browsed through the Dance/Disco Top 80 charts following "Tour de France" and noticed that up through December 10, it was listed as an Import 12inch. On December 24 it was changed to Warner Bros. 12inch, but with no catalog #. In fact, a catalog # is never shown throughout its chart run. Strange. In that same December 24th issue in the "Studio Track" article on Page 55, Kraftwerk is mentioned. It says "At Secret Sound Studio...Kraftwerk is finishing its upcoming Warner Bros. release with Francois Kevorkian producing and Howard Massy behind the board. Tom Gartland is assistant engineer for the project." No way to know if this tidbit of "news" was significantly delayed or maybe it was actually referencing the editing work on the 7" single.

I'm a total geek for this kind of stuff! Thanks again for all the great info!

All of this also serves as a reminder that new releases, and the gradual rise and fall of singles and albums on the charts, moved MUCH slower in the early 80's. I also lived in a pretty rural Michigan town and didn't even have MTV until 1990! I was pretty resourceful for young music fan in finding ways to discover new music, but I have to remember that often, by the time I heard something AND was able to buy it, it had likely already been available for several weeks, if not months!

[PKPN]

Yeah, the studio news was sometimes delayed. Often they'd talk about something being worked on, and in that same issue or the very next week, the record or video in question would already be out. But sometimes it would still be a month away. No consistency.

Dance chart listings weren't always updated when a domestic release became available; they'd keep referring to the import or promo for a while before someone noticed. I'm actually surprised they switched the Kraftwerk listing so quickly.

I refer to the Billboard and other music magazine archives so often, I ended up just downloading all of them with wget. My one-liner Windows command shell script to download or update using wget:

Code: Select all

wget -r -l 1 -A pdf,PDF -np -x -nH --cut-dirs=2 -N -w 1 -t 3 --waitretry=31 --progress=bar --no-check-certificate https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard-Magazine.htm

[Fred Taghon]

Quick question - been browsing the Billboard archive at that site. The link your provided above for the 7" review on March 17, 1984 does indeed take me directly to a scan of Page 63 for that issue. But when I try searching the entire March 17, 1984 issue link, Page 63 is missing. I do see off to the left the Year links for "missing pages". These appear to be the Hot 100 pages - which had likely been ripped out of the magazine and displayed. The Hot 100 March 17 was on Page 64, so the Singles Reviews must have been on the other side of that page. Just seems weird I can't find that page anywhere on the site, yet your link takes me directly to that page!

Oh, also, I just discovered that "Tour de France" also appeared on the Billboard Black Singles chart, reaching #84 on February 18. It spent 4 weeks on the Black Singles chart and was listed as the "EMI" release.

EDIT: I found the missing pages. At the bottom of the full issues for 1984, it's in the "R&B Charts" link for some reason.

[PKPN]

The page is from the PDF linked under 1984 as "R&B Charts". It contains a smattering of misfiled Hot 100 pages and reviews.

[Fred Taghon]

Thanks! I actually kinda learned there is an art to searching the archive and ways to retrieve exact pages by altering URL addresses, etc. Needless to say ive gone down several rabbit holes since my last post lol.

Ive downloaded every pdf file for reviews from every week in 1980-1984 so far and have been going through and copying certain reviews and adding them to a text file along with dates and page #s etc. Specifically targeting information for Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure at the moment.

Browsing the Dance charts is also fascinating since they often showed how popular 12" imports were. This archive is my new obsession.

I found it shocking thar Depeche Mode's "Black Celebration" is the only DM album Billboaes DIDN'T review! Especially as it is considered by many to be coupled with "Violator" as one of their best albums. The review for "Music For The Masses" even starts out basically saying how bad the previous album was lol.