But fear not...
I'm going to give you a little bit of history and explain the ATWIAD longbox story in a way that will help everyone understand.
So... Let's start with the actual longbox packaging... How many variations are there? The answer is 2. And I'll make that more clear as we learn about the contents of the packaging itself.
Not only was ATWIAD the first Prince album released by Warners on CD, it enjoys certain other distinctions as well. Some of the discs are Target CDs. You may have heard this term before and if you haven't... Let me explain what a target CD actually is.
This is a screen capture of a Google image search for the words "Target CD"...
If you see the pattern then I probably don't need to explain further. If you don't see it, imagine you're staring down through the site of a rifle, lining up a shot.
Can you see it now? Target CDs are nothing more than a generic CD layout designed by someone. However, they've become collectible and there are collector's who will search for versions of certain albums that were printed on discs using this layout.
In the case of ATWIAD there were 2 versions of the Target CD. And I'll explain that in more detail shortly.
The original CD release of ATWIAD came in a Tri-fold cardboard longbox housing another cardboard slip case in which the actual CD was located. Here are some pictures of the gatefold longbox. You'll see these a lot on eBay and many of you probably still own them.
The first pic shows the longbox as it would appear on shelves or in a closed state. The second pics shows it spread open to display the entire front cover, while the third pic does the same with the entire inside cover and the cardboard sleeve where the CD was actually located.
Now at the time they were releasing this album, the US branch of Warner Bros wasn't set up to print or have a domestic copy of a CD manufactured. So they used the international branches of their company to produce the discs. And that's where this all starts getting messy.
If you bought this longbox when it first came out, you were potentially buying one of three printed versions of the CD.
The first disc we'll discuss is this one:
Now I'm including two pics of this first one to help us see certain things more clearly. First of all, the disc was manufactured for the US in West Germany. And if you were paying attention, it uses the Target CD format. These were around for some time. In fact, even after Warner Bros started releasing domestically manufactured discs, these West German discs would still make their way into circulation. My guess is they had a huge stock of them. You can still find them in regular CD jewel case releases.
The next two versions were both manufactured in Japan. The first one will probably look familiar.
That's right! The Japanese manufactured discs also featured the Target layout. And that is why there are two target versions of ATWIAD. One was made in West Germany and the other was made in Japan. You can see where the disc was manufactured by looking at the bottom of the disc and you can see the MADE IN... portion of the label.
So these two discs represent multiple demand fronts for collectors. They are sought after by Target CD aficionados as well as Prince collectors who are looking for printing variations for complete collections. But the Japanese didn't stop there... Oh no... They also had the layout for a domestic release and so you would sometimes get one of these beauties...
Of the three non-domestically printed versions of this album, this is the most rare. Although it's not popularly known to be. It was printed in far fewer numbers then either version of the Target layout. If you have a copy of the domestic printed version of ATWIAD, this is what the disc would look like except the print would be in black, not green.
So if we've already identified three initial variations of the discs printed for this release, why are there only two actual longbox variations?
The answer is simple...
The tri-fold longbox and packaging were all printed and manufactured in the US. So no matter which CD you ended up with inside your longbox, the packaging itself... Was exactly the same.
Over time, these releases proved difficult to maintain. The cardboard was flimsy and easily ripped. Many fans would cut their boxes up to create artwork for more traditional jewel cases. That's why today, finding one of these intact is cool and why they can demand such a high price among collectors.
But now you're probably wondering... If all the packaging was the exact same for all of these CDs, why is there another version of the longbox?
That leads us to the least known and often overlooked gem in this story. When Warner Bros got up to speed, they eventually did produce a domestic version of the album and it did, (although in smaller quantities), get a longbox release.
Resembling the later more recognizable longbox format, these are actually, the most rare of the longbox packaging and often demand a price tag of hundreds of dollars when you actually find them.
The CDs inside were housed in regular jewel cases and the discs themselves look like this...
Just like the Japanese right?? Although, there's always a chance they might contain a German target CD.
So now you know what you're looking at, bidding on or searching for when you pull up an auction for one of these interesting and fun ATWIAD longbox editions! Happy Hunting!
