UK / US Versions: The Psychedelic Furs

With brothers Tim and Richard Butler at the helm, The Psychedelic Furs emerged from England's punk explosion of 1977 to release seven studio albums. Today, they're best known for "Pretty In Pink", off of their second album Talk Talk Talk, and re-recorded for the 1986 Molly Ringwald vehicle named for the song. This strong association with director John Hughes, renowned for his slew of 1980's films, has posthumously pigeonholed The Furs as a quintessential Eighties stereotype band. Maybe the only ones who saw this coming way back when were Columbia Records, who seemed desperate to change anything they could on the group's albums in order to sell more copies in America.

The Psychedelic Furs (1980): Both of the band's singles ("We Love You" and "Sister Europe") were already on this album, so instead the decision made by Columbia was to add on the B-sides "Soap Commercial" and "Susan's Strange". This decision was motivated by the need to fill in the gap left by removing the seven-minute long, unfortunately-titled track "Blacks / Radio". A few other songs found their way migrating from one side of the record to the other. On top of this, the album cover, originally featuring a garish green-and-pink color scheme, was replaced with a photo of the Furs in a mostly black setting.

Talk Talk Talk (1981): For this album, the American release simply rearranged the tracks on each side, but with the songs "I Wanna Sleep With You" and "She Is Mine" having switched album sides. This new running order was done deliberately to place "Pretty In Pink" at the very start of the record. Though the album's cover was essentially the same, the patches of color set against the bleached-out photographs were slightly re-colored.

Forever Now (1982): Like Talk Talk Talk, the songs remained the same, but the order was shuffled. However, some of the songs saw sudden re-brandings; "You & I" was now listed as "Only You And I" on the US record, and "Merry-Go-Round" was now called "Yes I Do". The original British sleeve was designed by artist Barney Bubbles, and had a checkerboard pattern set in green and pink (those colors again!) with the record title spelled out in a swirling pattern of stars. Columbia instead opted for an entirely new sleeve to be drawn up for their US copies, which upset the band to no end. More information on The Psychedelic Furs' association with Barney Bubbles can be seen here at the blog Reasons To Be Cheerful.