Japan:
Released: 4 March 1989
Tracks:
Notes:
The Breathtaking Blue was produced by Klaus Schulze, ex-Tangerine Dream musician and noted composer.
"Patricia's Park" is Alphaville's first released instrumental track.
The cover features Michelangelo's sun overlaid on a gold-tinted reproduction of Bruegel's Tower of Babel.
Some of the CDs had a sticker announcing that the album is in CD+G format, meaning that the CD contains graphics and text that can be displayed on a TV or monitor connected to the appropriate hardware (the graphics and text are stored on the CD in the least significant bits of the data stream, and are assembled and displayed as the CD plays). The text contains the album's lyrics in English, German, Italian and French. Sadly, the CD+G format never caught on and has long since disappeared, to be replaced by CDV, CDI, CD-ROM, DVD, etc.
However, several computers and games machines support the format, and are more readily available than a CD+G machine: The Commodore CDTV, the Amiga 500 CD-I, the Amiga CD32, 3DO, the Sega Genesis (with a CD add-on) and the Apple Macintosh, with software available from Time Warner. Also, many karaoke machines support the CD+G format. Mike Parisi adds that the CD "can be played on a NEC Turbo Graphics machine, and can be (theoretically) played on a PC with Turbo Graphics emulator software, available somewhere on the net."
The 2021 remastered edition of The Breathtaking Blue features a DVD containing Songlines and a complete rendering of the album along with the CD+G Graphics.
See also:
Q Magazine Review
Interview with Klaus Schulze
Bernhard Lloyd on the recording of The Breathtaking Blue
The Breathtaking Blue Remastered
Credits:
All Words and Music will be performed on Songlines
Written by Alphaville except for For a Million, lyrics by Alphaville & Janey Diamond
Produced by Klaus Schulze and Alphaville
Mixed by Klaus Schulze and Bernhard Lloyd
Recorded and Mixed at Lunapark Studios, Berlin
Except Romeos mixed by Jimbo Barton at Townhouse, London
All titles published by Rolf Budde Musikverlage
Studio Maintenance......Ulli Sprick
Office Affairs......Karin Gieselmann
Management......Ariana, Lunapark, 1 Berlin 62, P.O. Box 62 03 49
Artwork MZK / Meyer zu Küingdorf
Peter Bruegel, 1563 / Michelangelo, 1508 - 1512
Love to Klaus Schulze and everyone who worked on this album