these are a BAD THING, right? The idea that one country wont 'get' your artistic statement, so you have to completely mix it around to satisfy either country. What about creative credibility, a singular statement that should stand out above the public's expectations. You don't make a US and a UK version of the Mona Lisa, but have her holding a bunch of flowers in the USA one blahdeblah etc. etc.

And i'm not talking about an extra track crammed at the end. I'm talking complete reconstruction of the album. For example, the US and UK editions of the Clash's first album are completely different with completely different tracklistings. I unknowingly bought the US one, and feel pretty cheated. Especially since you'd expect them to have artistic credibility (the label quite possibly played a big role to be fair)

The same with the Soft Bulletin. I'm not sure which version i've got but it has Slow Motion at track 4, whilst the other version has The Spiderbite Song followed by Buggin in the same place. For this reason i'll never fully love my copy, because i can't be sure what the intended running order is (although i think it sounds out of place on my version). Plus i find their artistic motives highly suspect. And for a concept album isn't the entire point of it ruined? Its a fucking travesty if you ask me

Any examples you'd care to mention (not necessarily with a US/UK divide)? And does anyone have multiple versions of the same album? Does anyone else actually care about this?