The Promotional Releases

There were two promo releases for the No Speak series.  Both were simple black and white printed booklets, but the CDs looked just like the other samplers.  The product codes for the samplers differed from the normal sequencing of the released albums, as they wouldn’t be in the normal catalog, yet still needed to be accounted for.

Instrumental Rock For The 90’s

This sampler, IRSD-NSPROMO, has the same name on the cover as the retail sampler, but has a different name on the spine.  It has almost the same track list as the retail sampler, but is sequenced differently, to group songs by their expected radio audiences.  The first 4 songs are under a group of "Forte", which suggests louder, more driving music.  The second group is labelled "Pianissimo", for the quieter, more mellow songs.  The expectation is that rock radio stations would play the first part and adult contemporary stations would play the second.  Indeed, the second promo would be more explicit about this difference.

Like the retail sampler, the artists featured are: Pete Haycock, Wishbone Ash, William Orbit, and Stewart Copeland.  Wishbone Ash and Stewart Copeland each have one song swapped out for another between this sampler and the retail version, arguably to provide a suitable piece for the Pianissimo section.

Instrumental Hits For The 90’s

This sampler, IRSD-MILES (for Miles Copeland) had 17 tracks, divided into two categories, to appeal to different radio stations’ formats.  The first 8 tracks were classified as "Adult Contemporary", while the remaining 9 were classified as "Rockers".  the sampler features 9 different artists, 5 of which had full albums and the rest appearing on compilation albums.

Billy Currie gets two songs in the AC section.  Steve Hunter gets four songs on the AC section and three on Rocker, leaving only three of his album’s songs not on samplers. Pete Haycock is only represented on one track on the AC section.  Jimmy Z Gets two songs in the Rockers and Ronnie Montrose gets one song in the rockers, although it’s not one from his album.  His album would come much later in the series’ timeline.

Hank Marvin, featured in the AC section, and Alvin Lee, Eric Johnson, and Steve Howe, in the Rockers section, fill out the album.  All these are from the Guitar Speak compilation album.  There would be two more Guitar Speak albums, but none of those songs would be on samplers.