DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: trivial thoughts on the hype stickers (Part 1 of 2)

Hype stickers, generally affixed to the front side of an album sleeve, are used by record companies to highlight specific tracks on an LP, such as single-cut releases, or to get attention to other attributes like multi-disc numbers and featured guests on the recording sessions. I don't exactly know from which Springsteen's LP a hype sticker is featured on the very first or original U.S. pressing (I'm talking about those specific to an album but not generic ones such as "The Nice Price" stickers). The likely album one would mention is probably DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (Columbia JC 35318), which, if still sealed or shrink-wrapped, occasionally accompanies the rectangle round-cornered sticker that simply says    INCLUDES  "BADLANDS"  35318    in red on the white background.

The album's first single cut is Prove It All Night, but a bit strangely, the front sticker mentions the second single release only.

There are a few trivial but arguable points I have long noticed regarding the U.S. DARKNESS sticker. As far as I've seen, the first point is that such a label is quite frequently associated with one of the two album sleeve variants that prints tracklisting in a small font and production credits in white letters on the rear side ("small tracklist" sleeve). As I wrote before (11/17/2018), there is yet another sleeve variant featuring the large tracklist and black-letter credits ("large tracklist" sleeve), which appeared on the market, most probably, a bit earlier than the "small tracklist" sleeve. When the barcodes were introduced on the back cover in 1979 or 1980, they exclusively occurred on the "small tracklist" sleeve* that had continuously been used for repressing the album in the 1980s. I had seven red-stickered copies, all of which came in the "small tracklist" sleeve as pictured on this post (also refer to the table below).
*Besides the presence/absence of barcodes, the "small tracklist" sleeve release had further variations based on the inner sleeve type: one being identical to that included in the "large tracklist" sleeve issue whereas the other made of thinner paper with inferior printing quality. Both serve as hallmarks for the late pressings.

All the seven rear sleeves (= "small tracklist" sleeves) of the above-shown copies display track names smaller than those on another sleeve variant without the sticker (= "large tracklist" sleeve; shown on the bottom). The album credits on the bottom-left corner are colored differently (white versus black). Barcodes are printed only on one copy in my "small tracklist" sleeve collection (far-right).

From these observations, I assumed that most, if not all, of the very first or original pressings** of the U.S. LP were released without the hype sticker. If this were indeed the case, that would be reasonable to explain why the sticker lists the second single [Badlands (Columbia 3-10801), released on August 14, 1978] rather than the lead-off cutting [Prove It All Night (Columbia 3-10763), issued on June 9] from the album (out on June 2), which is another trivial question. 
**Check the relevant table legend on the previous post (11/19/2018) for my definition of the very first or original pressings of the U.S. DARKNESS LP.

Assuming that the above speculation is not off the mark, why might the early pressings (= "large tracklist" sleeve releases) have been devoid of the sticker?  I don't know, but according to Dave Marsh's authorized biography Born To Run (Dell Publishing, 1981), Springsteen initially didn't want any advertisement for the album because he was notoriously disgusted with the hype surrounding BORN TO RUN. So, I thought that this particular experience he had when he released the previous album (to DARKNESS) might be, at least partly, related to or cause the absence of the sticker on the "large tracklist" sleeve.

These were what I thought about the DARKNESS album and stickers until I obtained the 8th red-stickered copy in my possession that showed something different from the other seven copies.
— To be continued to Part 2.