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In these days of consolidation and fragmentation, record labels don’t have any individual vibe the way they used to, which is a great shame because I used to judge an unknown record by the label it was on.
If it was on Harvest, Island or Verve, you were onto a winner, a fact their budget samplers like Rock Machine Turns You On backed up. They very rarely released anything that wasn’t good, or massively influential. Similarly, Charisma had a fantastic roster of artists. Big labels like Capitol, RCA, Polydor, Atlantic and CBS were more hit and miss and to some extent, so were Chrysalis, though you could trust them more.
Of course there were smaller subsidiaries like Deram, which did knock out some rubbish with the gems, as did Decca, which felt old fashioned by the 70s and smaller labels like my favourite, Windfall, Dawn and Transatlantic- which was more folky. Regal Zonophone and Page One and Fly came and went with a few great releases, the latter famously home of T.Rex and Joe Cocker, the label designed by Roger Dean
Parlophone kept pushing out records, though the heyday of the label was in the 60s and seemed dated by the 70s and 80s. Likewise Pye, which transmuted into a different label by the late 70s. There was Bronze which was a good label if you liked it heavy.
As I started to collect American releases the likes of Sire, Atco, Capricorn came into play, the latter was always a guarantee of quality. Casablanca was home to the dreaded disco and to be avoided. You had to have these pointers because you couldn’t hear obscure rock music easily. Asylum was the home of so many great singer-songwriters, like the Eagles, Linda Rondstadt and many more, as was Reprise, home of Neil Young.
The label artwork became iconic and I felt a real affection for them. That distinctive pink of Island, and the sleeves with the rounded writing. The Roger Dean designed Harvest logo, they were all part of the culture which we embraced. Labels designed for specific albums like Yessongs or Tales From Topographic Oceans were a special treat. Music was culturally important not just in a sonic way in a way it isn’t so much now. The excitement of getting an album was like nothing else and that included the label.
