When I think of certain some songs I can still see their label spinning while on the turntable. Many singles came in nice picture sleeves and they were cool…but I also liked the record company label art. When I see one and I automatically think of certain artists.
No, they are not in the same league as album cover art but they do bring back a lot of memories. The labels I remember the most are Dial, Capitol, Apple, Motown, Tamla, Epic, MCA, and Elektra but it’s the smaller record labels that had some cool designs like Kama-Sutra, Capricorn, Roulette and Hot Wax.
Here are a few that I remembered and the more I looked the more I found that I remembered.
Capitol Apple
Casablanca Tamla
Motown Elektra
Casablanca Big Tree
Reprise Dial
Columbia London
SRC Epic
Kama-Sutra Capricorn
RCA MGM
Hot Wax Rare Earth Records
Soul Fenton
Philadelphia International Stax
Volt ATCO
Elektra Buddah
ABC Records Dunhill
Roulette MCA
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Nice post. I’m getting to know all the different label designs from attaching pics with every record I write about.
One thing that annoys me, though, is that every country apart from the UK seems to have had picture sleeves for their singles… Other countries have pics of the band and so on, while in the UK it was boring, standard, label designs. Not sure why…
Thank you….When I do single reviews I look for the pic of the picture sleeves and it seems like I read something about the UK not having picture sleeves until the mid to late seventies.
I don’t know why they didn’t have them.
Yes, every so often one crops up, especially if the record was released on 7”, but they weren’t widespread
America had them in the 50s which surprises me.
Great post! I always liked the Elektra caterpillar label.
Two others that came immediately to mind as I was reading: Del-Fi, and Sun.
Thank you! I kept finding more and more I remembered from my collection and from my older sister’s collection.
I only had a few 45s. I remember getting that song Another Day, because it was not on an album and I liked it.
Fun idea for a post. Sadly, record label and cover arts pretty much have become lost art forms in the age of streaming.
Yes it has…I do love the vinyl that Bailey has been buying lately…some by old artists (Beatles) and some by new (Foster The People)…love those labels.
I still have some of my albums and singles.
I never got much into ’45s. And the few I bought, I rather would like to pretend it never happened, at least from today’s perspective! 🙂
LOL…my big sister bought them… my cousin gave me cool 60s singles but my sister bought Osmonds….so that I dont’ like but she also bought Bread singles and albums…I did like them I have to admit.
Ironically, one my singles was titled “How Could This Go Wrong,” bascially a disco tune by this great Exile! 🙂
But, hey, I was like 12 or 13, and it was the time of our first parties. And it happened to be a popular tune!
LOL… we all went through some kind of phase! Just a stop a long the way.
You know…since you play music you know what I’m talking about…there were some great musicians on those disco songs…the bass players were great!
Oh, I’m not going to argue with you about that. There are some disco songs I like, mostly by African American artists.
Oftentimes, these tunes had great grooves. While perhaps not pure disco, some of Earth Wind & Fire’s music like “September” and “Let’s Groove Tonight” are good examples. Or tunes by Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer, or “Upside Down” by Diana Ross.
Oh man…September and Let’s Groove Tonight…those are good disco songs. Donna Summer I love man.
The song Hot Stuff….play that riff on a hard guitar…it sounds great!
Good stuff. I like the Casablanca art work. I had a handful of 45 RPM records in the 80s like Men at Work and The Go Gos.
Thanks… many of my cool singles were given to me by a cousin…mostly 60s and 70s…I loved seeing them spin. I did like the Casablanca as well…I also like the yellow and orange Capitol of The Beatles and Beach Boys.
Being a KISS fan I liked the Casablanca label from the 70’s. I was glad to see that when I bought the reissues of KISS ALIVE and Alive 2 that the packaging was right down to the original including the Casablanca labels.
Yea that is one of my favorite looking labels. I liked when they put thought in the design.
I agree totally – there was some cool art work and I can still picture most of those labels on records I had! The two that pop out in my mind for artwork are Casablanca and Swan Song; the Elektra caterpillar is really cool too. Have had on my list of “someday projects” (a LONG ways down) doing something like a mural or collage of old 45s for that very purpose, displaying the art… don’t have any really anymore but you can find batches cheap at a lot of used stores and flea markets.
Oh man! I forgot Swan Song! There are many more than I thought. I also forgot the Stones logo ones.
That would be really cool. Yea just go to some yard sales and you will probably find some.
A friend of mine goes to Goodwill and gets them…for like a quarter each and sometimes much cheaper.
Maybe half of those look familiar. Way better than digital music packages!
Not all art hangs in museums. Things like logos, advertisements, product mascots, and record labels are just as beautiful and significant, and they represent a lot more than the product they advertise.
Yes they do…I always liked Warhol’s advertisement art.
That is what I love about collecting, the labels can be so interesting.
That Capitol whirl is pretty iconic.
It looks pretty cool spinning also with that yellow and orange.
I recognize Epic. That was a Michael Jackson label. The tan Casablanca was Donna Summer. Columbia…that reminds me of The Captain & Tennille. RCA Victor…The Guess Who. MGM…Sheb Wooley. ATCO…The Coasters. MCA reminds me of Olivia Newton-John. Dot reminds me of Jimmy Gilmer (Sugar Shack). Not on the list but, A&M reminds me of Styx. IRS…the Go-Go’s.
Cool post.
Fun stuff great piece. Always liked Animals by Pink Floyd
Looking at those pictures I know I have at least 7, without going look at my 45 collection. Which I haven’t looked at in probably 15 years. I know I actually have that Theme from Swat single!
Oh cool! Swat! I remember that show. After I would watch that all my friends and I would pretend we were Swat members.
I loved that show, and when I finally ended up joining the police force I had no desire to become a SWAT officer. Probably because I saw all the shit they went through!
Being a Policeman is a thankless job. My uncle was in the Vice Squad…the stories he told me about being undercover were some scary situations….I had nothing but respect for that man…Yea Swat would be tense.
Like my line of work…IT…I never hear from people unless something is wrong…but the difference is…Im not going to get hurt in my field… you guys see the worse…
I continue to be amazed at the number of comments your posts receive! You write about notable artists and rock classics, which far more people find interesting than the mostly unknown indie artists I write about. But even when I’ve occasionally written about a classic or famous song or album, I get few comments.
A big percentage of those following my blog are bloggers who write about poetry, films, travel or other non-music subjects, so I suspect that those relative few of them who do hit the “like” button to show support seldom if ever listen to the music I’m writing about. Then there are those music bloggers who follow me on Twitter, but not my actual blog, and never, ever read any of my posts.
I’m lucky becasue most of my regular followers..I’ve developed a blog friendship with them. I do enjoy the back and forth with people… The first time I posted Big Star I got a lot of…”never heard this before Max” so I waited a while and posted Big Star again…and again…now I get people who actually listen to it.
You have a much tougher sell than I do…it’s not hard to sell the Beatles daily. I started out trying to post those songs that people had forgotten about…but you run out of those after a while.
I like reading your posts because not only do you go through the song and describe it…More importantly I can read your enthusiasm with the music. That is the most imporant part to me…that makes me want to listen. You have a good mixture. I do have a few poetry and writing people…they usually only leave a “like.” Like you said…I don’t think they listen. I have to listen to posts becasue who knows what I’m missing?
A few of these labels made it over to the UK, particularly Stax and London (the latter being rather dull in comparison to Stax) but most of our labels were different from yours, I think. I also connect the image of the label to various songs. Also I loved the EP single sleeves (and often their labels, too, such as the bright pink of Pye records and the Kwyet Kinks EP sleeve. Oh and my favourite EP sleeve – Magical Mystery Tour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Mystery_Tour
A guy who I’m in touch with and who reads my blogs and whose photo blog I follow, also has a blog about sleeves and labels. You might like it. He’s designed some sleeves and other stuff over the years, himself (he’s a graphic designer). His name’s Simon Robinson. His sleeve/label blog is here:
https://st33.wordpress.com/
EP’s were never popular over here like over there. Punk bands in the 70s started to come out with them more.
I love the Magical Mystery Tour…we goot that on the album with a different surrounding.
I will check out his blog. I love this stuff.
Always liked the Bang lable. The 45s started to get more colourful the deeper into the 60s they went. Perhaps the designers were seeing things from a far out perspective?😉
Good grief, I wasn’t following you then? I thought it would have been four years of blog-following at least!
That is a cool label I will admit. I liked the Hot Waxx labels…I know it seems like we have known each other for a while! I can’t believe this one has been that long ago.
I do consider some of this pop art…very cool designs.