PhilMH 30th Apr 2015
| | Guide to ascribing labels - not necessarily pre-or-post Universal, or even just in the CD era, if you look in, say, the Discogs forums, there was a lot of angst over whether and when the EMI logo should be considered a label, but here goes:
EMI - their logo (either the old record-and-globe one, or the later box one) appeared in conjunction with several of their brand labels (HMV, Columbia, Parlophone, Stateside, Capitol, Regal Zonophone, etc) from some time in the 60's, to indicate that those labels were part of the EMI group. The EMI label itself wasn't created until Columbia, Parlophone and the pop side of HMV were phased out in mid-1973. Essentially, only use EMI as a label if the logo appears on its own.
WEA/Warner Music Group - the Saul Bass-designed (W) logo mostly appears in tiny form in the copyright boilerplate on Warner Bros. Elektra, Atlantic releases, but does sometimes appear on its own, mostly on European releases I think.
Universal Music Group/Universal Music Group International/Universal Music Enterprises/UMe/UM3/Universal Music Catalogue/UMC/Universal Music Chronicles - these are generally the higher corporate and mid-level catalogue divisions of Universal, which will have label groups comprising individual labels below them, e.g in the USA, Interscope/Geffen/A & M comprises those three labels, Island Def Jam comprised those two labels and the pop-rock side of Mercury, Universal Motown comprised Universal Records, Motown and Polydor (the latter only used for reissues in the USA since the PolyGram purchase), Verve Music Group comprises Verve, Verve Forecast, Impulse, Blue Thumb, and GRP. With any one of those label groups, you can expect to find a lower-level historic label logo that indicates the "real" label, e.g. a Bon Jovi Cd might show both Mercury and Island Def Jam Label Group logos, the label there is actually Mercury. It gets trickier when vintage logos and label designs are shown on the discs, e,g. Brunswick and Decca 45 label designs on the deluxe edition of The Who's MY GENERATION (the real label indicated on the package would be MCA in North America, and Polydor elsewhere - though there would probably be a Chronicles logo too!), or on Verve's jazz reissues which might reproduce labels from Mercury/EmArcy, Decca, ABC Paramount, Philips, etc, but generally these are considered to be "on" Verve. Some of Universal's label groups have changed in the last couple of years since the EMI purchase, so that Motown is now part of Capitol Label Group, for example.
Fantasy Original Jazz Classics/Original Blues Classics - I think these were hotly debated at Discogs too, as the vinyl reissues replicated the original Prestige/Bluesville/New Jazz etc label designs, though the CD designs were more generic. As far as Fantasy's website and printed catalogues were concerned, the labels were Original Jazz Classics or Original Blues Classics, and that is how Fantasy's successor Concord lists them, though more recent reissues tend to be under the original label names.
BMG, Sony, Sony BMG, and back to Sony again - the separate, partnered and then merged companies all had "label groups" similar to Universal's, but again look for a lower level historic logo, and that would most likely be the label, but sometimes the old BMG logo and the newer (2009 onwards) Sony logo (what I call the "red smudge" - can't work out what it's supposed to be!) do appear on their own. Reissues tend to be via the Legacy label, so can be jointly branded as Columbia/Legacy, Epic/Legacy, RCA/Legacy and so on, and they should be entered as two labels here - the Paul Simon reissues that were originally on Warner Bros. are Legacy only, unlike his earlier albums which are Columba/Legacy.
A helpful hint - check the CD spine, that might break the label(s) down to the lowest level, this seemed to be particularly helpful on some Sony (BMG) issues, an example being Chet Atkins' and Les Paul's CHESTER & LESTER, where the logo on the back read "The RCA Label Group RCA Nashville" coupled with the Legacy logo, but the spine simplified it to RCA Nashville/Legacy.
General principle with the majors - the higher corporate names (Universal, EMI, Sony, BMG, WMG) indicate that the labels belong to those conglomerates; only use these as label if there is no other logo.
Clear as mud? Good! :) |