How to Identify Labels
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How to identify Labels?
The simple cases
Before the massive mergers that occurred in the music industry during the last part of the 20th century, and for most labels, the situation was pretty simple: a single company would issue releases "using" a single imprint (its trademark, or logo).
A 1959 vinyl example
On the front cover, the imprint name is featured on the top right hand ("Contemporary Records"), alongside the catalog number ("S7562"):
On the back sleeve, you can find the company name (at the bottom):
The imprint name is also featured prominently on the inner sticker of the vinyl (this is actually an "imprint"):
Note the full company name (Contemporary Records, INC) is slightly different from the imprint name (Contemporary Records, which you should use here).
A xxx CD example
John Zorn, The First Recordings
Don't get fooled by the company name holding the imprint
At some point, though, the de-correlation between companies and imprints went on, quickly moving toward a situation where in a lot of cases:
- a company has an entirely different name than the imprint it controls
- a given company controls (several) different imprints
The relevant part, which you should use in release events, is still the imprint!
Don't get fooled by the manufacturer or the distributor
The music business getting more complex and globalized, the making of releases also became more complicated and began involving more than the company producing the release (usually at least an additional manufacturer and a distributor), and a (somewhat) recent trend pushed to a state where these companies would also print their own logos on the sleeves, alongside the producing label logo.
