Record labels with a (relatively ) single- minded aesthetic

Your task? To help me think of record labels whose releases had similar cover art and/or were musically in the same arena.

It was a recent thread here that mentioned ECM records that got me thinking along these lines. ECM was typically instrumental jazz, of a certain era, and it’s record covers were similarly moody or just text-based…. Relatively non-descript.

4AD certainly springs to mind… recognizable covers and musically of a piece.

Factory Records is another label that I think followed a pattern of sorts (and their releases were geekily and awesomely called ‘Factus 12’, ‘Factus 003’ etc)

Maybe my favorite example is Blue Note records of the 50s-60s. The cover photography and lettering were consistently terrific… the text on the back covers was always superb and used similar font…and the music was usually pretty high-quality hard bop.

Please don’t leave me hanging. I live to discuss meaningless stuff like this!

ZTT in the first five years was up there for consistency. During that time the label existed as an adjunct to the brain of Paul Morley, who made certain that it was all worth my time. I draw a line in the sand following the release of Act's campaign for the "Laughter, Tears + Rage" album. But I find anything from point zero to 1988 of interest. The look of the releases was all very on point.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2021 08:44PM by Post-Punk Monk.

- Seminal Twang had a templatized design for their releases, and a good number of them had art by Jad Fair.
- Tombstone was mostly Dead Moon releases, but the whole label had a b&w DIY aesthetic.
- Pete Namlook’s FAX label.
- Australia’s Extreme label, also with a design template.
- Enoch Light’s Command label; designs by Josef Albers.
- The early Pressure Sounds catalog featured woodcuts by Jeb Loy Nichols.
- The K-Tel kitch.

You could pretty much always tell a Windham Hill album by the cover. Pretty nature photography and elegant typography, promising the hoped-for serenity concealed within. If any future archeologist is digging through some ruins and unearths mounds of Windham Hill cassettes, they'll be able to exclaim "By Jove! This is a university art department from the 1980s!!!"

Sacred Bones has a template they use on the majority of their covers - label logo in the top left corner, artist and album title in top right in a serif font, cover image sometimes boxed, sometimes not, but always the sort of picture that communicates "Goth-friendly, if not precisely Goth."

For whatever reason, the labels that spring to mind for me are jazz labels. Lots of those had very distinct graphic identities (often as consistent typography). So much so, that it wasn't (back when digging through used bins was more common for me than it is now) uncommon that a cd or record would catch my eye because I'd recognize the label based on graphic identity. If it was a label I knew to release lots of music that excited me, I'd investigate further, even if I wasn't already familiar with the musicians. This very frequently resulted in an a purchase! Of course it's well known that Blue Note had a highly recognizable graphic identity. I wonder if that precedent influenced the others I have in mind.

Some examples:

Hat Art (and associated Hat Hut, Hatology)
FMP
Black Saint / Soul Note
ESP
Delmark
CIMP

When the great German jazz label JMT did a reissue program, they reissued all the albums in the same generic packaging. (Examples.) Saved money, I guess. Oddly, used copies of those are often harder to find and more expensive than the original editions.

Metal Blade
Sarah

Impulse! had a very similar aesthetic to Blue Note in the 60s. Both labels expanded their styles in the 70s. I agree with you, though - I love the look and feel of those records.

Roots music titan Rounder Records had a very consistent graphic design for the first couple of decades of its existence - an almost factory-like feel, in fact. When you saw that distinctive spine on the shelf, you knew what you were getting, aurally and aesthetically. That changed in the 90s, when the graphics became more eclectic - not coincidentally around the same time they opened their alt.rock imprint Zoe.

Blue label Alligator Records' releases also all had a similar style for many years. Maybe they still do - I haven't seen an Alligator release in quite some time.

The Numero Group always uses the same style for all of their disks, though they're so eclectic musically I don't know if they fit your proposal.

ECM owner Manfred Eicher is notorious for picking the painting and photographs that adorn his labels' album covers very carefully - he might be insulted that you describe them as "non-descript"!

Yeegads!! Yeah, I was unwittingly thinking non-descript as “not necessarily descriptive of the music inside”… certainly not in the pejorative. Poor choice of words on my part as I absolutely love Eicher’s work on the ECM covers!

Recent knucklehead mistake number two: how could I have forgotten 2-Tone?!? Also Wax Trax!!

In a completely different vein, Deutsche Grammophon very much fits into this category. Common design, and a selection of compositions that were never much off the beaten path, but always a very good to exceptional performance of whatever piece they chose to release.

An alternative rock message board that thought of obscure jazz labels before mentioning SST?!? I sentence you all to listen to '80s noise rock whilst contemplating Raymond Pettibone drawings.

Also: most hip-hop indie labels, e.g. Def Jam, Ruthless, etc.

Pretty much the vision of just one or two people.

I plead guilty and accept my sentence gleefully.

Projekt undeniably has a distinctive and consistent visual aesthetic.

Two more came to me…and your suggestions have been top-notch (some new discoveries for me, actually):

Ze had a thing for dance music, hinting maybe disco really didn’t suck

99 Records (RIP Dee Pop) captured a big part of the NYC post-punk/funk scene