Josie (1969)

The color stripes on this are great.

The Meters albums on Josie are unreal, but the later ones, yeah right, no way.

Mega (1971)

I really like the drawing of the building on this Mega label. It seems like the headquarters for something, probably a cabal of plotting businessmen in a superhero comic. Meanwhile, at the headquarters of M.E.G.A....

The label was based in Memphis, and put out lots of country stuff. A lot of it looks silly, but there are a few great cover designs (check out Mack Vickery Live at the Alabama Women's Prison). There are a couple of heavy-hitters that mysteriously ended up in their catalog through some association with Flying Dutchman, including Bernard Purdie, Leon Thomas, and Eddie Cleanhead Vinson. This Apollo 100 record is by a British group who did rock renditions of classical music, which was a genre I tried collecting for a while. The track "Joy" is pretty well known.

Impulse! (1961)

Here's a classic -

San Francisco (1971)

Great font!

Map City

Hey record collectors! How 'bout a one-way ticket to MAP CITY?

I love this label. It's from an astrology record by Maurice Woodruff, who was among other things the astrological advisor to Peter Sellers. For a while I was trying to collect all the astrology-themed records I could find, but the problem with this idea was that astrology-themed records mostly come in sets of 12. Maybe one day I'll get back to this collection when I have more space for records.

But wow, isn't this a great label? Check out the sort of crystal-shard rainbow deal in the distance. Sort of a combination of a sunset and a rainbow. I don't know what awaits in MAP CITY, but sign me up!

Lightning (1978)

My initial inspiration for this blog was noticing hand-drawn images and hand-colored compositions on labels, both things that are somewhat rare approaches in graphic design today. This label sums up some of the qualities that I love about that approach - a fun, cartoony font with idiosyncrasies (the S in "records" seems to be missing the bottom inner loop,) a weird stippled gradient between the orange and blue, and a cool (as in, elaborate-doodle-on-a-10th-grader's-notebook cool) drawing of a gnarly tree. Plus, check out that lighting!

Poppy (1970)

The watercolor leaves on here are nicely done, although the text color is hard to read on the vivid background. Poppy put out Townes Van Zandt's records, as well as this fantastic album by the Mandrake Memorial, which has cool MC Escher cover art.

Kama Sutra (1970)

This Kama Sutra label looks like packaging for a Barbie doll. I would probably like this label a whole lot more if the color scheme were tweaked away from the pink. Honestly, this Pepto-Bismol shade of pink really must be the hardest color for a designer to work with tastefully in the entire spectrum of visible color. Maybe there are some garish purples and sickly greens that could be as tricky, but I think this one is pretty tough. I do really like the layout with the arc of icons.

This Caldera album is pretty crazy. It's a "moog mass" and features vocoded religious choral singing over moog arrangements, with a British guy reading prayers. Really spooky at times. It's not a totally freaked-out listen, the tracks are short and relatively concise, but the whole thing has got a very distinctive and interesting sound. Highly recommended for anyone interested in weirdo psych/religious stuff.

Kama Sutra (1967)

I believe that Buddah Records was started by the same people who ran Kama Sutra, which explains why the multi-arm label icon is so similar. The border here looks like a nice piece of Spin-Art.

Buddah (1969)

The Buddah text and icon along the bottom are one of my favorite label layouts. The trippy background really makes this one. Funny that this is a soul compilation, but is graphically styled like a far-out pysch head trip.

AIR (1971)

Great clouds and sky on this cheerful label.

This is the soundtrack for a crazy Bette Davis movie where she disguises herself as a hippie and robs banks.

Hi (1978)

Now here's a nice design. I love seeing labels where the printed artwork plays off the turntable spindle.

A couple of years ago I got on an Al Green kick, and then started looking for any Willie Mitchell albums I could find. Based on the late date, I assumed that this O.V. Wright album would be some disco-funk. Boy was I wrong. This one sounds like disco never happened, crisp Hi records sound. It's remarkable that Mitchell kept up the classic Memphis Sound production for as long as he did. Great record, amazing cover photo too.

Design (1962)

I'll follow up on Peter's "simple and direct" choice, but this is on the other end of the elegance spectrum from Jazzland. Design Records: Talk about a misnomer. Could there be any less design on this label? Actually, there definitely could be. After teaching enough visual design classes, I have learned that someone can always find a way to make it worse. The font here is very smartly done, and it's got a crisp, tasteful, less-is-more style. However, I think that if you choose to name yourself Design, you might try and produce more interesting design.

Jazzland, 1961

OK, my final contribution to Alexander's terrific blog. I'm afraid I'm not going out with a bang, but instead I'm posting another vintage jazz label's elegant design. It's from Junior's Cookin' by saxophonist Junior Cook (who had several album titles that made use of his last name). It's simple and direct, and this two-week process has made me realize that's generally what I prefer on record labels. I could do this for months and keep uncovering labels I dig, but my time is up--thanks for reading!