Old School Indies Fite: Island vs Virgin

Feel free to rip on Chris Blackwell or Richard Branson if you wish.

The Orb vs Daft Punk :(

NSFW possible reason to vote Branson/Virgin

I love all the variations of the Island LP label art. A few weeks ago I was feelin' folk-rocky and pulled out records by Amazing Blondel, Fairport Convention and Prelude. They all happened to be on Island, and all were different:

http://www.collectable-records.ru/labels/E_M/Island/index.htm

^That is nice. I've always loved the old Virgin label, tho
http://bleepfiend.co.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/fausttapes.label.jpg

Does the Frontline stuff count as Virgin or is it own thing?

OMG new fetish: inner label art.

Virgin a really interesting label with lots of zigs and zags but Island's got Bob Marley & the Wailers and that's really the end of the fight for me right there.

if we're going strictly by label art the Virgin artwork slayz

Yeah, I've loved that Virgin label since Tubular Bells. Island had so many different ones, tho. Quality vs. quantity.

tough one for me as i loved a lot of the stuff Island gave funding for (Axciom/Gee Street), but then theres the whole Tangerine Dream/Human League/GBOA/That Petrol Emotion/Age of Chance/Win thing with Virgin.

i'm going to have to think this one over.

I'm pretty sure it's gotta be Virgin, but I'll consider it longer as well.

Island had X-Clan & a fair handful of other awesome hip hop acts

if u guys are tom waits fans most of his stuff was on island right?

John Cale, too

But Virgin had Wyatt, Gong, Coyne, Henry Cow, early Simple Minds, Frontline (although Island generally had better reggae even aside from Marley and the hit and miss ratio was high). Island's a great label too though obv.

Island can fuck off for dumping Julian Cope just because he ragged on U2 a little.

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virgin, eventually - though note to Alex in sf, early simple minds were on Arista surely?

Before 77/78 Island has much wider spread, the mojo 50 shows this a lot - (even though its a rubbish list, whats with the only one album from each artist though - no mid 70s King Crimson? And where's Systems of Romance? Idiots)

Anyway, by the time virgin gets magazine and xtc they've won.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wrong winner although both were great.

And Charisma > both.

But I would say Virgin's best era was when they had become too big to really be an indie anymore, like the early 80s. Had a lot of great time-typical stuff then.

In the cd era, it was nice that Island's had that colorful rectangle at the top of the spine, but as it became another faceless division of a major, the notification became unimportant.

I like the graphic identity of their remasters these days though. Very tastefully done.

Think I'd go with Island - I always like how those white/rainbow CD spines stand out in my collection, just highlights what a great, wide selection of stuff they put out (I'm including the Mango/Antilles stuff in this by the way - picked up some amazing albums cheap from that reissue series a while back).