Guide #265: Your Favorite Music Companies, From Motown to Flying Nun

In this week's newsletter: Record companies are always pushing music to interesting new places. Here Guardian music readers and writers celebrate their power • Not getting the guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Last week we asked Guide subscribers to tell us about their favorite record companies, and the response was enthusiastic. Clearly, even in this age of streaming services, the album

So, this week, a celebration of the record label: along with some of our readers' favorites, we've asked music writers to share their personal picks. They've put together a great list of familiar and offbeat labels that might help you discover your next favorite album (I can already tell I'm rocking the Verlaines record recommended by singer James quite a bit!).

"Record labels are throbbing with excitement and love"

“As an influx of artificial intelligence joins the flow of content that permeates popular culture, well-chosen tags are more important than ever to poor, garbage-resistant listeners. One of the best today is AD93, founded by Londoner Nic Tasker. These labels are completely inexperienced and never use unique beauty. And certain avant-rock, like Joan Robertson's ballads, is unmissable, and in James K they have a real pop star, they also have artists like Riley and the indomitable songwriter out of their catalogs. All under one sky." – Ben Beaumont Thomas, The Guardian's music editor

"My favorite record label would have to be CBS Records. They recorded many of the greats including Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, etc. They also released their first sampler album in 1969, The Rock Machine Turns You On. For less than half the price of most albums, they included tracks from big name artists like Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and the Byrds, and lesser known artists like Spirit, The Zombies, and the decade's best psychedelic bands. 60, introduced the USA. They followed it up a year later with Rock Machine I Love You, which had a great line-up of artists

I don't think anyone shaped my taste in music like PC Music founder AG Cook. From 2014 to 2024, the label and the artists that revolved around it—including SOPHIE, Hannah Diamond, and GFOTY—infused pop with haunting, flashy, hardcore-adjacent sounds at a time when dance-pop meant Pure Bandit and Jess Glynn. Charli xcx has repeatedly credited the group with shaping the new generation of alt-pop. (Cook produced both brat and rock music.) My favorite version? Album Broken Flowers by Danny L. Harrell, 2015. The future seems to be underwater and a super club downtown at the same time. - Keith Lloyd, Guardian music editor and journalist

My favorite music label is easily Gondwana Records from Manchester, led by the great jazz trumpeter Matthew Halsall. In addition to a great graphic design aesthetic, the label has also released a collection of artists across 85 albums. They have also released albums by Matthew Halsall, works by GoGo Penguin, Mammal Hands, Portico Quartet, Hania Rani and Yasmin Meera. The quality consistency is amazing, and it's hard to single out a single version, but if pushed, it would probably be the brilliant GoGo Penguin 2.0. - Ian Oxley

“Many record companies are pulsing with excitement and romance, but none better than Rough Trade. They've been with me since my teenage crush on The Smiths, to the day I picked up a new EP from a band called The Strokes, from the discoveries of Arcade Fire and Arthur Russell, to the stunning folk talents they're releasing today, like Lisa O'Neill, Lancome and Roddy Pitt. Friendly and welcoming, Jeff Travis and Jeanette Lee only release stuff they really like, of any genre, and it shows. Also: what a logo. The best label ever." - Jude Rogers, journalist and music performer

My favorite music label would have to be the now defunct Slash Records. I started with Los Lobos but moved on to Blasters, The Del Fuegos, Bo Deans, L7 and Violent Femmes. A favorite among these (based purely on repeat) has to be Del Fuegos' Stand Up, a drunken blues rock album, and their latest on Slash. - Matt Podak

My favorite label has to be London Records, given the eclecticism of its artists and the heartbreaking stories of its many hard-partying ways. I was proud of my teenage musical allegiances and the London books reflected this well – they too eschewed Take That in favor of East 17 and signed All Saints (clearly much cooler than the Spice Girls). A favorite version, however, was The Raw & the Cooked by Fine Young Cannibals, which my dad introduced me to and which became a staple on long summer road trips. - Lucia Cavendish

An independent label specializing in UK hip-hop and rap, mainly from Nottingham, shouldn't have been this good. But it was Son Records. Yes, there was the idiocy of MC Pittman, who made new records with cues from Roots Manova (Pity Witness, anyone?), but their releases by Cappo and Scorzayzee form part of an overlooked part of UK MC culture. Notts' thick accent and attitude give the whole thing a flavor that goes with contemporary British regional heroes like Esdikid. – Lanre Bakare, Guardian arts and culture reporter

"I came of age in the 2000s, when it was cool to have raccoon tails in the back of your hair and wear pink eyeliner. I don't look back fondly on my style decisions back then, but music still holds a special place in my heart. Case in point: Fueled by Ramen has to be one of the most iconic disc labels, like The Pair! Jimmy Eat World, Fall Out Boy, and my favorite gym class heroes—all of whom swam with the emo drink of choice: a pint Strongbow with Ribna. - Poppy Bennett

"On my side of the world it would have to be Flying Nun Records, the small independent label that brought us the sounds of Dunedin and so much more. As for the album, I'd pick Hallelujah All the Way Home by the album Verlaine, a masterpiece of songwriting by Graeme Downes that he submitted as part of his MA thesis in classical music (I remember he got an A). They played Lying in State at a blistering pace with guitars and drums that set Mahler's voice within. - James Mowat

Motown Records is a very clear and obvious choice for me. Being introduced to them was thanks to my crossing over into hip-hop (like many others) and coming of age in music when Dad wanted to share his albums and every movie and TV show wanted to get nostalgic. Great music, amazing performers, and fun to hear where a lot of [hip-hop] samples come from. I'll always have the softest of spots for Marvin, Diana and the like, but in my heart I'm a Temptations fan first and foremost. Sky's The Limit is a true album without cracks. - Jimmy Gamble