Vertigo Records

In every label collector there must somehow lurk a masochist. What other reason could there be to spend strenuously earned money on, say, New Look At Latin by Los Escudos, except the fact that this is Deram DML 1003, and thus indispensible for Deram collectors? Luckily there is another side to this as well: label collectors can be agreeably surprised by acquiring a record they wouldn't have dreamed about purchasing otherwise, but which turns out to be musically satisfying or even better than that. In the late sixties and early seventies almost every large record company set out to initiate a subsidiary label (or more than one) that aimed to seriously consider rock as a form of art, and by doing so offering the public ''quality'' through elaborate and artful packaging, as well as opting for more adventurous musical contents. The teeth of time often gnawed away at this concept pretty roughly, but it cannot be denied that some releases born under this new sun hold their ground as of yet. Which labels are the collectible ones is determined by a broad spectrum of reasons - too many to dive into here and now. There is little doubt, however, that the Vertigo swirl label is one of rock's most collectible labels. Vertigo may be considered as the Blue Note of rock. What label collectors (and other record collectors as well, of course) need most is reliable information, a rare and seldom seen commodity. This guide aimes to fill the lacunas and simultaneously compile the already known facts into one accessible source. Surely a gargantuan task. We therefore need your contributions!! You will be credited for any contribution that adds something or corrects a mistake. We do not know all there is to know, nor do we have pictures of all there is to see. You are very welcome to make this guide more complete than it is now. ANY CONTRIBUTIONS THAT WE USE WILL GET A FULL CREDIT ON THE SITE. (At the moment we are lagging behind around seven months. This is due to the still surprisingly large amount of contributions we receive, and to the necessity of doing some paid work as well. Please accept our apologies!) We are compiling all Vertigo swirl releases from the inauguration of the label until the final straws in the late seventies and even early eighties. We do NOT compile any releases on the label (like those of Soft Cell or Metallica) that were issued AFTER the initial gap!! Nor do we compile releases that had a later label design, even though the Vertigo logo may be used somewhere on the new label or on the cover. Also: we do not list any reissues. As the Vertigo swirl label was treated differently in many countries, we found the best way to structure the information was to divide it by country. England (or perhaps we should say Britain) was the country where the label first saw the light of day, and so we will handle the British releases first. In the British department you will find most of the general information that we could retrieve. Of course, these are the most collectible anyway. Aspects which we will consider are the music itself (but concisely), the packaging (cover and inner sleeve, art-work, label design etc.), the disc (matrix numbers and the like), the rarity, but NOT the value on the collector's market, as this is fluctuating too much for comfort. The rarity-scale will be the usual one from COMMON (nowadays only very few, if any), through SC (scarce) and further getting ever rarer from R1 to R5, this last meaning extremely rare and yes, we mean extremely rare. You will probably have noticed that rarity and collector's cash or trade value do not necessarily match. A record can appear several times a month on many platforms and still command a high price, although it's obviously not very rare. Rarity scale indications are always for complete copies, that is with all posters, inserts and other paraphernalia intact and present. The split-up by country will give you the opportunity to compare similar releases in different countr