Talking of Island, when people talk about 'Pink Islands' is the whole label Pink or just the border of the label?
The whole label, but again there are several variations...
1) Solid rough / textured pink label with ‘Island’ written in large black outline text along the bottom and a orange and black circular logo to the left. Dates from late 60s.
2) Solid rough / textured pink label with black circular logo centralised – I don’t have one of these to hand so I’m going off memory. I think this was the first label for Five Leaves Left by Nick Drake amongst others, so about 1970.
3) ‘Pink i’ – solid pink label with large white lower case ‘i’ with black outline at bottom centre. Used on early King Crimson, Cat Stevens, Traffic’s John Barleycorn etc, again about 1970. Can be rough or smooth in texture.
4) Reverse of above, i.e. black label with pink ‘i’, used on early Fripp / Eno collaborations (No Pussyfooting and Evening Star) and ELP’s Pictures, goes along with a HELPxx cat no. Smooth and dates from 70 onwards.
5) ‘Pink rim palm tree’ the letters of the word Island made to form a desert island with a blank pink rim. Can be rough or smooth and again can date from 70-71 onwards. There was a later variation with a copyright notice round the pink rim dating from somewhere in the mid 70s.
6) 'Blue gradient' punk period, e.g. Slits Cut, early Grace Jones etc.
7) 'Rainbow rim' the main 80s design.
There was another 80s design that was largely orange but I can't think of one I've got off hand.
If you are looking for early Island albums, e.g. ones released before about 72 then try and find the solid pink rim or one of the pink labels as they sound way better, but again like early Virgin are very loud cuts so many have been misstracked.
Tony.
