Vertigo Records
Vertigo Records is a record company which originated in the UK. It was a subsidiary of the Philips/Phonogram record label, launched in 1969 to specialise in progressive rock and other non-mainstream musical styles. Today it is operated by Universal Music UK.
History
Origins
Vertigo was the brainchild of Olav Wyper when he was Creative Director at Phonogram. It was launched as a competitor to labels such as Harvest (a prog subsidiary of EMI) and Deram (Decca). It was the home to bands such as Colosseum, Jade Warrior, Affinity, Ben and other bands from 'the "cutting edge" of the early-'70s British prog-folk-post-psych circuit'. The first Vertigo releases came with a distinctive black and white spiral label, which was eventually replaced with Roger Dean's infamous spaceship design in 1973.
More Recently
Vertigo later became the European home to various hard rock bands signed to Mercury in North America, such as Bon Jovi, Rush and Kiss. Now part of the Universal Music Group, Vertigo is a division of Mercury Music Group/Virgin EMI Records (UK), which in turn is a frontline music group operation of Universal Music UK. It distributes Cooking Vinyl (Germany), Metallica (outside the US and Canada), Razorlight, Rush (Europe) and Dire Straits (except the US). More recent signings include The Rapture, The Killers (UK/Éire), One Night Only, Amy Macdonald, Noisettes and Thee Unstrung 2004-2005 and Kassidy in 2009. Black Sabbath have returned to the label in 2013 (including the US and Canada for the first time via sister label Republic) although former sister label Sanctuary Records Group had acquired international rights to their back catalogue in the interim (the band were last on Vertigo in 1987).
