As the major record companies started looking towards progressive music to give them the sales figures they had previously enjoyed with purely pop acts, they rushed to show how fashionable they were by starting progressive subsidiaries. EMI's was Harvest, Decca's Deram and Philips chose Vertigo as theirs. It is debatable which was the most successful, but Vertigo did a superb job in bringing the new music to the ears of the young British public. Their first issue was by Collosseum - formerly a Fontana act - with their epic Valentine Suite. From their they introduced among many others, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, folk group Magna Carta, Thin Lizzy and the wonderful Juicy Lucy. They even found the time to properly launch the solo career of Rod Stewart with his first two solo albums and rescue Status Quo from the clutches of Pye records who allegedly wanted them to pursue a more pop-orientated path. With a Vertigo debut album called Piledriver, it can be safely assumed that Vertigo didn't inflict the same policy! Later Vertigo signed possibly their most commercially successful act - Dire Straits. The earlier "swirl" black and white label had different A and B side designs. Both are shown here. It was replaced in 1973 by the "spaceship label" (bottom). Back To Labels Main Page Back To My Generation Homepage