Last week we asked Guide subscribers to tell us about their favourite record labels, and the response was enthusiastic. Clearly, even in this age of streaming services that flatten albums, singles, EPs and mixtapes into one single “feed”, the lure of a label – and its role in identifying, nurturing and developing musical talents – remains.

So this week, a celebration of the record label: along with some readers’ favourites, we’ve asked music writers to share their personal picks. They’ve put together a great list of familiar and off-the-beaten-track labels that might just help you discover your next favourite album (I can already tell I’ll be spinning the Verlaines record recommended by reader James a fair bit!).

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‘Record labels throb with thrill and romance’

“As a stream of AI slop joins the torrent of content that arcs across popular culture, well-curated labels become more important than ever for time-poor and garbage-resistant listeners. One of today’s best is AD93, founded by Londoner Nic Tasker. It manages to be totally open-minded, while its signees nevertheless have a shared spirit: experimentalism used to dig out beauty and originality. Moin’s avant-rock is unmissable, as is Joanne Robertson’s ambient balladry, and in James K they have a genuine possible pop star. They’re also cannily hoovering up artists out of contract, bringing back the likes of untameable singer-songwriter Ryley Walker. Their catalogue might evoke everything from sweaty dancefloor to empty moorland, but it’s all under the same sky.” – Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Guardian music editor

“My favourite record label has to be CBS Records in all its manifestations. They recorded so many of the greats, including Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen etc. They also released the first sampler album in 1969, The Rock Machine Turns You On. At less than half the price of most albums, it contained tracks by established artists like Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and the Byrds and introduced lesser-known artists like Spirit, The Zombies and the best psychedelic band of the 60s, The United States of America. They followed it a year later with Rock Machine I Love You, which had a similar great selection of artists.” – Millard Parkinson

“I don’t think anyone has shaped my taste in music quite like AG Cook, founder of PC Music. Running from 2014 to 2024, the label and the artists that orbited it – including SOPHIE, Hannah Diamond and GFOTY – injected pop with haunting, glitchy garage and happy hardcore-adjacent sounds, at a time when dance-pop meant Clean Bandit and Jess Glynne. Charli xcx has repeatedly credited the collective with shaping her now generation-defining alt-pop. (Cook was a producer on both Brat and Rock Music.) My favourite release? Danny L Harle’s Broken Flowers EP, from 2015. It sounds like the future, being underwater, and a northern town centre super-club all at the same time.” – Kate Lloyd, Guardian commissioning editor and music journalist

“My favourite record label is easily Manchester’s Gondwana Records, led by the brilliant jazz trumpeter Matthew Halsall. Alongside a super-cool graphic design aesthetic, the label has also curated a fantastic range of artists, across 85 album releases since 2008. As well as Matthew Halsall’s own albums, they’ve released work by GoGo Penguin, Mammal Hands, Portico Quartet, Hania Rani and Jasmine Myra. The consistency of quality is astounding, and it’s so hard to single out one release, but if pushed it would probably be GoGo Penguin’s brilliant v2.0.” – Ian Oxley

“So many record labels throb with thrill and romance, but none better than Rough Trade. They’ve been with me since my teenage love of The Smiths, to the day I picked up a new EP by a band called the Strokes, through my discoveries of Arcade Fire and Arthur Russell, through to the staggering folk talents they release today, like Lisa O’Neill, Lankum and Radie Peat. The warm, welcoming Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee only release stuff they really love, from any genre, and it shows. Also: what a logo. The best label ever.” – Jude Rogers, music journalist and broadcaster

“My favourite record label would have to be the now defunct Slash Records. I started out with Los Lobos, but moved on to The Blasters, The Del Fuegos, Bo Deans, L7 and Violent Femmes. Favourite amongst these (based purely on replays) has to be the Del Fuegos’ Stand Up, a drunken blues rock album, and their final album on Slash.” – Matt Pudduck

For the eclecticism of its artists and the many bonkers stories of its hard-partying ways, my favourite label has to be London Records. I prided myself on my ‘edgy’ teenage musical allegiances and London’s books reflected these nicely – they too shunned Take That in favour of East 17, and signed All Saints (clearly far cooler than the Spice Girls). My favourite release though was The Raw & the Cooked by Fine Young Cannibals, which my dad introduced me to and which became a staple on long summer drives. – Lucia Cavendish

An independent record label specialising in hip-hop and UK rap primarily from Nottingham shouldn’t have been this good. But Son Records was. Yes, there was the daftness of MC Pitman, who did novelty records taking cues from Roots Manuva (Witness the Pitness, anyone?), but their releases by Cappo and Scorzayzee form part of an overlooked part of British MC culture. The thick Notts accent and attitude give the whole thing a flavour that chimes with UK drill’s contemporary regional heroes like Esdeekid. – Lanre Bakare, Guardian arts and culture correspondent

“I came of age in the 2000s, when it was cool to have racoon tails at the back of your hair and wear pink eyeliner. I don’t look back on my style decisions during that time fondly, but the music still has a special place in my heart. On that point: Fueled by Ramen has to be one of the most iconic labels ever. Their roster included the likes of Paramore, Panic! at the Disco, Jimmy Eat World, Fall Out Boy and my favourites Gym Class Heroes – which all went down swimmingly with the emo drink of choice: a pint of Strongbow laced with Ribena.” – Poppy Bennett

“On my side of the world it has to be Flying Nun Records, the little indie label that brought us Dunedin sounds and much more. As for the album I would pick it’s Hallelujah All the Way Home by the Verlaines. A masterpiece in songwriting by Graeme Downes that he submitted as part of his classical music master’s thesis (it received an A grade, I recall). They played the song Lying in State at breakneck speed with guitars and drums orchestrating the strains of Mahler within.” – James Mowatt

“Motown Records is a very clear and obvious choice for me. Being introduced to them was thanks to the confluence of me being into hip-hop (like so many others), and coming of musical age at a time when dad wanted to share his albums, and every movie and television show wanted to get nostalgic. Excellent music, amazing performers, and the joy of hearing where so many of those [hip-hop] samples came from. I’ll always have the softest of spots for Marvin, Diana and the like, but at heart I’m a Temptations fan first and foremost. Sky’s The Limit is a true no-bad-tracks album.” – Jamie Gambell

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