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‘My’s eyes are starting to flutter because you just mentioned London Records,” says Goldie, impressed by his earlier record. It was like Studio 54. It looked like a great record company from the outside – shiny, lots of nice cars on the road – but it was crazy, really dirty.”
A new six-part podcast, Hit That Perfect Beat – The London Records Story, explores his colorful history. The label was originally part of Decca Records, which was home to the Rolling Stones, but when Decca was bought by Polygram in 1980, London began a new chapter as an independent label working with major label distribution. “We were put in there to make a pop label,” recalls former managing director Colin Bell, who was a key figure alongside Roger Ames and Tracy Bennet. We wanted many young people to be easily identified.
It was also known for its extravagant party life. When I reach out to an artist who was there to ask about his memories, the email response I get is: “London Records in the 90s? COCAINE.”
London had great success with Blancmange and Bananarama but landing Bronski Beat in 1984 “was when we became a real label” says Bell. “They exploded all over the world.” For Bell, who is gay, Bronski Beat was an important symbol. He said: “We were the only recruits in town who were prepared to sell them as they were. “We didn’t want to tell them, ‘Let’s hide the gay stuff.’
While most of the labels create some kind of identity, London was a hodgepodge. It housed a number of records, notably the Pete Tong-led FFRR, and by the 1990s was home to Orbital, East 17, All Saints, Menswear, Dani Minogue, Utah Saints and Shakespears Sister. So what tied it all together? “A hit,” says Bell, bluntly. “We were a group of hits.”
Pete Tong agrees. “The idea was to sign good records that you thought would do well,” he says. “But it was always leaning on pop – pop and ideas. We didn’t sign Take That, we signed East 17. We didn’t sign Spice Girls, we signed All Saints. Not that we didn’t try to sign Spice Girls…” Apart from the heavy cost of the girl group, London’s efforts were not helped when the label dropped them after the Thame train accident and accidentally walked with them. But the larger point remains: “We always have a problem that was left in the middle.”
For East 17’s Tony Mortimer, being on a label with a history of pop and dance meant he could enjoy the best of both worlds. “We were boys but we were in NME and Melody Maker,” he reveals. “It was a great album to have. And we were lucky enough to get these amazing mixes with people like (US house music legend) Danny Tenaglia.”
Although the brand was thriving on its hit-driven approach, it was plagued by some illegal practices that contributed to its success. In 1991, London was fined £50,000 by the British Phonographic Industry for hyping charts: sending people to buy their artists’ records. Terry Farley, one of the acid house group Boy’s Own, who later went on to form his own London band, confirms that this is happening a lot. He said: “Andy Weatherall and I used to go and preach to them. “I remember buying Bananarama records. But it wasn’t just London, every record company was involved.”
After Factory Records exploded in 1992, London recorded their own lineup, such as New Order and Happy Monday, adding to the heavy and successful list. And at the peak of the CD era, money was pouring in, and the atmosphere around London Records became very passionate.
Writer John Niven worked there from 1994 to 1997 and the culture he saw – unspeakable brutality, selfishness and excess – proved to be the inspiration for his first novel, Kill Your Friends, a dark tale of the music industry (later adapted into a film of the same name). “I was fascinated and disgusted at the same time,” Niven recalls of his time there. “Coming into this culture, where artists were, well, tolerated, and at worst, seen as a hindrance, was an eye-opener.” (Former London Records executives did not respond to questions about Niven’s description of the company’s culture, or about his drug use in the 1990s.)
When Niven left to work for another company, it hit home how wild London was. “Having meetings in other companies was like doing marijuana and mushrooms in the summer compared to the cave that was London Records,” he says. “If you didn’t know your shit, you’d be hanged at the London convention. It was extreme, but fun, steady.”
Goldie signed to FFRR to release his Timeless album in 1995, and remembers his first meeting there. He said: “I came and parked my car sideways in the double parking space. “I had my pitbull terrier and I went into Pete Tong’s office. The dog came in first and climbed on the seat and I sat next to him. I threw the cassette on the table and said, ‘You have to sign it.’ “But Goldie was paying close attention to Tong’s response as he sang the album’s title track to him. “The fact that Pete sat there for 21 minutes without saying a word, that’s why I signed him,” he says.
Many people talk about the brand who was hardworking and generous despite his hunger for success. Marcella Detroit, of Shakepears Sister, said: “They did things. “They worked hard for us but they made things happen.” Similarly, Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll – who signed a seven-album deal – remembers it as a refuge. He said: “It was a dream. “For a band like us, that makes neurodivergent music for neurodivergent people within dance music, to stop doing what you want, it was amazing.”
Bananarama’s Sara Dallin says the trio also had a bit of autonomy: “People probably thought, ‘There’s three girls, so you’ve got a svengali after them.’ But we knew what we wanted, and we pushed to get what we wanted. It was a lot: this is what we’re doing, this is what we’re wearing, and who we want to work with. “
If there’s one artist who defines being given extra creative license over a script, it’s Goldie. On the 1998 follow-up album Saturnz Return, the opening track, Mother, was an hour long. The launch of the song at the record office ended like a Kill Your Friends poster: “People jump and jump their legs, drink their wine and pray for it to end, but it doesn’t. Reading that scene Goldie almost got kicked off a British Airways flight because she was laughing so madly. “Was it the most criticized work I’ve ever done? Yes. Was he right? Yes. But did I create my opus? I did. When I read Niven’s book, it just reminded me of how arrogant everyone who works in the music industry is, and how the artists believe that what started the film is the only thing that exists.”
Perhaps this great arrogance kept the company from collapsing. Niven remembers “some guys coming into the office in 1994 trying to talk to us about how the Internet would change our business but we didn’t understand, we thought this guy was crazy, and we kicked them out”. It seems that these people want to make money by starting the internet soon. “We found out later, because of the booze, that it was Yahoo,” Niven says. “If we had put 50 grand into Yahoo in 1994 instead of doing the second Menswear album, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d be swimming with dolphins on my own island. Mistakes were made to see what was coming.”
In the late 1990s, the London-based parent company Polygram was sold, some senior staff left and although they continued for a while Bell remembers “the magic was gone”. The label dried up in the 2000s, and despite relaunches with Goldie, Bananarama and Happy Monday, the 90s were still London’s hottest years. Tong said: “It was a great time. “Getting a job in the film business was like getting a job in Hollywood.”
Goldie, who has now stopped shaking, repeats this. “As a record company, it was founded at a time when everything happened at a crossroads,” he recalls. “England music was growing in a way that hadn’t happened since punk music was popular.
