Clinging to a Label

Well, my instinctive answer would be Matador Records simply for Pavement. Upon further reflection, that seems like a perfect choice for me because I also get Yo La Tengo, Belle & Sebastian, Arab Strap, Boards of Canada, Liz Phair, Mogwai, Pizzicato 5, Pole and the Soft Boys. Plus, there's a lot of band I'm not familiar with but willing to check out: Bardo Pond, Spoon, Silkworm, The For Carnation and Matmos.

matador is actually a decent choice for a modern label, if you include the warp albums they distribute.

my top three:

def jam

tommy boy

motown

i think that'd be enough for a while.

Can I pick "white label"? In all seriousness, tho. I'd go for the new wave stylin's of IRS.

If it was a Desrt Island with lots of big tall deserted buildings and desolate urban landscape, Id take SST. A nice cold artic desert deserves Constillation provided I get a record player as well as a cd player. Otherwise I'd take everything that falls under Beggars Banquet in Canada.

Morr Music

I stuck with everything Slash put out for a while in the mid 80s. For a while, around the same time, OG records in Canada could do no wrong. Matador has been good, though I haven't picked up a new Matador thing in a few years. If I had to pick one, I'd probably wimp out and go for something like 1950s King records, for a good mix of R&B and country on my island.

Matador , Razor and Tie, Ninja Tunes or Bloodshot.

On a desert island, my feeling is that vocals would eventually begin to grate. Basic Channel family, maybe. As a reprieve from nature yet not totally incongruent.

I'm tempted to say something like Virgin, just because there's so much there to sift through - and, you know, they used to be sort of an interesting and challenging label (correct me if I'm wrong).

Also, Brain would capture a lot of amazing German stuff, and a ton of stuff I've never heard but would love to check out. As far as currently operating indie labels, it'd be hard for me to say. Kranky would be pretty great, although they're fairly single-minded (well, more so than a lot of labels), and that might get old after a while. Matador has too many bands I don't care about, and not enough that I feel like I couldn't live without - although a desert island without Boards of Canada isn't a happy thought for me.

I don't know if I could ever come up with an adequate answer for this, so I'm going to (sort of) second Tracer's suggestion and say Chain Reaction, up to about CR #26. I think being stuck with a batch of records indefinitely requires music you can "project" onto (for lack of a decent word.) Something with substance, but blank enough to fit a variety of moods.

Clarke's idea occurred to me too, only my first choice was Columbia. I'd probably have to find out what exactly I could get on the other major labels, but at least with Columbia I know I'd get most of Miles' career, Dylan albums (has he always been on Columbia?), some good Monk, and all kinds of other stuff. They even have a classical division. If I had to pick a more focused label it would probably be jazz or classical - Blue Note, Prestige/Fantasy, Deutsch Grammophon, ECM, etc. But I have a feeling I'd want as much breadth as I could get, which unfortunately means I would not get a lot of my favorite recordings. Like, I like some of the other stuff on Desoto, but if I were stuck in an island I would rather have hundreds of records I would probably like than some Dismemberment Plan and Burning Airlines records and whatever else I got, e.g.

at various times in the past this may have been Blast First, Creation (eek!), Warp, Suburban Base, R&S, Wurlitzer Jukebox, Harthouse, and probably plenty of others.

overall though, for sheer volume if nothing else, i think i'll have to stick with Rephlex

ESP - Albert Ayler and the Godz!

10 years ago, this answer would have been easy: Creation, 4AD, Factory. Before that, it might have included Rough Trade and SST.

So clearly, I go for the smaller labels which typify the sort of music that I like strategy.

Now... this answer is practically impossible for me to answer. Although there are labels which do typify what I'm looking for in music (Kranky, Rocket Girl) the vast profusion of indie labels and music available is too much to distill down to only three labels. And, indeed the multi-conglomerate majors have swallowed up so many smaller labels that it's impossible to tell what is what any more. I mean, honestly, if I said WEA, Sony and EMI, I'd have, basically, all music ever recorded, wouldn't I?

yeh, Rocket Girl may have figured at one time (even if just to have Low Birth Weight!), but hearing that 2cd comp is disappointing.

incidentally, why are anniversary label comps (of labels you like) so disappointing? (darla, warp, matador, rocket girl, kranky) even the rephlex one was a bit of a let down (although at £4.99 and with that great d'archangelo track, still worth getting)

Hey, the Matador comp rocked!

The Warp influences disc was pretty cool. Though I suppose it wasn't a compilation of the bands on the label.

i thought the ninja tune comp was fantastic.