Great Labels of Popular Music

One of the contradictions in my minimal approach to painting are my record shop images and the detail I put into the sleeves. I suppose I don't want to pay short shrift to classic icon imagery that we've all grown up with and the roll they have played in our lives.

For the great moments collection I chose to pay homage to some famous labels and songs, this was the hardest painting I've done, as the research, composition and choices all took so long to get right, I had to work out if the single was an original release. Like 'Green Onions', which has been re released a few times, other acts's songs have been licensed out by different labels, whether it was a UK or USA release and so on.

I had to make compromises too, Atlantic records had a couple of iconic label designs but the single I wanted to highlight, say a little prayer has a rather boring label. One kick I got out of painting the labels was putting the release date and length of the track, it sort of gave the songs more significance, a true moment in history, for instance, one of the greatest songs ever written "god only knows" by the Beach Boys is 2 minutes and 43 seconds of pure genius.

I've put a deliberate wrong-un in the painting, can you spot it? It's a re release that was never a single.