The history and the discography of the Island Records label can conveniently be divided into three phases: Blackwell released 28 singles and three LPs in this period.
The first Island "white and red" label was used mainly for Jamaican productions released in the United Kingdom.
For a variety of reasons details of the artists and songs printed on the labels do not always match what is actually to be found in the grooves of the record!
It coincided with the introduction of a new pink label design (chosen, according to label founder and owner Chris Blackwell, "because it created a clear break from our Jamaican years") and the "P" in WIP is variously said to stand for "Pink" or "Progressive",[7] reflecting the fact that this new series was geared towards the new generation of rock/pop acts that Island had begun to accumulate from early 1967 onwards, as well as artists from its traditional roster who were being oriented towards the rock/pop audience, such as Jackie Edwards and Jimmy Cliff.
Major UK top twenty singles' chart success for the label came very early in the WIP series, with WIP-6002 – Traffic's "Paper Sun" (#5, 6/1967),[4] a classic slice of British psychedelia released just in time for the "summer of love", but quite a high proportion of the early WIP-series output was by artists who failed to develop as anticipated (e.g. Hard Meat, The Smoke) or represented one-off licensing deals with artists who never again appeared in the Island listings (e.g. WIP-6001, WIP-6013, etc.).
"A" and "B" sides were clearly delineated on this early series of pink label singles, thus: WIP-6050-A (Traffic's "Medicated Goo") and WIP-6050-B (the same band's "Shanghai Noodle Factory").
Henceforward, singles' sides were not usually identified as "A" or "B", but each bore a unique matrix number in a series starting at wipx 1002.
The matrix numbers seem to have been allocated to each release in numerical sequence, irrespective of the actual or proposed release date of the record; thus the two sides of WIP-6056 (Jethro Tull's "Living In The Past" b/w "Driving Song") have matrix numbers wipx 1010 and wipx 1011, respectively.
These early Chrysalis singles were allotted catalogue and matrix numbers in the main Island WIP and wipx series, respectively, and bore the legend "manufactured and distributed by island records basing st london" on the upper circumference of the label.
Four track EPs in the 1960s For LPs the label chose the prefix ILP (meaning: Island Long Player) with a number of three figures beginning with 900, later supplemented by ILPS (meaning: Island Long Player Stereo) to distinguish between Mono and Stereo records.
This was very quickly replaced by the third pink label, featuring a small white letter i logo.
Due to variations in catalogue number assignation and the actual release dates of the records, there is a small cross-over period between the three pink label designs.
During the same period Island Records released some sampler albums with the prefixes IWP/IWPS: The first release in 1970, WIP-6075, had the "block" label design, but the very next one, "John The Baptist" by John & Beverley Martyn, featured a third pink label design, characterised by a large white letter "i" on the left-hand side.
In the second half of the decade the character of the label began to change and this is reflected in its singles releases from about 1976 onwards.
There was a conscious move back towards the label's roots in Jamaican music in the form of commercial reggae aimed at the rock/pop audience.
Names such as Bob Marley & the Wailers, Toots & the Maytals and Third World crop up in the listings with increasing frequency.
There is evidence too of an increasing number of one-off licensing deals featuring (mainly American) soul and R & B singers (e.g. Barbara Pennington and Betty Davis).
Island also joined a growing trend amongst U.K.-based record companies at that time towards exploitation of its own back catalogue,[18] and a substantial programme of reissues was undertaken, especially of ska and reggae titles, most of which seem to have been aimed at a small, specialist audience and did not enjoy widespread commercial success.
Artists included the Dwight Twilley Band, J.J. Cale and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the last-named of whom enjoyed some success on the coat-tails of punk.
Finally, the Black Swan label was reactivated for certain reggae-styled releases, some of which appeared with WIP-series numbers.
For reasons of continuity, this section of the discography also includes singles numbered in the WIP 6xxx series which were released between 1980 and 1983.)
IDJ was a limited edition series for related releases on the colourful Island label.
Possibly as a result of a pressing plant change, Jethro Tull's Chrysalis album Benefit was also pressed on the pink rim/palm tree Island label sometime between November 1970 (when that label design went into use) and July 1973 (when Tull's first four albums, including Benefit, were reissued in the Chrysalis CHR 1000 LP series).
Pressing was then switched to EMI Records before, in late 1975, moving to an unknown, budget manufacturer.
During this period Island regained some more important artists on its roster and continued to release 20 to 50 albums a year.
This series was used for soundtrack albums that were released on the label and also on a sublabel called Island Visual Arts.
The albums were compiled by Trevor Wyatt, the covers were illustrated by various artists on the basis of paintings and contain extensive liner notes.
Soon after the company started to release new CDs and to re-release older material with the CID prefix and the "ILPS" catalogue numbers.
The series that started in the late 1980s continued in the first half of the 1990s releasing more material from Island's back catalogue.
More titles had been reissued in 1995, while the parent label changed at least for the European releases from Island to Mango.