White label record

Promotional copies are for distribution to journalists, music distributors or radio stations in order to assess consumer opinion.

In some cases plain white labels are issued to conceal artist identities (examples of this include songs by Traci Lords and La Toya Jackson), whose record companies issued white labels so that DJs would have no pre-conceived notions about the music from the artist name.

In the early 1990s, hardcore techno and house artists created tracks in home or local studios and had five-hundred or a few thousand singles pressed on 12" white labels, which were easy to sell at dance music record stores.

White labels are referred to as "promos" (short for "promotional copies") that many top-name DJs receive and play weeks or months prior to the day of general release to the public.

As artists using samples pay high fees for the privilege of such, they must be able to gauge the market potential of their tracks prior to approval.