Useless trivia - When did bar codes appear on LP covers?

OK... Here's a nagging question for fans of useless trivia...

When did UPC bar codes start getting slapped on the back of LP covers?

I was looking through my albums and found a couple of interesting things. I have a couple of Level 42 LPs dating from the early 1980s. "The Pursuit of Accidents" is a German pressing (Polydor, 1982) which has no bar code. But, my copy of "True Colours" from England (Polydor, 1984) does have a bar code.

Burning useless trivia questions:

Did all record companies start putting bar codes on LPs at the same time?
Did it start in one country in particular?
What were the earliest LPs or labels to use bar codes?

I think that this was the "beginning of the end" for cover art since it wasn't long after this that we got the wonderful tiny CD cover size.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Believe it or not, I've often wondered about this myself! My guess would be 1983/84, certainly for the UK. I think it depended on the record company and even then it's inconsistent.

For example, I've got some Beatles LPs pressed by EMI in 1986 that are not bar-coded, yet my copy of Duran Duran's "Notorious" LP (also on EMI) is bar-coded and that was purchased in 1984.

A few LPs I own from as late as 1987 don't have bar-codes although I think it had become commonplace by then though.

I agree with your comment about CD-sized covers killing album artwork...and albums made before the CD age suffered real bad when they went from LP size to jewel case size. The Beatles LP covers are a prime example. Oh boy, what they did to those covers

 

Scattered titles in 1980, more in 1981, and much more common by 1982. Even so, some smaller labels didn't use bar codes at all, didn't give a damn(to this day, my local newspaper does not have a bar code; most regional and metro papers do). Later on, though, even the smaller indies did use bar codes, though most of the stores I frequented regularly weren't equipped to scan them anyway.

It also has always been title-selective: even some major label Lp's didn't carry barcodes on the covers; some had them stickered to the shrink.

Since bar codes appeared on the back cover(didn't Dave Davies or someone make a joke of that and put a big fat one on the front?), I never found them the eyesore that putting a barcode on a 45 label was! That bugged me far beyond anything put on an Lp. I feel the same about the bar codes on the back of CD's: no big deal, who notices anymore? Most audiophile Lp's do not carry bar codes; at least, my Norah Jones vinyl doesn't(might have had it on the wrap, though).

But, no, the labels didn't start in with bar codes at the same time; it was gradual, and I don't remember who started it first. Today it means more than it did then, since Nielsen/SoundScan's sales tracking depends almost exclusively on barcode scanning.

ED

 

Devo's "Duty Now for the Future" had bar codes all over it. Flipper's "Generic Album" also had a bar code on the front. I think that PIL's "Album" also had a bar code on it, too. I don't own that one to check.

I have some CDs where the bar code is prited on the spine so it doesn't clutter up the back cover.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Barcodes and vinyl just don't go together. It's like the printing of a barcode on an LP cover was a sign of the apocalypse coming. It's just not right.

Many early CDs were released without barcodes, and I love that. However, it seems like barcodes and CDs are a natural fit. You know, digital and computer technology and all.

 

Dave's first solo lp from 1980.

mud-

 

Thanks, Mud. My memory's not dead yet. Those early '80s Lp's are still carefully stored away until I can build the shelves for them.

ED

 

Evening Ed!

How about the LARGE & Tacky barcode on 45s. I can see it in my mind...who was it COLUMBIA...yeah, for Aerosmith or Billy Joel or Paul McCartney. I'd have to go through the collection to be sure which (maybe all?).

 

Continuing on that "train" of thought, the first barcode on an LP I remember was Bob Dylan's "Slow Train Comin'". At the time, I thought it was a "statement".

 

Bill, talk about irony. However, that (digital) train sure built up some steam fast, huh?

 

Good Evening, Pat!

The 45 situation in the '80s became terminal; big barcodes on the sides. Into the late '90s and the fall of 45's, what were left have no barcodes, mostly. How else to explain Capitol's 'FOR JUKEBOXES ONLY' exclamation in place of the barcode?

But recently(2001)..Audioslave's "Cochise" turned up with the barcode not on the label, but on the heavy paper Epic picture sleeve. This is now the norm for the handful of Sony 45's being released.

I'd like to say that means there's hope, but, current hit 45's from anywhere are dwindling fast.


ED

 

The first U.S. LPs with bar codes were from CBS (Columbia & Epic) in 1979. Then, over time, CBS went back and added a bar code to pretty much all their old LPs that were still in print. (That's one good way to spot a reissue of, say, Wish You Were Here, The Stranger or Journey's Infinity ... originals don't have bar codes.)

I remember Devo's second album, Duty Now for the Future, from 1979, had a cover design with dozens of bar codes on it; I can't remember if this LP (on Warner Bros.) had one for real!

CBS also introduced the bar code to the 45 rpm label in early 1983 with "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" by Journey. That at first was an exception, but by the fall of '83 most, if not all, CBS 45s had bar codes on the labels. The WEA labels added bar codes (and still have them to this day) several years later, as did the PolyGram labels. A&M didn't have a bar code on the label until 1990, by which time it was a PolyGram label. MCA's and RCA/BMG's 45s didn't have bar codes until well into the 1990s. As Ed said, some labels never did put bar codes on the labels (Capitol, even in the pre-"For Jukeboxes Only!" era, didn't have them on the labels).

 

This is a follow up to Tim's post (which I spoken to him about) is that the first LP in the US to have a barcode is...

Elvis Costello - Armed Forces. (1979)

Mark P.

 

Well, whaddya know. I just checked my Canadian pressing of this LP which I bought when it was released. It's got the bar code. Well spotted!

Cheers,
Chris

 

Like Ed and Tim have mentioned, I first spotted bar codes on the LPs I purchased back in '79 and '80.

 

I first remember seeing them in late 1978.

 

I had picked up my copy of Heart's Little Queen in 1981, and even thought the LP was originally released in '77 (CBS's Portrait label), this one had a barcode on the back. It was obviously not originally suppose to be there - victim of a later cover printing run.

Joel

 

The barcode itself was around a lot longer in one form or another.

History of Barcodes

 

I remember a buddy of mine saying back around 1981 or '82 that one reason he was buying UK LP imports was that they didn't ruin the cover art with bar codes like the domestic pressings.

Interesting sidenote: many promo CDs still do not have bar codes on the covers.

Ken

 

Promo CDs shouldn't have bar codes, period. Bar codes are for tracking sales... if an item isn't going to be sold, there's no point in having a bar code.

Having said that, I do recall a certain UK label that loved to lie about "for promotion only" as an obvious marketing gimmick. The product not only had bar codes, but was widely available in the stores...

 

I've got a fair number of UK releases where they actually managed to tastefully incorporate the barcode into the design of the sleeve.

The Factory label was particularly good at this, as were several of Erasure's 12" singles.

You could argue that catalog numbers, company/publishing logos, and copyright details "ruin" the cover art just as much as a barcode...

 

I was just looking for bar code history info and ran across this interesting discussion, what a great forum this is!

 

Didn't Graham Nash raise hell and switch labels to Capitol (from Atlantic?) when his original label wanted to put a big ol' barcode on the back cover of Earth And Sky (1979)?

 

I remember this from Dave Zimmer's CSN book, yes.