Label Guide: Caroline

Caroline Records was started as a subsidiary of Richard Branson's Virgin Records label in 1973. The label originally specialized in putting out budget-price LPs by mainly progressive rock and jazz artists that were generally not considered to have a great deal of mainstream or commercial appeal, but were often however creatively of great interest.

The Caroline logo was a variation of the Virgin "Twins" logo designed by Roger Dean. By the end of 1976, Caroline Records was discontinued as a record label, but the name was kept alive under the helms of Richard Branson and Virgin. Today, both the US and UK branches of Caroline Records are subsidiaries of Caroline Music, which includes Caroline Distribution and is in turn owned by Universal Music Group. Caroline has or had a number of subsidiary labels including Astralwerks, Gyroscope, Caroline Blue Plate, Rocks the World, Scamp, and Passenger.