Virgin: 28 records that have passed through the crate

The story of Virgin

Virgin was set up in 1972 by Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell and Tom Newman, out of a record shop and a studio in a country house. The first record they release is Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, in 1973, and it sells enough to finance everything else.

From there the label covers nearly everything: punk, new wave, stadium pop and, when the moment comes, electronic music. That last stretch is what explains its presence in a crate like ours.

What we have of Virgin

Twenty-eight references, spread between 1981 and 2007, and mostly house, electro and hard trance. Early-eighties Simple Minds twelve-inches sit alongside Daft Punk maxis: it is the kind of catalogue only a house that has been releasing non-stop for thirty years can have.

The catalogue numbers follow no single pattern — VS, V, numeric series — because they changed several times across the decades and by territory.

The record to start with

How Virgin sounds in our crate

28 different releases on Virgin have passed through beatdo, 41 copies counting duplicates, pressed between 1981 and 2007.

What comes up most often, in this order: House, Electro, and Hard Trance.

Nothing is left in the crate right now, but the listings stay published with their condition, their year and their catalogue number.

The archive: 28 releases on Virgin