A Geffen Records Discography

In the beginning...

The Geffen label made its debut in September 1980 with the release of "The Wanderer," the lead-off single from the forthcoming Donna Summer album of the same name; the album itself followed a month later. Though ostensibly an independent label, Geffen Records relied upon Warner Bros. Records for financing and distribution throughout its first decade of existence...a fact that manifested itself in its catalogue numbering system.

In 1980, Warners used a "BSK" prefix to indicate albums with a $7.98 list price and "HS" to indicate highline $8.98 albums. Since Geffen's slate of new releases was dominated by hyped records from big-name artists, they invariably fell into the $8.98 category. A "G" for Geffen was tacked on, creating a "GHS" prefix. (Warners' "M5" prefix for cassettes similarly became "M5G" for Geffen.) "GHSP" releases were pricier still, and listed at $9.98.

Although Geffen singles were interspersed in the same numbering series as other WB-affiliated labels, Warners made the effort to allocate Geffen its very own series for albums starting at the number 2000...a number that would lead to issues a few years down the road.

A conflict of numbers...

Remember what I said about the 2000 series causing issues? As it turns out, this was not a clean slate of numbers: Warners' Reprise label had used the same series in the 1960s and 1970s. The lowest-numbered items in this series had belonged to albums that were obscure and long out-of-print by the 1980s, so duplication was not initially an issue. As numbers in the Geffen series racked up, however, they began to collide with best-selling catalogue albums by artists like Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell. Geffen began selectively skipping blocks of numbers to avoid conflicts, which held them for a little while...

Enter the 4000 series...or is that 24000?

In 1983, Geffen releases were shifted over to a new block of numbers in the 4000 series, eliminating any worry of numeric duplication. With a few changes in formatting and corporate ownership along the way, this series lasted to the end of Geffen's existence as an autonomous label.

This era was not free of numbering-related idiosyncrasies, however. In late 1982, the parent Warner Bros. label had reformatted its numbering system by eliminating prefixes, adding a leading "2" or "9 2" to four-digit numbers, and incorporating a UPC-derived suffix to denote the format: A record that would have been "BSK 3676" under the old system became "23676-1" or "9 23676-1" under the new system. Geffen however dug in its heels, retaining four-digit numbers all the way into 1984 and keeping its archaic "GHS" and "M5G" prefixes all the way through to the end of Warner Bros. distribution. Compact Disc releases, however, acquiesced to the new format immediately.

More numbers, more labels...

After six years of existence as an label distributed by Warner Bros., Geffen began to be a distributor itself for select releases from Rick Rubin's Def Jam label in 1986. Rubin formed Def American Records in 1988, and their releases were also distributed by Geffen and incorporated into the Geffen numbering series.

Not to be outdone, Geffen in 1990 created a new subsidiary label called "DGC." DGC's grounds for existence were tenuous: The label was obviously nothing more than Geffen Records under a slightly different name. The logo even said "David Geffen Company" under it, so they weren't even trying to fool anyone. Making things even more ridiculous, DGC product continued to be released on Geffen outside of North America. Even so, DGC managed to cultivate a reputation in the 1990s as a haven for "alternative" and "indie" bands, while Geffen per se became oriented more towards "legacy" artists.

Enter MCA...

In 1990 Geffen Records was approaching its tenth year of operation...and David Geffen, its namesake and sole owner, wanted out. Predictably, a bidding war broke out. When the dust cleared, Geffen Records had been sold to the Music Corporation of America in exchange for $550 million of preferred stock.

Though the sale did not immediately affect Geffen's autonomy as a label, it did have an effect on catalogue numbers. With MCA assuming distribution of Geffen product in 1991, MCA-style prefixes were established for all new releases: "GEFD" or "DGCD" for Compact Disc, and "GEFC" or "DGCC" for cassettes. (Vinyl albums were all but dead in 1991, but the few that came out were prefixed "GEF" or "DGC.") Back-catalogue product soldiered on with the same numbers in the same packaging it had before, but any "Warner Bros." references in the fine print were changed to "MCA" and the Warner Bros. "07599" UPC prefix was changed to "72064."

The MCA deal also marked the end of Geffen's relationship with Def American Records, which continued to be distributed by Warner Bros. into the second half of the 1990s.

Not quite a (Re)union...

No sooner had the ink dried on Geffen's MCA deal, when the label found itself with another subdistribution arrangement on its hands: Reunion Records, a label focused on "contemporary Christian" music.

American "contemporary Christian" culture essentially consists of sequestering oneself from unwanted perspectives and diversity, and the record business is no exception. Most CCM labels of the day had split distribution arrangements, with one company handling "Christian" accounts and another handling the oh-so-vulgar "secular" markets. As a result, just about every Reunion record that Geffen distributed had a parallel release with a different catalogue number, and a fair amount of their product had been previously rehashed on other record labels.

The Reunion arrangement ended almost as soon as it began: The company was sold in 1992 to BMG.

The mystery of the missing numbers...

In the mid-1990s, Geffen appears to have picked up a peculiar habit of skipping over large blocks of numbers in the catalogue series...sometimes at a rate of dozens at a time.

Where did these numbers go? Given their contiguous nature, it seems far-fetched that they all belonged to cancelled releases. Perhaps the records managers or accountants at the company know the answer to this mystery. Because I sure don't...

25000 ho!

Geffen Records reached the monumental catalogue numbering milestone of 25000 (or technically, 25001) in 1996. Which meant...nothing, really. Other than that the company had managed to withstand 13 years and counting without a major sequencing change.

David Geffen himself had stepped down from the label by this time.

The label's end...and afterlifes.

When Geffen sold to MCA in 1990, the fate of the label became forever tied to the fate of an capitalistic entity larger than itself.

MCA was sold to Matsushita (a.k.a. Panasonic), then resold to Seagram...an unusual buyer if there ever was one. MCA was also formally renamed "Universal Studios, Inc.," and its record division "Universal Music Group." Initially, these changes had little impact at the label level. The record industry was riding high in the 1990s, and it was Business As Usual at Geffen and Universal as suits rearranged the chairs on the upper floors.

Seagram at the time was run by Edgar Bronfman, an executive determined to diversify by hook or by crook, whatever it took. And if running one music business was good for the firm, how about two? First, Bronfman set his sights on EMI...but EMI wasn't for sale. Then, PolyGram came into the picture. PolyGram was huge, particularly in Europe. It controlled labels like Mercury, Island, and A&M. And like MCA three years before, the company was owned by an electronics giant that wanted out.

In May 1998, Universal announced that it would acquire PolyGram for a gargantuan $10.6 billion. This time, however, it would not be Business As Usual. PolyGram and Universal had too much redundancy; too many expensive "boutique" projects; too many labels undergoing dry spells. $10.6 billion was a huge amount of money, and the suits wanted a return.

On January 15, 1999, the other shoe dropped and the shotgun merger commenced. Over 3,000 staff received pink slips on one day. Entire label operations that had thrived for decades were consolidated and shuttered. Geffen Records was shorn of its staff, offices, and A&R...and so were their cross-town rivals at A&M. Both had their trademarks and artist contracts transferred to Interscope...a fledgling label that hadn't even existed ten years earlier. Such ended the tale of two established names in music, with the longer-established A&M arguably the more tragic loss.

Yet somehow, that wasn't the end of the story. In 1999, 2000, and later, Interscope continued to crank out albums bearing the Geffen and DGC logos...both for established Geffen artists (such as Peter Gabriel and the Counting Crows) and for new talent. And that's how things have remained, through to the present day.

In a strange and ironic twist, Geffen was then consolidated with onetime parent label MCA...with the consolidated operation taking on the Geffen name, and being extended to back-catalogue product! Suddenly, decades-old Decca, Coral, and Kapp material from the MCA vaults started showing up in record stores bearing the logic-defying Geffen logo. And that's how things have remained, through to the present day.

So, in summary: Geffen Records no longer exists in anything other than an "in name only" sense, but Bill Haley and Buddy Holly are now Geffen artists. That's one thing I never counted on in 2003!