Cherry Red

patientot 23. Jan. 2026

Vor 2 Monaten bearbeitet

Very hit or miss label, especially from the 2000s onward.

If it's an instance where the band was heavily involved and insisted on tapes being pulled or had their own tapes - then the end result can sometimes be a lot better, especially if the band used their own mastering engineer instead of whomever the label suggested.

Likewise if the label just clones an older CD and doesn't touch the audio too much - that can also be fine.

Where things go really wrong is when the tapes are in a major-owned archive, but the label is simply too cheap to pay to have them pulled and digitally transferred. We found out this was a common practice from an insider that has done work for the label.

In many cases it costs around $700-1000 to get a reel of tape pulled and transferred (independent of licensing fees) - money that could easily be crowdfunded by fans - but the label is still too cheap and lazy to do things right. In one instance they were too cheap to buy an old copy of an album on CD for $20 or less and clone it, and instead used a really crappy needledrop job for an entire album.

On the mastering front, many releases since 2000 or so have had unnecessary amounts of heavy limiting and compression applied. Basically anything done by one of "go to" mastering engineers they use nowadays is likely to have a huge chunk of the dynamic range sucked out compared to earlier versions.

Research before buying on a case by case basis before spending any money if you care about sound quality at all.

TimBucknall 25. Okt. 2025

Do i (or whoever) need to create a profile for èl records to add the Return to tommorow (ACME3CD377) compilation or can it be added to the cherry red listings? Or ACME listings?? Jesus there’s so many label names on this thing what do i do with it? 😂

ShowbizSam 5. Juni 2025

Vor 10 Monaten bearbeitet

Biggest criticism of Cherry Red is this.

You buy rights to low-level interest indie-pop stuff and put it out once, on CD only, and then it disappears and it starts costing silly amounts on here. If the band then seeks permission from you to do a minimal pressing on vinyl by themselves, just to make it available again and probably not even break even on it, you will demand so much money that the band can't afford to do a collectable vinyl pressing of 500 or less.

This is often a last chance before retirement, for just a few hundred of their biggest fans who need to replace things that are damaged or have disappeared from their collections.

This isn't what I would expect from you, and shouting from the hilltops about being an "indie" label is null and void when you take out a membership for an organisation like the RIAA and have them police the back catalogue of obscure C86/punk bands as if they're Metallica.

Play the game, Cherry Red. Be better. If you own the rights, and you won't repress it when the band approaches you, do the decent thing and let fans buy the music for a reasonable price courtesy of a band doing a self-released small-scare vinyl pressing. It's only right.

If you own the rights, and you have no stock, and you won't press it up again, you have no moral grounds to ask for rights fees from bands who'll do it themselves. Where's your DIY spirit?

And reissue those Denim and GoKart Mozart albums on vinyl. This was promised ages ago.

Please let availability to buy be your number one priority, and best wishes to you..

dex.cotton 4. Okt. 2024

Awesome company. Love their re-releases. My only two complaints are that they should do second runs of out of print releases (such as Kylie Minogue's PWL albums) and include more 7" Versions of songs on their disco album re-releases.

Other than that their reissues are usually comprehensive, have amazing sound and are decently priced. They are one of the best labels out there that are dedicated to music preservation.

Will continue to buy many more releases from them in the future. Thank you for everything!

do-re-pb 1. Juli 2024

as long as i keep getting all those non album b sides cherry red will be number one in my heart,

devotown 25. Aug. 2023

I wish I could work at Cherry Red just to receive one of everything they release. Between them and their subsidiary labels, they outpace any other reissue label on the planet!

kanduboy80 4. Okt. 2022

any reissuer is hit and miss , good and bad , always disappointed not to get all non abum b sides. do any of us want instrumentals , dubs, single edits ?

ceniqq 30. März 2022

the music/re-issues are very compressed/brickwalled! get the original pressings if possible.

homesliceuk 16. Juni 2019

A great reissuer, and generally positive experience with them.

CDs are reasonable price, with great extras. I also had one that would not play, and they sent out a replacement with no issues.

However, the vinyl I have purchased from them has been scratched from the plant (others have warped versions). Since they are small runs, they only offer to refund them. IMHO, they need to look at their pressing plant. I very rarely get this with new records, and it's 2 for 2 with Cherry Red. Anecdotal, but there you go....