The CBS Records Triangle
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Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5488
Printed Date: 25 April 2025 at 1:32am
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Topic: The CBS Records Triangle
Posted By: eric_a
Subject: The CBS Records Triangle
Date Posted: 13 April 2010 at 6:54pm
This question has been bugging me for years - hopefully someone can answer this. For years, back in the 1980s and maybe early 1990s, certain Columbia/Epic LPs had a logo on Side 1, with a triangle within a circle. See attached:
Does anyone know what this was or its significance? |
Replies:
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 13 April 2010 at 7:19pm
| Satan! |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 14 April 2010 at 5:20am
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Likewise Columbia & Epic 45s had a "black sun" (for lack of a better description) on their 45s in the mid-ish 70s ('74-75 time frame). Anyone know what that was all about?
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Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 14 April 2010 at 7:40am
I always thought of it more as an oversized asterisk, but that's a good description. When the list price of 45s rose from 98˘ to $1.29 in 1974, the CBS Records Group used the symbol to designate which releases carried the new $1.29 price. Older titles remained at 98˘ until 1976, when they, too, went to $1.29, and the black sun set. CBS also used the black sun on http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh240/YahShure/BobDylan-HurricaneDJ33fullversion.jpg - promo 45s which, no doubt, alerted those dealers selling promo 45s that they needed to charge more. ;) As for the triangle-in-a-circle, I thought it was a hazardous waste warning symbol. ;) Seriously, I thought it signified a stylus superimposed on a vinyl record... that is, until it began showing up on CBS CDs, too. There was a recent thread on the mysterious triangle on the Steve Hoffman boards, but no one came up with a definitive answer. |
Hykker wrote:Posted By: 995wlol
Date Posted: 14 April 2010 at 10:41am
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This question has been discussed extensively on the Steve Hoffman forums (18 pages without a definitive answer).
http://stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=199374&highlight=symbolad.php?t=199374&highlight=symbol - http://stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=199374&highli ght=symbol |
Posted By: TomDiehl1
Date Posted: 14 April 2010 at 1:59pm
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I remember seeing it on cassette singles when I was a kid, as well (showing up on both sides of the cassette) -- even some free via mail sampler cassettes had the symbol on it.... ------------- Live in stereo. |
Posted By: mjb50
Date Posted: 01 November 2021 at 10:10pm
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They're up to 65 pages on the https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/symbol-on-mid-80s-cbs-records-releases.100974/ - Steve Hoffman forums thread , and still no closer to figuring out the true meaning(s) of this mysterious symbol.
Given that it only appears on side 1 of many LPs, or on what is ostensibly the plug side of promo 12"s, I would think it's a side designation, or maybe just "start here" (triangle pointing to the first track). But if that were true, surely someone would have confirmed it by now; I mean, if no DJs can say that's what it was, then it seems unlikely to be the real explanation (unless CBS were just really bad at communicating this expectation). And then there's the fact that it doesn't appear on 7" releases (or does it?), and it does appear on many CD albums, but inconsistently on CD singles. Anyway I'm bumping this thread in hopes that maybe someone else out there has something to add. |
Posted By: vanmeter
Date Posted: 02 November 2021 at 7:37am
| I work in the industry and can tell you nobody there now knows, either, at least in the people that I routinely associate with. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 02 November 2021 at 7:47am
I found this online:
http://www.keithhirsch.com/cd-gallery/other - http://www.keithhirsch.com/cd-gallery/other ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 02 November 2021 at 7:55am
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The Hoffman crew has already debunked the DADC theory as inaccurate. It took them only about 10.5 seconds to reply! ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 02 November 2021 at 1:17pm
That's slow for them! |
Posted By: Stanko
Date Posted: 02 November 2021 at 7:52pm
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This is one of those mysteries we might never get an answer to (but
someone obviously knows) like what the prefix letters for RCA catalog numbers stood for (AHL1, AFL1, etc) |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 03 November 2021 at 1:13pm
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Wow, I forgot I had started this thread.
By chance, just a few weeks after that post, I started working part-time at Sony Music during grad school. While I found some fellow music nerds at SME who were aware of the mystery, no one knew the answer. |