Founded in Germany between the wars as the popular music arm of the long-established Deutsche Grammophon label, the Polydor label was introduced when contractural disputes over the Deutsche Grammophon name prevented them being sold outside Germany. With the arrival of the 12″ long play album, in 1952 Polydor was designated Deutsche Grammophon’s popular music outlet and concentrated on light orchestral, brass and organ music. Their best known artists (at the time) were orchestra leaders like James Last, Bert Kaempfert (who also did arrangement and production for many acts on Polydor), pianist Crazy Otto (who did lots of strangely packaged albums for the label) and others.
Redesigned in 1962 and used into the 80s.
Polydor also produced topographical themed music albums celebrating European cities and foreign countries. This sort of easy listening music seemed to cross most boundaries and was equally popular in the UK – many of these albums had English and German text on the sleeve back.
Polydor’s first logo
The early Polydor logo with the scroll used on these albums was redesigned and modernised in 1964. They kept the original typeface, but ran it horizontally below the graphic. This clean looking logo was so functional and recognisable it was retained through until the late 1980s.
There is a nice 1950s Polydor 45 sleeve on the site in Singles Gallery 3.
ST33 