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allowed to say, ‘I love Steeley Dan, I love Kraftwerk, or I love hip hop.’ So we threw it all in the mix, literally, and Marc said, ‘So, what? You want to start a record label?’ And I said, ‘Yes and it’s going to be called Wall Of Sound.’ That was because I’ve always been affected by the sonics of music.” Although one would assume Jones was a


dedicated Phil Spector fan to have chosen that name for his label, he insists he wasn’t. But he admits: “I’ve always been a fan of his effect on music and what he achieved and what Joe Meek achieved. I’ve always been really into that.” Jones’s label now had a name and its first


release, but it didn’t have any artists. “Without telling anyone, Marc and I went into the studio and we made the first record,” he explains. “It was E-Klektik, Maracana Madness in 1994, which sampled Edmo Zarife, the Brazilian football commentator. [The song starts with him shouting], ‘Gooooaaaall!!!’ Gilles Peterson heard it and played it like four, five times on one show, because he was freaking out and that’s how it all began. The first actual artist on the label was Mekon [John Gosling] and then it went on from there.” The label’s first real chart success came in


the form of Propellerheads’ History Repeating - featuring the powerful vocals of Shirley Bassey. The track peaked at No.1 in the UK Dance Chart and No.19 in the UK Singles Chart. It was also the first time Bassey had appeared in the Top 10 of the US charts since 1973. The track went on to secure several sync placements in TV, advertisements and movies in the subsequent years following its release. “That was our first breaker,” says Jones. “John


Gosling told me to go see this band in Bath and I went down, saw them and just freaked out. Alex [Gifford] and Will [White] are fantastic and just really on it and they wanted to do it their way. There were people sniffing around trying to [sign them], but they came with us. So obviously that broke through massively. It communicated worldwide and the live shows were great.” With its first chart hit, interest in the label and


its artists began to grow as it started to make its mark in the industry. “All of a sudden I had to employ people and we moved offices then it just evolved even more and I had an office in New York. It just got really crazy when it seriously kicked off in the late ‘90s.” Jones reflects on how much the perception of


electronic music has changed since he began putting records out, especially in the United States where audiences were slow to react to the electronic artists emerging in Europe. “When I first started taking music to America,


people just didn’t get it. Most of the majors back in the day didn’t really get it. Then when you say, ‘Well, it evolved here, in Chicago and Detroit and other places,’ and they were like, ‘What?’ “Production-wise, so much more now is electronically influenced, even certain classic guitar rock bands. You hear their album and you go, ‘What?’ There are certain electronic elements on certain classic artists’ albums now and you can hear it. That’s the evolvement of it. And of course, with the ‘EDM’ experience now - obviously what’s happened over in the United States is crazy. It’s kicked off there.” Although Wall Of Sound quickly became


known as a big beats label in the ‘90s, Jones tells Music Week that this description came about because journalists didn’t know what to define the early releases as. “People were saying, ‘What is this? What is this?’ So they invented the terms ‘trip hop’


and then ‘big beat’. So then everything we released was big beat and put in a box. I was like, ‘What are you talking about? This is rubbish.’” Three new labels were subsequently launched


by Jones in response to his frustrations about how the Wall Of Sound releases were being categorised. The new labels were Bad Magic, which focused on hip hop; We Love You, “a guitar and bands label” and Nucamp, “a banging dance label”. “Obviously, people want to put [music] into a box and certain


Zane Lowe Wall Of Sound was the label. Me and my friends would search for the logo. When I first arrived in the UK we became friends with The Dirty Beatniks who were on the label. Just by hanging out with them, you


knew how important the ethos and identity of WOS was to them and the other artists on the team. Its legacy rests on the music.


Röyksopp Congrats on your 111th birthday.


Duke Dumont Happy 20th birthday and thanks for commissioning my first ever remix for Mekon in 2006.


Annie Mac Wall Of Sound had a lot to do with me getting into electronic music. I fell in love with The Wiseguy’s first album Executive Suite, promptly joined the mailing list and had Wall Of Sound flyers all over my bedroom wall as a student in Belfast. Then Les Rhythmes Digitales’ Darkdancer came out and I was a full convert.


Martyn Ware, Heaven 17 / BEF Twenty years is just the end of the beginning for Wall Of Sound. I’m a relative newbie but already I’m excited and confused in equal measure.


Norman Cook I once found myself at a urinal in Smithfield pissing next to Mark Jones and realised we were both pissing in the gene pool of pop music. Viva Wall Of Sound for character-based pop fun.


I Am Kloot Wall Of Sound was the most maverick and creative label we have ever been with and we have been with a few.


Eddy Temple-Morris, Xfm/Secret Garden Wall Of Sound are part of our musical heritage. The label that’s added the most colour to the glorious tapestry that is British alternative music.


Alex Metric Wall Of Sound was absolutely instrumental in making me fall in love with electronic music. As an indie kid, their eclectic attitude and releases blew my mind. I’d never heard dance music like it. From LRD, Zoot Woman and Propellerheads, to Royksopp and The Infadels, these albums shaped my musical mind and started me off on the path I am now on. Rock and Rave!


Banksy Spending time with Wall Of Sound is like being in an epic road movie, without a map. And no road.


Grace Jones Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.


record shops want to have an area that they can put a record,” says Jones. “But it was quite funny because it’s never been about that for me. “I just wanted to give artists the platform to


do what they do. That’s what it’s always been about for me. It’s never been about sitting in a studio saying, ‘Don’t do it like that, do it like this.’ Wall Of Sound has always been about artists being themselves and it’s always been about being the first at something.”


WALL OF SOUND: 20 FRIENDS OF THE LABEL REFLECT ON THE LAST TWO DECADES


Rob Da Bank Twenty years ago I was sat on a cardboard box in a breezy warehouse space enthusiastically stamping logos onto Les Rythmes Digitales seven inches whilst head honcho Mark Jones juggled two phones,


a fax machine and held three other conversations with artists, agents and possibly a bank manager or two. Mark’s charisma, endless energy and relentless work ethic doubtlessly rubbed off on me and have always made me want to be ahead of the game and never look back. I salute Mark for that early break he gave me and I salute Wall Of Sound for hanging in here and still making a difference two decades later.


Jon McClure, Reverend And The Makers Wall Of Sound is a pink runaway train heading full speed to a promised party to end of a long dark tunnel of oddness. There is no buffet cart on board but the company is great and the destination is well worth the ticket price.


Alex Gifford, Propellerheads I can clearly remember the night we first met Mark. After that it gets hazy.


Stuart Price Wall Of Sound offer musical freedom.


Mekon (John Gosling) A well-oiled machine reversing into the future.


The Human League It had always been a long held ambition of ours to work with a label as cool, as avant-garde and as focused as Wall Of Sound, so the fact that they were all great people with an encyclopaedic knowledge of music was just the icing on the cake for us. To be allowed such creative freedom and yet at the same time to be so supported and encouraged is a rare and precious thing for a band. Long may they continue to provide it.


Kids On Bridges Walls have ears, but none as good or pink as Wall Of Sound. It’s always a pure eargasm when you put on one of the label’s tunes. Like all great walls it’s standing the test of time. Here’s to the next 20. If only the rest of the music industry had the vision and passion of Wall Of Sound. Happy anniversary.


Alex Hardee, Coda Agency Mark Jones - an individual, a pioneer, an eccentric, pink.


Steve Tandy, managing director, Copmedia A man like Mark Jones and a label such as Wall Of Sound are both pioneers and one of a kind. Mark was one of the first label bosses to give me chance plugging a chart hit, when I first founded my plugging company, Intermedia back in 1993; with The Propellerheads ft. Dame Shirley! Anybody who loves Carry On Films, Thunderbirds, the colour pink and talks faster and more than I do, is a man you can only admire. Here’s to your next 20 Mr Jones.


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