Intersound Records was an American independent

record label "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...

that operated in the 1980s and 1990s. The company was founded by industry veteran Don Johnson in 1982, who purchased some assets of

Pickwick Records Pickwick Records was an American record label and British record distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design, Bravo (later changing its name to Internati ...

from its parent company and named his new label Intersound. The company initially focused on releasing licensed recordings of classical music, but gradually moved towards signing contemporary artists until the classical releases, which had once made 95% of the company's revenue, accounted for just 5% of sales. Intersound pursued a unique business model of primarily selling directly to retailers via an in-house distribution system, instead of partnering with a third-party distributor as major labels typically did. Intersound was headquartered in

Roswell, Georgia Roswell is a city in northern Fulton County, Georgia, United States. At the official 2020 census, the city had a population of 92,883, making Roswell the state's ninth largest city. A suburb of Atlanta, Roswell has an affluent National Registe ...

, where it operated a large production and warehousing facility. It became known for its budget recordings and yellow spines with bold,

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...

, all-capital spine titles with stock numbers on a red field. They signed

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

in 1992 and released their albums '' Live at the Whisky'' (1992) and '' Freaks of Nature'' (1995). In 1992, they entered the

world music "World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...

market with their ''Distant Winds'' series. In November 1996,

Platinum Entertainment Platinum Entertainment was an American record label that operated in the 1990s. The company was founded by Steve Devick in 1991, who reorganized his River North Studios recording studio into a record label. The company initially sold primarily go ...

acquired Intersound in a $29 million cash and debt deal. In its last full fiscal year, Intersound has $33 million in revenue, with $3.2 million in gross profit.

References

{{Authority control American record labels Record labels established in 1982 Record labels disestablished in 1996 Companies based in Roswell, Georgia