Factory Records - The Haçienda - Manchester - Record Label - Nightclub - Tony Wilson

Credit: Far Out / YouTube Stills / Factory Records

Who was signed to Factory Records?

Thu 15 February 2024 8:00, UK

There are few labels more famous or more fabled than Factory Records. Set up in the late 1970s by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, the name would soon become an institution in Manchester’s music history. It provided a home to some of the city’s biggest musical exports from across the burgeoning post-punk scene and the Madchester dance sphere, alongside running one of the most iconic and least profitable venues around – The Haçienda.

Between yellow-striped membership cards and precisely catalogued chaos, the reputation of Factory Records rested on genuine talent. The first release from the label, A Factory Sample, featured tracks from post-punk pioneers Joy Division, the underrated ambience of The Durutti Column, Sheffield electronic experimentalists Cabaret Voltaire, and comedian John Dowie. It was a stellar introduction to the record, one that set their legacy into motion.

In the years that followed, the label would become closely associated with Joy Division and, consequently, New Order, with money from the success of ‘Blue Monday’ being used to support the frenzied financial state of The Haçienda. Other well-known and well-loved Manchester-born artists who contributed to the image of the label throughout the years included A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, and Happy Mondays, the latter of which walked the line between indie and dance.

Although most people associate the label with that roster of beloved Mancunians and northwest creatives, Factory Records provided a home to musicians from across the globe. Their roster extended far beyond the red-brick northern city, up to the skyscrapers of New York and into the streets of Berlin. The label put out music from the likes of ESG and Konk, both hailing from the Big Apple, while releases from slightly closer to home ranged from The Names in Belgium to Shark Vegas in Berlin.

The label also wasn’t constrained by genre. Following the inclusion of Dowie on their inaugural release, Factory put out the work of yodeller Karl Denver after he worked with Happy Mondays. They also ventured into the classical world with Factory Classical, though composers who contributed to this side of the label have been omitted from the list.

The Factory Records label expanded further when Factory Records turned into Factory Too after the label declared bankruptcy in the early 1990s.

How did Factory Records go bust?

By 1992, 13 years after the label’s first release in 1979, Factory Records found themselves in a dire financial situation, which was only worsened by the demands of some of their biggest names. The Haçienda was a money sinkhole, plagued by crime, so New Order and Factory Records banded together to record Republic in hopes that it would revitalise the company.

Although the album would spawn hits like ‘Regret’ and won the band a number one spot, it supposedly cost Factory Records hundreds of thousands to create and wasn’t quite enough to save the label.

The Happy Mondays racked up an equally damning bill with their fourth record, Yes Please!, which they insisted on recording in Barbados. Between their drug-fuelled recording sessions, the money-draining Haçienda, and a failed last attempt to save the label by London Records, the fate of Factory had been sealed.