Capitol Records Vinyl, CDs & Cassettes

Capitol Records was founded in 1942 by songwriter Johnny Mercer, Hollywood producer Buddy DeSylva, and music store owner Glenn Wallichs, making it the first major record label built on the West Coast at a time when New York had a lock on the industry. That origin point, outside the establishment, with a songwriter at the center of it, shaped the label's character in ways that carried forward for decades.

The roster Capitol assembled over the following eighty-plus years is one of the most recognizable in popular music. Frank Sinatra's earliest work as a solo artist. Nat King Cole, whose Capitol recordings remain definitive. The Beach Boys built California rock into something genuinely new. The Beatles, whose American releases through Capitol turned the entire music industry upside down in 1964. Judy Garland. Dean Martin. Glen Campbell. The Band. Jimi Hendrix through the Capitol years. Pink Floyd. Beastie Boys. Coldplay.

The label's iconic circular tower on Hollywood and Vine, one of the most recognizable buildings in Los Angeles, has been a physical anchor for all of it, a place where the mythology of American popular music and the actual making of records happened in the same building at the same time.

Shopping Capitol's catalog is essentially shopping the history of the American pop canon. Whatever you're looking for, there's a decent chance it passed through this label at some point.