A subsidiary of Virgin, dedicated to Reggae music. The advent of Front Line was announced in 'Music Week' of the 4th of February 1978, which said that the new label had been named after a Virgin Reggae sampler album from 1976 and that it was to be dedicated to 'New Reggae talent and others outside the Virgin mainstream'. In the event the 'others' didn't get a look-in and the label was devoted entirely to Reggae, mainly of the 'Roots' variety. Not all of that talent was 'new' but Front Line had a lot of prominent artists in its roster, including the likes of U-Roy, Culture, Big Youth and Gregory Isaacs, to name but four. It put out nearly fifty albums in the two years of its existence, and also issued some twenty-six singles, some of which were only available in the 12" form which was popular at that time. The singles were numbered in an FLS-100 series. Manufacture and distribution of Front Line records were by CBS, as they were for Virgin itself during that period.
Front Line's second mention in 'MW' was, sadly, its obituary. The issue of the 10th of May 1980 noted that it had been scrapped, and that five of the artists on it had been transferred to the main Virgin label. According to the article the last Front Line release had been in November of the previous year; white-labelled copies of a 1980 12" single by Twinkle Brothers, 'Never Get Burn' b/w 'Jah Kingdom Come' (FLS 127 12) exist, but it failed to get past the promo stage and the album from which it was taken came out on Virgin. In terms of Singles Chart success Front Line failed to bring Reggae to a wider public but it put together an enviable catalogue of influential album releases, many of which have been reissued in various formats down the years. Two label designs were used: the initial 'fist' label (1), which borrowed the artwork from the cover of the 1976 sampler, lasted until FLS-117; from FLS-118 onwards it was replaced with a yellow label bearing a strong family resemblance to the corresponding Virgin label of the time (2). The 'fist' label was also used on a one-off single from 2013 which featured a couple of previously unreleased tracks by Culture, 'Burning' and 'Can't Study The Rastaman'; numbered FL-127, it appeared some thirty-four years after FLS-126.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.