Not a label as such, just a logo shared across a number of different labels; but as I've given pages to similar series such as Polydor's 'Action Replay', Penny Farthing's 'Trophy' and Spark's 'Northern Soul' I've no excuse for not giving one to 'Soul Peeper'. As can be seen above, the Soul Peeper logo was applied to appropriate singles from across the Phonogram family. It seems to have first seen the light of day in October 1974 on The Stylistics' 'Let's Put It All Together' b/w 'I Take It Out On You' (Avco, 6105-032) and to have disappeared in July 1976 after The Rimshots' 'Super Disco' b/w 'Groove Bus' (All Platinum, 6146-316). Some of the records in the series were new but others were reissues, which explains why several of the records listed below have dates earlier than 1975 on their labels and can be found with and without the Soul Peeper logo (5). Some late issues in the series appear to have been re-pressed after it had been abandoned as a concept; the re-pressings lack the logo. As can be seen from the discography, All Platinum had the greatest number of Soul Peeper releases, with Avco and Mercury tieing for second place.
'Music Week' of the 5th of April 1975 reported that a cassette called 'Soul Peepers' featuring all the 'A' sides from the series up to that point had recently been released on Philips (7236-005), which gives us a 'not after' date for the reissues marked with a '???' in the list below. The article said that there would be further compilations as and when product became available, and sure enough the following year saw the release of a vinyl album also called 'Soul Peepers' which collected together many of the other 'A' sides along with several tracks that weren't actually from the series (Philips, SON-003). The singles generally came in all-purpose Phonogram sleeves, with no special markings to distinguish them from other releases; the All Platinums came in the usual All Platinum sleeves. Thanks to Nicholas Hough for supplying the second, third and sixth scans.
Copyright 2021 Robert Lyons.