Олимпия қаласының тәуелсіз K Records лейбелі

Independent record label in Olympia, Washington

K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent music" since the 1980s. The label was founded by Beat Happening frontman Calvin Johnson and managed for many years by Candice Pedersen. Many early releases were on the cassette tape format, making the label one of the longest lasting reflections of the cassette culture of the 1970s and early 1980s. Although itself releasing primarily offbeat pop music and indie rock, the DIY label is regarded as one of the pioneers of riot grrrl movement and the second wave of American punk in the 1990s.

In 1987, K Records shifted from cassette distribution to vinyl single production with the launch of the "International Pop Underground" series. This event featured more than fifty independent and punk bands, including Bikini Kill, Beat Happening, Fugazi, L7, Unwound, and Jad Fair. It has been called "a remarkable testament of musical self preservation and fierce resistance to corporate takeover." The music festival included arts and crafts, film presentations, and poetry readings, and was notable for its deliberate lack of hired security officers. Al Larsen of the band Some Velvet Sidewalk was part of the K Roster. In 1989, he wrote an article for the Snipehunt zine which reflected and distinguished K's approach to "punk" music with an ethos he called "Love Rock," in which he wrote: "It's a scary world, but we don't need to be scared anymore. We need active visionary protest, we need to grab hold and make the transformation, from complaining that there is NO FUTURE to insisting there be a future." which maintained a philosophical link to punk. The first K Records newsletter includes the K shield as a knight, described as battling "the many armed corporate ogre." Some critics have considered this philosophy to be a liability in regards to mainstream success. Author Mark Baumgarten has observed that Pitchfork Media's "Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s" included six bands with direct relationships to the label (Bikini Kill, Sleater Kinney, Fugazi, Built to Spill, Beck, and Nirvana) but only one proper K Records release.

Early K releases included childlike, hand drawn album art. Combined with the stripped down toy instrument aesthetic of Beat Happening and distribution of bands such as Heavenly in the US, the label was quickly associated with the twee music scene. Johnson has been called "the first star of American twee." Critics have suggested that the "twee" label for K Records acts reflects its rejection of the hardcore punk ethos popular in the 1980s, and that K Records acts were subverting "punk" through confronting and threatening masculine sensibilities within the punk scene.