The Factory Records Legacy – A Movement Beyond Music

To be a music and design aficionado in Manchester during the late seventies and early eighties was to live in the gravitational pull of Factory Records. There was no escaping its influence. But setting personal nostalgia aside, this is an attempt at an objective appreciation of Factory Records and the enduring cultural legacy it left behind.

“We had a heroic attitude to artistic freedom, and we thought normal contracts were a bit vulgar – somehow not punk. But that was the whole point – we weren’t a regular record label.“

Tony Wilson

The alchemy that made Factory extraordinary could have only been conjured by Tony Wilson—though whether by design or sheer serendipity remains open to debate. Wilson, ever the provocateur, might have argued the latter, but bringing together Peter Saville, Martin Hannett, Alan Erasmus, and Rob Gretton was a masterstroke that, naturally, he would claim as his own.

The first album cover Saville designed, for Unknown Pleasures, is as iconic as Warhol’s banana for The Velvet Underground & Nico. There is no dispute that Warhol and his Factory—both studio and cultural hub—were formative influences on Wilson and the artists drawn into Factory’s orbit. Joy Division’s regular covers of Sister Ray were more than homage; they were communion.

The Spark That Ignited a Movement

Initially conceived as a vehicle for Vini Reilly and The Durutti Column, Factory soon became a magnet for local artists. On Wilson’s suggestion, A Factory Sample became the label’s first release. A raw, handmade affair, its covers were folded and packaged by members of Joy Division and others. Featuring The Durutti Column, Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, and John Dowie, the double 7″ EP bore the catalogue number FAC2—FAC1 belonging to Saville’s poster for the first Factory Club gig in Hulme. The label’s numbering system, like everything Factory touched, would become the stuff of legend.

“I never had to answer to anyone“

Peter Saville

Martin Hannett’s sonic wizardry defined Factory’s early sound, sculpting atmospheres at Cargo in Rochdale and Strawberry Studios in Stockport. His work with Rabid Records had already set a precedent—stuffing DIY sleeves in a single-room office on Cotton Lane, Withington, mere doors away from my student digs. I remember picking up Cranked Up Really High by Slaughter and the Dogs, produced by Hannett under his then-moniker Martin Zero. He was already a fixture of the local scene, working alongside Tosh Ryan and Bruce Mitchell. Alan Wise, the inimitable promoter, had started hosting Rabid Records gigs at The Russell Club when two figures—Wilson and Erasmus—began loitering with intent. Hannett would soon advise Wilson to start his own label. Factory was born.

The Factory Ethos: Commerce as an Afterthought

With Wilson, Saville, and Hannett forming the holy trinity of Factory, a singular vision took shape. Profit was a distant concern, drowned in a sea of elaborate cover designs, avant-garde concepts, and a sheer disregard for convention. Three releases encapsulate Factory’s philosophy:

1. The Return of the Durutti Column – The Sandpaper Sleeve

Wilson delighted in commercial suicide, and his devotion to Vini Reilly’s Durutti Column provided the perfect canvas for an audacious experiment. The sleeve for The Return of the Durutti Column—a direct nod to Guy Debord and Asger Jorn’s 1959 Situationist book Mémoires—was wrapped in sandpaper, designed to destroy everything it touched. It was a gleeful act of defiance, though Saville, ever the aesthete, found little amusement in its destructive potential. Yet within months, he would deliver some of Factory’s most striking work, including the austere minimalism of Section 25’s Always Now.

“To me, it looked like a DIY thing that was, really, the antithesis of what I was trying to do. It looked a bit homemade.”

Peter Saville

2. Blue Monday – The 12″ That Lost Money

The best-selling 12″ single of all time, and yet a financial disaster. Blue Monday’s iconic die-cut sleeve, mimicking a floppy disk, was so expensive to produce that every copy sold edged Factory further into the red. To compound the irony, Saville refused to include the band’s name or title, embedding the information in an esoteric colour-coded wheel that required Power, Corruption & Lies to decipher. Factory had mastered the art of the glorious misstep.

“Tony Wilson was a great exponent of ‘print the myth’, I thought someone would adjust the price to compensate. But I don’t think that anybody knew the price of the Blue Monday sleeve until they got the bill.”

Peter Saville

3. The Factory Boardroom Table – Monument to Excess

As The Haçienda’s insatiable appetite for cash devoured the label’s reserves, Factory still found time for absurd indulgence. The most infamous? A boardroom table commissioned for the Whitworth Street offices, designed by Andy Woodcock and Ed Jackson, at an eye-watering cost of £30,000. Wilson, always the salesman, told Alan Erasmus it was a mere £2,000. Erasmus suggested scavenging wood from his shed instead. The table became a symbol of Factory’s beautiful, reckless ambition, ultimately meeting its demise at the hands of The Happy Mondays.

“Tony thought the whole meeting culture idea was just painful, so he wanted a table which would be a nightmare to sit at so that any meetings wouldn’t endlessly drag on and on“

Andy Woodcock

Factory Legacy

That Factory crashed and burned in spectacular fashion was inevitable—perhaps even poetic. Wilson’s Situationist leanings found their ultimate expression in the label’s implosion. Factory was never a business in any conventional sense; it was a movement. A chaotic, inspired collision of music, art, and hedonism that rivalled any post-industrial cultural phenomenon. Punk may have struck the match, but Factory built a bonfire that still burns.

Today, the legacy endures. James Nice at LTM Recordings, John Cooper at Cerysmatic Factory, and countless others continue to fan the flames. Section 25, A Certain Ratio, and The Durutti Column remain vital forces, unwavering in their commitment to the Factory ethos.

Perhaps more than ever, Factory’s spirit feels necessary. It lingers defiantly, cutting through the drab, consumerist landscape of faux culture and algorithmic mediocrity. The dream is elusive, but still, it refuses to fade.

Thanks to:
The following sites were used in the research for this article:
https://cerysmatic.factoryrecords.org/
https://www.ltmrecordings.com/
https://manchesterhistorian.com/2022/disorder-a-brief-history-of-factory-records-by-erin-barnett/
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/reassemble-rabid-records-exhibition-posters-11516549