Formation The origins of Sub Pop trace back to the early 1980s, when
Bruce Pavitt started a
fanzine called
Subterranean Pop that focused exclusively on American independent record labels. Pavitt undertook the project in order to earn course credit while attending
Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Washington. By the fourth issue, Pavitt had shortened the name to
Sub Pop and began alternating issues with compilation tapes of underground rock bands. The
Sub Pop #5 cassette, released in 1982, sold two thousand copies. In 1983, Pavitt moved to
Seattle, Washington, and released the ninth and final issue of
Sub Pop. While in Seattle, he wrote a column for local music magazine
The Rocket titled "Sub Pop U.S.A.", a column he ended in 1988. In 1986, Pavitt released the first Sub Pop
LP, the compilation
Sub Pop 100, which featured material by artists including
Sonic Youth,
Naked Raygun,
Wipers, and
Scratch Acid. Seattle group
Green River chose to record their
Dry as a Bone EP for Pavitt's new label in June 1986; Pavitt couldn't afford to release it until the following year. When finally released,
Dry as a Bone was promoted by Sub Pop as "ultra-loose grunge that destroyed the morals of a generation". Also in 1987, Jonathan Poneman provided $20,000 in funding for Sub Pop to release the debut
Soundgarden single "Hunted Down"/"Nothing to Say" in July 1987, followed by the band's first EP
Screaming Life that October. Poneman soon became a full partner in the label. Pavitt focused on the label's artists and repertoire aspects, while Poneman dealt with the business and legal issues. Both men decided they wanted the label to focus on "this primal rock stuff that was coming out," according to Pavitt.
The "Seattle sound" In early 1988, Pavitt and Poneman quit their jobs to devote their full attention to Sub Pop. "Of course that was spent in, like, thirty days", Pavitt recalled. "We almost went bankrupt after a month". That August Sub Pop released the first single by
Mudhoney, a band featuring former members of Green River. Sub Pop released the Mudhoney single "
Touch Me I'm Sick" in an intentionally limited first pressing of 800 copies to create demand. The strategy was later adopted by other independent labels. Pavitt and Poneman studied earlier independent labels ranging from
Motown to
SST Records and decided that virtually every successful movement in rock music had a regional basis. The pair sought to create a cohesive brand identity for Sub Pop. The label's ads promoted the label itself more than any particular band. The label also sought to market a "Seattle sound", which was accomplished with the help of producer
Jack Endino, who produced 75 singles, albums, and EPs for Sub Pop between 1987 and 1989. Endino recorded cheaply and quickly; in order to operate this way, he utilized some consistent studio techniques, which gave the records a similar sound. Endino, in a 1989 article featured in
The Rocket, explains: The sound that I hear coming from bands that are walking in my door comes from fuzzy guitars, bashing drums, screaming vocals, no keyboards, and a general loud intent. There's a scrupulous avoidance of any mainstream musical trends, and an avoidance of
MIDI, or anything remotely hi-tech. I don't get people with thousand-dollar effects racks coming in. In November 1988, Sub Pop released "
Love Buzz", the debut single by
Aberdeen, Washington band
Nirvana, as the first entry in the Sub Pop Singles Club, a subscription service that would allow subscribers to receive singles by the label on a monthly basis by mail. At its peak in 1990, the club had two thousand subscribers. The club made Sub Pop a powerful force in the Seattle scene, and effectively made the label's name synonymous with the music of the Seattle area—much in the same way
Motown Records was to
Detroit—and helped to secure the label's cash flow. The original series was discontinued in 1993, followed by
Singles Club V.2, launched in 1998 and discontinued in 2002. Some commentators have argued that Sub Pop reframed the history of Seattle's music scene as part of their marketing campaign. Even in the late 1980s, the peak of
grunge as a regional scene, Seattle's bands could not easily be confined to a single genre, since groups often blended musical styles and techniques, drawing, for example, on
folk rock,
psychedelic rock,
garage rock, and
pop hooks. The "Seattle sound" cultivated and marketed by Sub Pop became known as grunge, while other Seattle bands like
The U-Men, who preceded Sub-Pop, became pioneers of
avant garde post-punk. Mindful that garnering the attention of the American mainstream music press was difficult for all but the largest indie label, Pavitt and Ponemen took inspiration from alternative bands like Sonic Youth,
Butthole Surfers, and
Dinosaur Jr. and sought to publicize the label via the
British music press. In March 1989, Pavitt and Poneman flew
Melody Maker journalist
Everett True to Seattle to write an article on the local music scene. As Pavitt had anticipated, the British press became enamoured with Sub Pop and the grunge sound. Pavitt said, "I really felt that the Brits and the Europeans wanted to see something that was unruly and that was more of an American archetype -- something that was really primal and really drew from the roots of rock & roll, which was very American." Poneman explained the label's success: "It could have happened anywhere, but there was a lucky set of coincidences.
Charles Peterson was here to document the scene, Jack Endino was here to record the scene. Bruce and I were here to exploit the scene." The split between Pavitt and Poneman was not amicable, and they did not speak for seven years. In early 2007, Sub Pop started a sister label by the name of
Hardly Art. This label is also partially owned by Warner Music. In August 2008, Sub Pop relaunched the singles club for one year to celebrate its twentieth anniversary. In 2009, they signed their second
hip-hop group, Seattle-based
Shabazz Palaces – the first being The Evil Tambourines in 1999. Ishmael Butler, one half of Shabazz Palaces and former member of jazz rap group
Digable Planets became
A&R for Sub Pop. In 2016, Megan Jasper was named
CEO of Sub Pop, and Gareth Smith was named director of
A&R for the label's publishing company. Jasper was originally hired as an intern in 1989 and later became a receptionist. ==Commercial success==