Apple Records - Design

Design

Standard Apple album and single labels displayed a bright green Granny Smith apple on the A-side, while the flipside displayed the midsection of the apple cut in half. The bright green apple returned for Beatles CDs releases in the 1990s, following initial CD releases on Parlophone. However, on the US issue of The Beatles' Let It Be album, the Granny Smith apple was red. The reason was that in the United States that album, being the soundtrack to the movie of the same name, was, for contractual reasons, being manufactured and distributed by United Artists Records and not Capitol Records, so the red apple was used to mark the difference. The red apple also appeared on the back cover, and on the 2009 remastered edition back cover. In the late 70s, Capitol's parent company EMI later purchased United Artists Records and Capitol gained the American rights to the Let It Be soundtrack album (along with the America rights to another, earlier, UA Beatles movie soundtrack LP, 1964's A Hard Day's Night). Aside from the red apple, there have been other examples where the apple has been changed, notably on Harrison's Extra Texture (Read All About It), where it is eaten away apple core (this was intended to be a joke because it was released at a time when Apple Records was beginning to fold). And there were some more: in 1970 for Harrison's All Things Must Pass triple album, two records that have orange apples and one with an Apple Jam jar; in 1970 for Lennon's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono's Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band black and white apple labels; in 1972 for Ringo Starr's "Back Off Boogaloo" blue apples; in 1975 for Starr's Blast from Your Past red apples. Also other type of apples were used: in 1971 for Lennon's Imagine and Ono's Fly, in 1973 for Ono's Approximately Infinite Universe and the singles that were released from those three albums.