What artist/band has the most iconic logo in music history?
The music industry has seen some truly remarkable logos over the last decades. In more recent years, artists in popular genres like pop- and dance music work hard to build a brand to help with marketing.
“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”
Jimi Hendrix
In many cases, the logos are so well known that they become an anecdote within popular music. As music fans and logo fanatics, NewGlue will list the top 50 logos throughout music history, from motown to techno, now with 40 – 31.
40. Weezer
Drummer Patrick Wilson and the band’s webmaster were pal-ing around the studio when they took a roll of engineer tape and roughly made a “w” shape with wings on singer Rivers Cuomo’s back. Realizing its genius, the band members attached it to clothes, drumheads, and eventually toured with a giant lightbulb replica of it on their stage. Weezer has always shown a soft spot for 80s pop rock, which they boldly cover often, and a giant letter with wings is a throwback to the simple but huge stage setups of that era.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
39. Blur
This band took an unusual turn in putting out a lowercase logotype, something seen only with a few other bands. Combined with an otherwise fairly normal font except for condensing the letters til they touch, it’s cheeky, much like Blur (blur). Not wanting to draw too much attention, but wanting all the attention. This casual logo, which looks like it should head a mall chain store, isn’t anything like the band’s brash lyrical content, which too is masked by their deceivingly happy-go-lucky instrumentals!
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
38. Motörhead
Motörhead had already achieved iconic status for topping the “o” in their name with an umlaut, but this was immortalized in the white lettering on their charcoal black logo. The combination of type and some creature design is like an emblem logo, reminiscent of the patches worn on the biker jackets of Motörhead’s core audience, or their tattoos! Creator Joe Petagno originally drew up the design in black on white paper, but was disappointed to realize it looked slightly amateurish. So he flipped the image into a negative, and suddenly he hit gold. The shining, metallic, ugly/beautiful creature with a helmet is a tribute to bikers everywhere.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
37. Slayer
Slayer’s logo is as dark as the band’s music. The logo is designed in the same font that you will find written on the Welcome-sign when you enter Hell. Designed by their own manager Steve Craig, Slayer’s logotype was meant to bring their hellish image to the mainstream. It’s strikingly simple, a rebellion against many other band logos of the 80s which were ornate and experimenting with basic 3-D imaging. The mere slashes for lettering are a perfect idea for a band named Slayer! One imagines the slanted letters were sliced into print by sword.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
36. NWA
Rap group NWA burst on to the scene in perhaps one of the most explosive and sudden moments in the mainstream. Representing the dark side of street and city life in an almost hyper-realism, they needed an aesthetic to match. The logotype, always in red, looks like the group’s name crudely sprayed in graffiti, perhaps a tribute they came across on the walls of their city. It’s very simple, easy to replicate. Numerous other musicians such as The Game have tattooed this logo on their bodies.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
35. Skrillex
Skrillex’s music cut through the mainstream’s eardrums when he brought dubstep to the top of the charts in 2010. His jagged sounds are accompanied by the spiky lettering used for his name logo, the “ill” part looking like knives. His first releases showed the letters positioned over some diamond-shaped metal UFO thing, against a constantly evolving background environment. As of recent only that “ill” part is seen on his paraphernalia, presumably his logo now. Nevertheless the ultra-current, 3-D, sci-fi, even garish, theme of Skrillex’s design choices look like a music that came from space, in the future.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
34. The Offspring
California punk band The Offspring came out with an image trying to portray exactly that lifestyle. Making a later appearance in their career, the logo mascot that came to define the band debuted as an illustration on the cover of 2000 release Conspiracy of One. The image of an orange flaming skullhead has since become a phenomenon with skaters everywhere, who naturally slap it on whatever they can in public spaces. And such, the heavy lifting of the band’s marketing is done for free!
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
33. Linkin Park
With their 2000’s hit Numb just surpassing a billion views, uncommon for other early Youtube classics, Linkin Park’s early music still has a grip on the population, not to mention their recent singles. The band has actually gone through several logo transitions, settling for a triangular shaped symbol for about the last decade. Known for heavily incorporating Japanese and anime imagery in their aesthetic, even once having a Japanese font styled logo, the main logotype of their name surely reminds of that. Looking like the font that would perhaps title a Japanese arcade game, the band has always come back to this logo to represent themselves on the world stage.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
32. The Chemical Brothers
There is virtually no info on what inspired the Chemical Brothers’ squiggly font choice. And this is a plus! It’s up to the musically inclined public to do a double-take, and decipher that it’s in fact the name of the band. Many would point out it seems inspired by Arabic lettering, to spell an English name, which is clever.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
31. Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin rose to become the biggest band in the world during the early 70s, at the confluence of an Art Nouveau renaissance, as well as resurgence of interest in Tolkeinist fairy tales which produced a subculture of fanatics. The Art Nouveau art style had last experienced popularity around 1900, with its tall thin lettering like something you might see on the entrance of a steam train station. For whatever reason, the surge of progressive rock bands in the 70s deemed this style one and the same with their fantasy mythology obsession, and Zeppelin was eager to jump in. Ever the Hobbit quoters themselves, the logotype is a tribute to the recurring themes in the band’s lyrics, as well as a zeitgeist of the times they were the peak of. Designed by music graphics legend Storm Thorgerson, you can now certainly find it scrawled in the notebooks of every high schooler who rediscovers Zep all over again.
Alternate logo made on NewGlue
Stay Tuned!
#30-21 is around the corner! As we review and give our take on what are definitively the top music logos ever here at NewGlue.
If you haven’t make sure you look over #50-41 of our top music logos of all time, so you can keep up with the list…
