Rhino Records started as a record store in 1973 in Westwood California, U.S.A., founded by Richard Foos. The first recording was released in 1975, "Go To Rhino Records" by Wild Man Fischer which was a small success.

In 1978, the label was launched, the logo had a picture of "Rocky the Rhino" (designed by William Stout). The early records were mostly novelty, surf, local new wave bands and a couple of reissues of out-of-print records from other labels. By the mid-1980s, the label was releasing a lot of reissues. Bill Inglot took care of the production, Ken Perry mastered, and Gary Stewart and James Austin were doing A&R. Around the same time, the logo was redesigned to just "Rhino".

In 1986 the label made a distribution deal with Capitol Records, which lasted until 1992. As part of the deal, they had access to the Capitol back catalog, and they started releasing reissues of the old Capitol albums. In addition, in 1989, EMI and Rhino acquired the Roulette family of labels. In 1992, when the deal with Capitol was ending, Rhino got an offer from Time-Warner. By entering this deal, half of the label was sold to Time-Warner, and WEA became the new distributor of the label. Warner put Rhino in charge of reissuing the Atlantic back catalog. In 1998, Time-Warner bought the remaining 50% of the label, but returned the record store back to Richard Foos.

Currently Rhino Records operates as a part of the Rhino Entertainment Company, which is a part of the Warner Music Group. The label specializes in reissues, compilations and anthologies.

NOTE: Please enter here the releases that have either the "Rhino Records" or "Rhino" logo. For the company, please use Rhino Entertainment Company, but only if it's mentioned on the release.

A note on catalog numbers:
From 1975 to 1986, Rhino used several different series of numbers for their releases, but with a few exceptions, they were all three-digit numbers with the following prefixes:

RNOR - 7"
RNTI - 12"
RNLP - LP
RNC - cassette
RNEP - EP/mini-album
RNEC - casette EP/mini-album
RNCD - CD [also had a '5' added before the 3-digit number]
RNDF - LP (Del-Fi Records reissues and other special titles)
RNSP - LP (soundtracks and other special titles)
RNIN - LP (soundtracks and other special titles)
RNIC - casette (soundtracks and other special titles)
RNPD - picture discs

In 1986, they started using Capitol's 5-digit numbering system (generally starting with a 7). This 5-digit series continued when Rhino was purchased by Warner in 1998. For reissues of older titles, a 70 (or for CDs, 75) was added to the beginning of the original 3-digit number.

For some early Capitol releases, several prefixes above were used with the 5-digit number. But for most of them - and for all of the Warner releases - they used following prefixes (several of which were added as new formats were created over the years):

R0 - 12"
R1 - LP
R2 - CD
R3 - VHS
R4 - Cassette
R7 - 7"
R9 - DVD

If in doubt, you can find out the five-digit number for currently in-print releases by searching on the Rhino website.

LC 02982