The symbol you saw was unrelated to the CBS symbol. What you're describing was a US military symbol which stood for Civil Defense. An example of the Civil Defense symbol can be seen on the Hall & Oates album War Babies.
for those of you who too young to remember CONELRAD - Wikipedia CONELRAD From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia CONELRAD Logo, incorporating the shield of United States Civil Defense CONELRAD (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) is a former method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War. It was intended to allow continuous broadcast of civil defense information to the public using radio or TV stations, while rapidly switching the transmitter stations to make the broadcasts unsuitable for Soviet bombers that might attempt to home in on the signals (as was done during World War II, when German radio stations, based in or near cities, were used as beacons by pilots of bombers).
Not trying to come off as crazy but I think there are a lot of things in the entertainment biz that should be left alone...including this.
The movie Alice's Restaurant with Arlo Guthrie was on TV recently and I noticed this on the VW van they drive around in:
These two black shapes together form the letters "CD." If you add a third shape and form a circle (compact disc), you get a triangle in the middle. This would be a cool explanation for the symbol, but it doesn't explain why it also appears on cassettes and LPs.
Found this blurry photo of the Glassworks promo release. Does not appear to have the symbol. Also probably not worth much, but the inverted triangle is a symbol for inventory/warehouse/storage in a process flowchart.
Yes the symbol was first used in late '85 so that's why it's not there. The pic of that LP a few posts up is a later pressing, not a 1982 pressing. All hail The Symbol!
I've wondered about this one too. It seems to always be on side 1 only of the LP and cassettes I have seen. It is on Epic and CBS Masterworks too. It has to have some meaning, but what???
I’m always ready for more evidence and information regarding the symbol. I was just replying to someone who probably hadn’t read through the almost fifty pages of the thread