Sonic Editions is the world’s leading fine art photography gallery dedicated to music and pop culture. Its founder Russell Blackmore speaks to Cultural Union about rock history, photography, and his mission to enable a new demographic to collect art.

“The Age of Rock ran from around 1960 to the 2010s,” says Sonic Editions founder Russell Blackmore. “Its birth was Elvis on Milton Berle or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, depending on how you define it. Its death was when U2 forced everyone on iTunes to have an album nobody wanted.” He’s referring to the band’s infamous Songs of Innocence marketing catastrophe. “It was the least rock and roll thing that has ever happened. You can call time of death at exactly that moment.”

He laughs as he says it, but Blackmore should know; he’s spent the past 15 years exploring rock’s underbelly, rummaging through obscure archives to unearth the diamonds that have become today’s icons of pop culture reportage.

Blackmore assumes a certain rock and roll insouciance himself, maintaining he only started Sonic Editions “to get myself out of 35-person marketing calls” at his former employers the Economist and Getty Images. Yet the company he created has done more than perhaps any other to democratise art, allowing a whole new demographic to access the world of collecting.

“I came up with the idea of doing fine art prints at a more accessible price for people who, like me, went to exhibitions but could never afford to buy a print because they always cost thousands,” says Blackmore, who struggled to convince his then-employer Getty Images – who would later become one of his biggest clients – to start something similar.

“At that time, Getty had an old-school gallery which, like many galleries, was highly priced and didn’t have a website. There were 75 different choices of framing, 75 different choices of mounting, 10 different types of print,” he says. “Most people can’t tell the difference between a resin print or a fibre print, so we’d choose the best quality print and have a single, simple option. And we made the framing affordable – because framing is a racket.”

Initially, Blackmore partnered with Rough Trade Records, hanging and selling prints of Gram Parsons and the Sex Pistols in their east London record shop. By the following year, the gallery had established itself online and the business was steady if not stellar.

But news of the young gallery that was revolutionising art photography began to spread, and it was picked up by a magazine in the US. “It broke our website,” says Blackmore. “The sales that month were 400% up on the previous month. I had a sudden realisation: my god, this is working.”

From the beginning, music photography was the staple. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were consistent bestsellers – and still are – whereas the Doors and Led Zepplin were early favourites that have since tailed off. “Much depends on who’s touring, who’s got an album out, who’s died, who has an anniversary and whose music is being used in films or video games,” says Blackmore. “But Daft Punk [top] came out of nowhere. The band weren’t active at the time – they didn’t have an album out – but we got hold of a beautiful portrait that transcended and became, for a while, our best-seller by far. We made the photographer go and find everything he had from that shoot and we’ve used them all.”

As Sonic Editions grew, the gallery began to include Hollywood icons, becoming closely associated with major photographers such as Terry O’Neill and Slim Aarons. In recent years, Slim Aarons has become almost a genre in himself – with Apple TV’s Palm Royale turning his aesthetic into an entire series. But Sonic Editions got there first, and while aspects of Slim Aaron’s catalogue are perhaps now played out, Blackmore points out that there are over a million images in Aaron’s archive, most of them not yet digitised: “We’re still uncovering new material and people are still loving it.”

That was always the most interesting thing for me – talking to the photographers about these amazing people they’ve shot.

Russell Blackmore, founder, Sonic Editions

Terry O’Neill – whose iconic images of David Bowie, Brigitte Bardot and Michael Caine helped create the visual grammar of an era – is another photographer closely associated with the gallery. “It was one of those moments when I almost had to pinch myself,” says Blackmore. “Terry O’Neill’s archive approached us directly, which we could never have hoped for when we started out. We were lucky to work with him before he died. We got to hear his stories. That was always the most interesting thing for me – talking to the photographers about these amazing people they’ve shot.”

One of these stories underscores the nature of the era chronicled by Sonic Edition. “Terry told us of how they were all sitting in one of these Austin Powers-esque nightclubs in 1960s London, with the Beatles and the Stones and Terry himself all talking about what they’d all do when it finished. George wanted to own a hairdresser, Ringo was going to be whatever, and none of them had any idea that this was a cultural movement that would just never end. The Beatles are probably as big now as they’ve ever been in terms of audience size. But in the 1960s, it was just a bunch of people who hung out in three or four venues, Terry O’Neill, David Bailey, hairdressers and tailors – a tiny group that became genuinely world-changing in what they all achieved.”

Alongside the big-name photographers are those whose work is lesser known yet of similarly profound impact. Blackmore is quick to rate Derek Ridgers, whose street photography of punks and goths largely defined the 1970s. “To this day, he’s still photographing youth movements, but his music photography is fantastic,” says Blackmore.

Looking back now at the pre-internet age, music was tribal and you had to work hard for it. You had to go and queue for tickets. And you found your tribe.

Russell Blackmore

“And Peter Anderson, who shot for NME and Sounds in the 1980s. He shoots stark, high-contrast black-and-white photography. It’s got a real signature look to it. Lots of early hip hop, lots of heavy metal – the time when the music press was shooting all the different tribes.”

When talking about the prints themselves, Blackmore is careful to distinguish between signed and unsigned works – the latter being qualitatively the same but less expensive. He has no desire to change their model of providing only unsigned, wanting to keep the works accessible, though he describes Sonic Editions as a “gateway drug” – those who begin collecting with them go on to collect original works of art.

And of course, the cross-over is immense: while some of their clients are entering the collecting world for the first time, others are established interior designers or art curators. Many clients are music or screen icons themselves.

And it is no surprise that demand for Sonic Editions’ art prints continues to grow. The Beatles are rediscovered by each generation. Then there’s the current Gen Z love-in with all things 90s.

“The young people I talk to look back on the 90s as this kind of mystical time,” says Blackmore. “For those of us who grew up with it, it didn’t feel particularly special at the time. But looking back now at the pre-internet age, music was tribal and you had to work hard for it. You had to go to the record shop in town that had the Rough Trade distribution to get independent records. You had to go and queue for tickets, all of that kind of stuff. And you found your tribe. Now, everything’s available to everyone at all times.”

Consequently, music had a cultural value and scarcity that was reflected in the calibre and dedication of the photographers whose vocation it was to capture it.

“These photographers defined bands’ images far more than is the case now, when a recording artist’s image is defined by their social media presence. And photographers were granted access to a band for the entire tour. That doesn’t happen anymore – everything now is publicist-approved.

“Those photographers were the people who created our culture’s image. And they communicated it to the world.”