Cargo Records (Canada)

Cargo Records was a Canadian independent record label and distributor, active in the 1980s and 1990s. Based in Montreal, the company both released albums directly as a label, and distributed albums on behalf of many other small independent labels, making it one of the largest and most influential Canadian record companies of the alternative rock era.

By the mid-1990s, the company was so powerful that its decline toward bankruptcy between 1995 and 1997 initially appeared destined to set off a cascading failure of the entire Canadian music industry; however, these early predictions of disaster were averted as affected labels sought out new distribution arrangements. This period of retrenchment, in turn, has been credited with stabilizing the industry and in turn paving the way for the Canadian indie rock boom of the early 2000s.