But these days economists are having a hard time peeling the label off the recovery.

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In addition, management has worked hard to develop private label fashion merchandise that will appeal to a more value-oriented customer.

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Mr. Berg has always had a hard-to-label career.

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The struggles of these companies and their brands are the fallout of the growth of private-label goods and the rise of hard discounters like Germany's Aldi and Lidl chains.

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In the late '80s and early '90s, he returned to playing hard-bop on several albums for the Landmark label, which also featured saxophonists Kenny Garrett and Joe Henderson.

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Though Motown Records was the top label of the 1960s, inventing what it called "the Sound of Young America, " by 1969 -- when Jackson and his brothers in the Jackson 5 first hit the charts -- the label was finding itself out of step with the psychedelic and hard-soul sounds of the times.

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It earned the label "poor man's tennis" because pieces of wood, or even even hard-cover books, were used as rackets.

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Warner's sales have also been buoyed by its acquisition last year of prominent independent label Rykodisc and its purchase last January of Roadrunner Records, the home of platinum-selling hard-rock band Nickelback, Wilson said.

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