Parlophone

Parlophone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Parlophone Records
Parent company EMI (1931-2013)
Warner Music Group (2013present)
Founded 1896
Founder(s) Carl Lindström
Distributing label Self-Distributed (United Kingdom)
Warner Bros. Records (United States)
WEA International Inc. (International)
Genre(s) various
Country of origin Germany, United Kingdom
Location United Kingdom
Official Website parlophone.co.uk

Parlophone Records, Ltd. is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon.[1] The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone Records" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. In 1926, Columbia Graphophone Company acquired the Parlophone business, label name and its titles. Columbia Graphophone later became Columbia Records, and then EMI.

On 21 September 2012, regulators officially approved Universal Music Group's planned acquisition of EMI,[2] on condition that Parlophone was divested from the combined group. Parlophone and the other labels to be divested were operated in an entity known as Parlophone Label Group, pending their sale. Warner Music Group acquired the group in May 2013, making it WMG's third main-line label group alongside Warner Bros. Records and Atlantic Records (although the distribution company is still called WEA, in reference to Elektra Records, which was absorbed by Atlantic in 2004)Parlophone is now the oldest of WMG's three groups.

George Martin joined EMI in 1950 as assistant label manager, taking over as manager in 1955. Martin produced and released a mix of product including comedy recordings of The Goons, the pianist Mrs Mills, and teen idol Adam Faith. In 1962 Martin signed rising new Liverpool band The Beatles. With Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer, The Fourmost, and contemporary Mancunian band The Hollies also signed to the label, Parlophone in the 1960s became one of the world's most famous and prestigious record labels.

For a long time Parlophone claimed the best selling UK single "She Loves You", and the best selling UK album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The label also achieved placement of seven singles at #1 during 1964, when it also claimed top spot in the album charts for 40 of the 52 weeks during that year.

History

Founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company, the brand name Parlophon was initially used for gramophones before the company began making records. The trademark is a German L, for Lindström (coincidentally it resembles the British pound sign, £, which itself is derived from the letter L for Libra, meaning pound in Latin). During the First World War, the Transoceanic Trading Company was set up in the Netherlands to look after its overseas assets. On 8 August 1923, the British branch of "Parlophone" (with the "e" added) was established, led by A&R manager Oscar Preuss. Parlophone established a master leasing arrangement with co-owned United States based Okeh Records, making Parlophone a leading jazz label in the UK.

In 1927 the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired a controlling interest in the Carl Lindström Company and thereby in Parlophone. In 1931 Columbia merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd (EMI). Under EMI, the Parlophone company initially maintained its status as a jazz label. In about 1929 or 1930, the "Rhythm Style Series" started: jazz records culled from the Okeh label. Besides the Okeh recordings, Parlophone also issued recordings from US Columbia, Brunswick as well as a few sessions produced at US Decca. As time went on the label also released speciality recordings of spoken-word and comedy recordings, such as the comedy recordings of The Goons and Flanders and Swann.

In 1950, Preuss hired 24-year-old George Martin as his assistant. When Preuss retired in 1955 Martin succeeded him as label manager.

Leading Parlophone artists in the 1950s included Germany's Obernkirchen Children's Choir and Scottish musician Jimmy Shand. At the dawn of the rock era, Parlophone artists such as Humphrey Lyttelton, the Vipers Skiffle Group, the pianist Mrs Mills, Jim Dale, Keith Kelly, Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins, the Temperance Seven, Laurie London and Shane Fenton would sporadically reach the British Top 20 chart. Their only consistently successful act until the "Beat Boom" was that of teen idol Adam Faith: Faith was assigned to the label in 1959 by Norman Newell, an EMI A&R man "without portfolio". Treading a path similar to other British labels of the era, Parlophone released all manner of domestic and foreign licensed product, including James Brown, but had little success in comparison to EMI siblings HMV and Columbia.

The label's fortunes began to rise in 1962, when Martin signed rising new Liverpool band The Beatles. Along with fellow NEMS stablemates Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer and the Fourmost, and contemporary Mancunian band The Hollies, The Beatles turned Parlophone into one of the world's most famous and prestigious record labels.

After Martin left to form the Associated Independent Recording (AIR) Studios in 1965, the Parlophone Company was absorbed into EMI's Gramophone Company unit (renamed EMI Records in 1973) with the Parlophone label maintaining its identity. For a long time Parlophone claimed the best selling UK single "She Loves You", and the best selling UK album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The label also achieved placement of seven singles at #1 during 1964, when it also claimed top spot in the album charts for 40 of the 52 weeks during that year.

The label was rendered dormant in 1973 when most of EMI's heritage labels were phased out in favour of the new EMI Records label.[3] The Parlophone label was revived in 1980.[4]

On 23 April 2008 Miles Leonard was confirmed as label president.[5]

On 21 September 2012, regulators officially approved Universal Music Group's planned acquisition of Parlophone's parent company EMI for £1.2 billion, subject to conditions imposed by the European Commission requiring that UMG sell off a number of labels, including Parlophone itself (aside from The Beatles' library, which was kept by UMG and moved to the newly formed Capitol Records UK) and a number of others.[6] Parlophone, along with other labels that were to be sold, were operated independently from the rest of UMG as Parlophone Label Group in preparation for a possible transaction early in 2013. UMG received several offers for PLG, including those from a Sony/BMG consortium, Warner Music Group, and MacAndrews & Forbes.[7][8][9]

In February 2013, it was confirmed that Warner Music Group would acquire Parlophone Label Group for US$765 million. The deal was approved on May 2013 by the European Union, who saw no concerns around the deal because of WMG's relatively smaller reach in comparison to the merged UMG and Sony. WMG also announced in a joint presentation with IMPALA (a group who had opposed the EMI/Universal deal) and the Merlin Network that it intends to sell a "significant portion" of the assets acquired from Parlophone Label Group to smaller, independent companies in order to help offset the consolidation triggered by the merger.[10][11]

WMG planned to treat Parlophone as its third "frontline" label group, alongside Atlantic Records and Warner Bros. Records.[12] In the U.S., while most of Parlophone's artists will now be distributed under Warner Bros. Records, Coldplay and Tinie Tempah were assigned to Atlantic Records, while David Guetta was assigned to Big Beat.[13]

Notable releases

Rhythm-style series

In addition to the occasional release of US material from OKeh and Columbia, in about 1929, Parlophone started a series of American jazz records on their "Rhythm Style Series". Edgar Jackson was the director of this series, which was issued within the existing R- series (the first issue was R-448). Culled from the American OKeh, artists like Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Joe Venuti, Duke Ellington, Miff Mole, and other major artists who recorded for OKeh. These records were usually "split-coupled" (the top and bottom side of each record was usually by different artists and did not correspond with the original American coupling). The "Second New Rhythm-Style" series replaced the first series in about 1931, and there was a separate series for each year from 1934 through 1941, as well as some miscellany series. These 78's were popular and remained in print for years. A select number of American Columbia and Brunswick recordings also populated these series with artists like Fletcher Henderson, Chocolate Dandies, Jack Teagarden, Eddie Condon and others.

Even though these records were never licensed for sale in the U.S., they were heavily imported through jazz shops like Commodore and Liberty in the late 1930s and were sold through the 1940s and into the early 1950s. They are treasured by collectors because they are pressed from the original stampers and usually sound much better than the worn and usually rare U.S. OKeh original records.

The Parlophone PNY series

In the U.S. in 1929 there was a short-lived Parlophone label made and distributed by OKeh.[14] Initially, certain OKeh records were issued using the Parlophone label and using the OKeh catalog number. An example is Miff Mole's "Birmingham Bertha" b/w "Moanin' Low" has been found on Parlophone PNY-41273 and Odeon ONY-41273 (issued as by 'Eddie Gordon's Band") as well as the standard OKeh 41273 (issued as by "Miff Mole and his Molers"). OKeh then started the PNY-34000 series (along with the Odeon ONY-36000 series) lasting until late 1930 or early 1931. No one has been able to determine for whom these two labels were intended, since many surviving copies are in new condition. A number of noted record collectors and researchers (George Blacker, Carl Kenziora, Len Kunstadt, among other members of the New York Record Research Associates) had long speculated that since these records were found in a west coast warehouse uncirculated, they were possibly intended for offshore sales in U.S. possessions (Guam, Marianas, etc.) or possibly at military offshore bases, but this has never been proven. One of the reasons for this speculation is because OKeh specifically recorded quite a number of sides without vocals and issued them only on Parlophone and Odeon (in addition to the standard vocal versions). These non-vocal version are especially prized by collectors. Regardless, this series (along with OKeh's Odeon ONY- series) appears to not have been available for sale in the US.

The Beatles

Main article: The Beatles

Parlophone released The Beatles albums up to Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Subsequent releases - The Beatles (The White Album), Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be were issued on their own Apple label, distributed by EMI and bearing Parlophone catalogue numbers.

The Beatles is said to be one of the cheapest deals of Parlophone Records.[15] Companies used and abused The Beatles' title, producing everything from T-shirts to even hairspray. Their early songs were used in many commercials without permission from The Beatles. The Beatles were only allowed to own 49% of the company shares, therefore, only owning 49% of their songs, which was unfortunately not enough to buy back the songs from the company.[16]

Despite the separation of Parlophone from EMI as a condition of EMI's acquisition by UMG, UMG was allowed to keep The Beatles' recorded music catalogue which UMG assigned to a new Capitol Records UK entity formed by UMG.[17][18]

Beatles albums released by Parlophone
  1. Please Please Me (1963)
  2. With The Beatles (1963)
  3. A Hard Day's Night (1964)
  4. Beatles for Sale (1964)
  5. Help! (1965)
  6. Rubber Soul (1965)
  7. Revolver (1966)
  8. A Collection of Beatles Oldies (1966)
  9. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Current artists

Parlophone is still an important pop label with artists such as Gabrielle Aplin, Coldplay, Gorillaz, Kraftwerk and Kylie Minogue, among others. It has recently signed indie rock band Two Door Cinema Club. It was also EMI's oldest active label: its contemporary HMV, was always more of a classical music label and ceased issuing popular music recordings in 1967 (later known as EMI Classics, it was absorbed into Warner Classics in 2013); English Columbia has been replaced by the EMI pop label. Parlophone also operates the imprint Regal Recordings, a contemporary revival of the historic Columbia Graphophone budget/reissue label founded in 1914.

Parlophone is Warner Music Group's oldest record label.

An interesting note is that Parlophone's 45 rpm releases continue, as of 2013, to be numbered using the same "R-xxxx" catalog number series that it has used continuously since 1956 (starting around R-4200 and currently up to the R-6800 range). However, the R-series is actually carried over from the 78 rpm era, the earliest numbers dating back to at least 1930.

Notable artists signed to Parlophone

  • Mansun
  • Morning Parade
  • MPHO
  • Mrs Mills
  • Otis Waygood
  • The Paramounts
  • Pablo Alborán
  • Paul McCartney (now controlled by MPL Communications)
  • Peter Sellers
  • Pet Shop Boys
  • Queen (recorded music catalogue now controlled by Island Records) (outside US & Canada)
  • Queen + Paul Rodgers (recorded music catalogue now controlled by Island Records) (outside US & Canada)
  • Radiohead (outside US)
  • Rainbow Ffolly
  • Richard Hawley
  • Scarlet Party
  • Shane Fenton
  • Sigur Rós
  • Sky Ferreira
  • Supergrass
  • Temperance Seven
  • Teresa Teng
  • The Hollies
  • The Night VI
  • Tina Turner
  • Tinie Tempah
  • Two Door Cinema Club
  • The Verve
  • Vince Taylor
  • Vipers Skiffle Group
  • Waltari

Parlophone record labels

The labels shown here include those used for 78s and LPs. The label design for 7" singles had the same standard template as several other EMI labels, with the large "45" insignia to the right. In recent years, design uniformity has relaxed from release to release.

References

  1. http://www.parlophone.co.uk/about/
  2. Previous name of the company was EMI RECORDS LIMITED, http://www.companieslist.co.uk/00068172-parlophone-records-limited
  3. (1973-02-03) Billboard - Google Books, Books.google.com. URL accessed 2013-03-01.
  4. (1980-09-13) Billboard - Google Books, Books.google.com. URL accessed 2013-03-01.
  5. EMI rings changes. Music Week (23 April 2008). Retrieved on 16 February 2011.
  6. Tim Ingham (26 November 2012). Universal's Capitol takes shape: Barnett in, Beatles on roster. Music Week. Intent Media. Retrieved on 18 April 2013.
  7. Sweney, Mark, Universal's £1.2bn EMI takeover approvedwith conditions, The Guardian, 21 September 2012. URL accessed on 21 September 2012.
  8. Pakinkis, Tom. Nine groups in Parlophone race, 12 eyeing other UMG/EMI assets. Music Week. Retrieved on 2013-03-01.
  9. Negishi, Mayumi, Sony, BMG in joint bid for Parlophone, EMI labels - FT, Reuters, 7 January 2013. URL accessed on 2013-03-01.
  10. Sisario, Ben, Warner Music Gains Approval to Buy Parlophone, a Last Piece of EMI, The New York Times, 15 May 2013. URL accessed on 17 May 2013.
  11. Sisario, Ben, Warner Music Makes a Deal With Small Labels, The New York Times, 19 February 2013. URL accessed on 17 May 2013.
  12. < Warner Music Group Outlines Parlophone Integration Process, Expects $70 Million in Annual Cost Savings. Billboard.biz. Retrieved on 30 January 2014.
  13. Coldplay, David Guetta Go To Atlantic Records; Radiohead & Pink Floyd Catalogs, Kylie Minogue, Damon Albarn To Warner Bros: WMGs US Plans for Parlophone (Exclusive). Billboard.biz. Retrieved on 30 January 2014.
  14. The OKeh label using the prefix "PNY"
  15. The Beatles Biography. Retrieved on 2012-09-29.
  16. Roberts, Jeremy, The Beatles, Music Revolutionaries, 2010-12-31. URL accessed on 2012-09-29.
  17. Universal plans to launch Capitol UK | CMU: Complete Music Update. Thecmuwebsite.com (7 November 2012). Retrieved on 12 November 2012.
  18. Ingham, Tim. Universal's Capitol takes shape: Barnett in, Beatles on roster. Music Week. Retrieved on 2013-03-01.

External links

  • Official Website
  • Parlophone MySpace page
  • Parlophone on YouTube
  • Official Yahoo! Group for Parlophone Records
  • Parlophone on Facebook
  • Parlophone on Twitter
This page was last modified 29.04.2014 08:59:50

This article uses material from the article Parlophone from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.