Profile
Ariola Eurodisc, Gmbh was founded in 1958 as a music outlet of Bertelsmann. It set up several foreign subsidiaries. Ariola America was founded in 1975 in Los Angeles, and achieved Billboard magazine number one singles with Mary MacGregor's "Torn Between Two Lovers" (1976) and Amii Stewart's cover version of the 1966 Eddie Floyd hit "Knock on Wood" (1979). Other artists on the Ariola America roster during the late 1970s included Gene Cotton, The Three Degrees, Chanson, and the Canadian band Prism among others. After its pop success dried up, Ariola America found success in the Spanish language market including José José and Rocío Dúrcal from the late 1970s onward and Mexican artist Marisela starting in the 1990s. Other subsidiaries include Ariola-Athena to release spoken word records; Ariola Benelux was founded in 1970 to cover the Benelux market; Ariola Eurodisc was a Spanish division of Ariola, founded in 1970; Ariola UK the UK based subsidiary of Ariola was founded in 1977; Baccarola; Türküola for the Turkish market; Eurodisc to release disco records in France - most successfully with Amanda Lear, Giorgio Moroder (house producer of Ariola) and Jupiter Records for German schlager music and disco like for instance group Dschinghis Khan.
It acquired both Arista Records and German rival label Hansa Records in 1979. It sold 50% of Arista to RCA Records in 1983; after a brief joint venture between RCA and Ariola, RCA (including its record division) was acquired by General Electric who promptly sold RCA's stake in the venture back to Ariola. Ariola America also had a sister label called Ocean Records, which included on its roster actress/entertainer Ann-Margret. It was active 1979 through 1980. In the 1980s, there was a software development division called Ariolasoft.
Today, Ariola is a unit of Sony Music Group and is still active in Germany under the Sony Corporation umbrella.
Clive Jay Davis is an American record producer, A&R executive, music industry executive, and lawyer. He has won five Grammy Awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer.
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Arista Records, and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. Its name is derived from the initials of its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1986, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG); however, RCA Records became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a merger between BMG and Sony Music, in 2004, and was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. It is the second-oldest record label in American history, after sister label Columbia Records.
Arista Records, Inc. is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously handled by Bertelsmann Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis. Along with Columbia Records, RCA Records and Epic Records, Arista is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels.
Jive Records was an American record label formed in 1981 and is owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Formerly headquartered in New York City, Jive was best known for its string of successes with hip hop artists in the 1980s and 1990s, and also in teen pop and boy bands during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2011, the label has been in hibernation with its previous operations having been absorbed by RCA Records.
Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical music label in 1953, but later expanded its scope to include a more diverse range of genres, including pop, R&B, rock, and hip hop. Epic Records has released music by major artists.
Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) was a division of German media company Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Sony Corporation of America on 1 October 2008. Although it was established in 1987, the music company was formed as RCA/Ariola International in 1985 as a joint venture to combine the music label activities of RCA Corporation's RCA Records division and Bertelsmann's Ariola Records and its associated labels which include Arista Records. It consisted of the BMG Music Publishing company, the world's third largest music publisher and the world's largest independent music publisher, and the 50% share of the joint venture with Sony Music, which established the German American Sony BMG from 2004 to 2008.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann Music Group. The venture's successor, the revived Sony Music, is wholly owned by Sony, following their buyout of the remaining 50% held by Bertelsmann. BMG was instead rebuilt as BMG Rights Management on the basis of 200 remaining artists.
Sony Music Entertainment is an American global music company, which is part of the Sony Music Group owned by conglomerate Sony Corporation of America, incorporated as a general partnership of Sony Music Holdings Inc. through Sony Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony.
The Zomba Group of Companies was a music group and division owned by and operated under Sony Music Entertainment. The division was renamed to Jive Label Group in 2009 and was placed under the RCA/Jive Label Group umbrella. In 2011, the RCA/Jive Label Group was split in half. Multiple Jive Label Group artists were moved to Epic Records while others stayed with Jive as it moved under the RCA Music Group. In October 2011 Jive Records was shut down and their artists were moved to RCA Records.
Colgems Records was a record label that existed from 1966 to 1971.
RCA/Jive Label Group was a short-lived American record label group, owned by Sony Music Entertainment and representing the merger of the RCA Music Group and Jive Label Group. The umbrella group was formed in 2007 under the name BMG Label Group, was rebranded as RCA/Jive Label Group in 2009. In July 2011 it was finally dissolved into two separate labels: the RCA Music Group and Epic Records which took Jive subsidiaries until October 2011 when it retired Jive Records along with Arista Records and J Records. The artists on those three labels were moved to RCA Records.
Amanda Lear discography consists of seventeen full-length studio albums, thirty-eight compilation albums, two extended plays and seventy-three singles. She has also released one video album and numerous music videos.
RCA is an American multinational trademark brand owned by French multinational corporation Technicolor SA, which is used on products made by that company as well as Voxx International, ON Corporation and Sony Music Entertainment. RCA is an abbreviation for the Radio Corporation of America, founded in 1919. The company became known as the RCA Corporation in 1969. RCA was purchased by General Electric in 1986 and its various divisions and assets were then liquidated.
Ariola Japan Inc., is a Japanese record label precedently part of BMG Japan and now subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan.
BMG Rights Management GmbH is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label.
CBS Records International was the international arm of the Columbia Records unit of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (CBS) that was formed in 1961 and launched in 1962. Previously Columbia Records had been using other record companies to distribute Columbia recordings outside North America, such as Philips Records and its subsidiary Fontana in Europe.
LaFace Records was an American record label based in Atlanta, Georgia that operated as a unit of Sony Music Entertainment from 2008 to 2011 and was historically a part of Bertelsmann Music Group from 1989 to 2004. It was most active and achieved its greatest commercial success during the 1990s; dealing largely in the field of urban music. It was originally distributed by its co-creator Arista Records from 1989 through 2001; after which it was shuttered and absorbed into Arista. In 2004, the label was rebooted, and it began operating through Jive Records until both were absorbed into RCA Records in 2011. Today, the label's back catalog and reissues are managed by Legacy Recordings.
