Astor Records was an Australian recorded music manufacturer and distributor that operated from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. Astor was the trade name of the consumer electronics manufacturer Radio Corporation Pty. Ltd, a division of Electronic Industries Ltd., which also made Astor radios, radiograms and television sets.
The company expanded into record production in mid-1960, and operated its own vinyl record pressing plant in Melbourne. The company's inaugural release was the single "Speak Low"/"Come Closer to Me" by Philippine-born vocalist Pilita Corrales (credited as Pilita). Three of her albums were released on the Astor label: I'll Take Romance, This Is Pilita and Pilita Tells the Story of Love. She sang mostly English, but also had some Spanish-language hits, and also recorded a Tagalog song, "Dahil sa Iyo".
During its early years as a manufacturer and distributor of vinyl records, much of Astor's success came from holding the rights to press and distribute the output of the UK Pye Records company and its subsidiaries (including Piccadilly). The biggest successes during the 1960s came from material by the Kinks, the Searchers, Petula Clark and Sandie Shaw. The label also enjoyed success with releases of material by Australians including rock group the Masters Apprentices, country singer Betty McQuade and pop singer Bobby Cookson.
At various times, Astor also held the Australian distribution rights to a number of American labels including Motown, Vanguard, Pye, Elektra, MGM/Verve, Kama Sutra, Casablanca, Buddha, Mercury and MCA. During the 1970s, Astor was considered to be one of the 'Big Seven' recorded music distributors in Australia, along with CBS Records, EMI Records, Festival Records, PolyGram, RCA Records and Warner Music Group. In the late 1970s, Astor enjoyed considerable chart and sales success with Kiss and Donna Summer, who were both on the Casablanca label at the time.
Astor was taken over by PolyGram in October 1981, [1] and its manufacturing facility in Melbourne closed on 31 December 1981 and the company ceased to exist. [2]
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another label recently acquired by PolyGram, were both at the time the largest independent record labels in history, with Island having exerted a major influence on the progressive music scene in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. Island Records operates four international divisions: Island US, Island UK, Island Australia, and Island France. Current key people include Island US president Darcus Beese, OBE and MD Jon Turner. Partially due to its significant legacy, Island remains one of UMG's pre-eminent record labels.
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing, promotion, and enforcement of copyright for sound recordings and music videos, while also conducting talent scouting and development of new artists, and maintaining contracts with recording artists and their managers. The term "record label" derives from the circular label in the center of a vinyl record which prominently displays the manufacturer's name, along with other information.
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released rock, funk, R&B, doo wop, soul music, blues, pop, rock and roll, and jazz records. In the United States, it is operated through Republic Records; in the United Kingdom and Japan, it is distributed by EMI Records.
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a holding for their record companies, and was renamed "PolyGram" in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disc gramophone, Emil Berliner.
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was a British and American film studio founded in 1975 as an American film studio, which became a European competitor to Hollywood within decades, but was eventually sold to Seagram Company Ltd. in 1998 and was folded a year later. Among its most successful and well known films were The Deep (1977), Midnight Express (1978), An American Werewolf in London (1981), Flashdance (1983), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Dead Man Walking (1995), The Big Lebowski (1998), Fargo (1996), The Usual Suspects (1995), The Game (1997) and Notting Hill (1999).
Casablanca Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Republic Records. Under its founder Neil Bogart, Casablanca was most successful during the disco era of the mid to late 1970s. The label currently focuses on dance and electronic music under the direction of Brett Alperowitz.
Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherhood of Man (1975–1979). The label changed its name to PRT Records in 1980, before being briefly reactivated as Pye Records in 2006.
Rock music in Australia, also known as Oz rock, Australian rock and Aussie rock, is rock music from Australia. The nation has a rich history of rock music and an appreciation of the roots of various rock genres, usually originating in the United States or Britain, but also in continental Europe, and more recently the musical styles of Africa. Australian rock has also contributed to the development of some of these genres, as well as having its own unique Australiana sound with pub rock and its indigenous music.
20th Century Fox Records was a wholly owned subsidiary of film studio 20th Century Fox. The history of the label covers three distinct 20th Century Fox-related operations in the analog era, ranging chronologically from about 1938 to 1981.
Boardwalk Records is a record label founded by Neil Bogart in 1980, after PolyGram acquired Casablanca Records from him.
DJM Records was a British independent record label, set up in the late 1960s by British music publisher Dick James. It was distributed by Pye Records in the UK, and various other companies around the world, including the US.
Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips and the Dutch-American largest record label company Universal Music Group. It was founded as Philips Phonographische Industrie in 1950. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in Amsterdam.
Phonogram Incorporated was started in 1970 as a successor to Philips Phonographic Industries, a unit of the Grammophon-Philips Group (GPG), a joint venture of Philips N.V. of the Netherlands and Siemens A.G. of Germany.
Pickwick Records was an American record label and British record distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design, Bravo, Hurrah, Grand Prix, and children's records on the Cricket and Happy Time labels.
Astor - Radio Corporation - Electronic Industries was the largest Australian electronics manufacturer, manufacturing across the retail sector of products from Washing Machines to Radio. Astor, which began operating in 1926, making electronics in Victoria was founded by Arthur Warner. The firm was innovative in that it offered radios in dynamic designs and colours compared with the conservative designs offered by other companies.
The discography of American singer Donna Summer includes 17 studio albums and 89 singles, plus several other releases. Her first single, "Wassermann", a German version of the song "Aquarius" from the musical Hair, was released in Europe in 1968 under her maiden name, Donna Gaines. She would become known as Donna Summer from 1974 onwards. Her first full-length album under that name was Lady of the Night.
A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distributing releases from Polydor Ltd. from the UK.
Universal Music New Zealand is the New Zealand subsidiary of the Universal Music Group (UMG), the world's largest music company. Universal Music New Zealand's corporate headquarters are located in Auckland, New Zealand.
RTC is a New Zealand record label which licensed recordings from overseas Independent labels in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
Dyna Music Entertainment Corporation is a Filipino record label. It is one of the major record companies in the Philippines; in the 1960s, it was the country's largest licensee of foreign labels. The first independent record label in the Philippines, Dyna Music was founded as Dyna Products Inc. by businessman James Go Dy in 1959. It is a member of the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI).