Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre.
RCA Records is an American record label currently 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). RCA Records was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1987, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment after the 2004 merger of BMG and Sony; it was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony/BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. RCA Records is the corporate successor of the Victor Talking Machine Company, founded in 1901, making it the second-oldest record label in American history, after sister label Columbia Records, founded in 1889.
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of labels in 1999. It is the oldest surviving established record company.
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.
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. In the United States, it operated through Republic Records; in the United Kingdom, it was distributed by EMI Records.
London Recordings is a British record label that marketed records in the United States, Canada, and Latin America for Decca Records from 1947 to 1980 before becoming semi-independent. The London name — as London American Recordings, often shortened to London American — was also used by British Decca in the UK market, for releases taken from American labels, which British Decca licensed.
PolyGram N.V. was an 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.
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.
Vanguard Recording Society is an American record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York City. It was a primarily classical label at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but also has a catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal jazz, folk, and blues musicians. The Bach Guild was a subsidiary label.
Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in Amsterdam.
Melodiya is a Russian record label. It was the state-owned major record company of the Soviet Union.
Hearts of Space is a United States weekly syndicated public radio show featuring music of a contemplative nature drawn largely from the ambient, new-age and electronic genres, while also including classical, world, Celtic, experimental, and other music selections. For many years, the show's producer and presenter, Stephen Hill, has applied the term "space music" to the music broadcast on the show, irrespective of genre. It is the longest-running radio program of its type in the world. Each episode ends with Hill gently saying, "Safe journeys, space fans ... wherever you are."
Unicorn-Kanchana is a British independent record label founded by John Goldsmith, a former London police officer. Originally known as Unicorn Records, the name Kanchana was added later to distinguish the company from Unicorn Digital of Montréal, Canada which many progressive rock bands like Mystery are signed to. In Hindu and Buddhist mythology, the female name Kanchana means an Apsara, a spirit of the clouds and waters.
Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music. It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group.
PIAS is a British recording, licensing, distribution, sales and marketing company for independent music. The company was founded in 1983 by Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot in Brussels, Belgium, and has over 250 employees, with 19 offices around the world. The group funds and partners with independent labels and artists.
Chapel Music, formerly Chapel Records is a record label, currently in Nampa, Idaho that releases religious music. The label was founded in the late 1940s and still releases several CDs each year. It is the long-standing official recorded music publisher of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Among the artists who have recorded for Chapel are The King's Heralds, Del Delker, The Heritage Singers, Wintley Phipps, and Roy Drusky.
Brilliant Classics is a classical music label based in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden. It is renowned for releasing super-budget-priced editions on CD of the complete works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many other composers. The label also specialises in new recordings of early music, chamber, organ and piano music.
Klaus Heymann is a German entrepreneur and the founder and head of the Naxos record label.
Warner Classics is the classical music arm of Warner Music Group. The label began issuing new recordings under the Warner Classics banner in 1991. The company also includes the Erato Records, Teldec Records and NVC Arts labels. Based in France, Warner Classics also distributes the Lontano and Finlandia labels.
Regis Records is a British classical music record label based in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset which is mainly known for re-releases out of print recordings by other, sometimes defunct, British independent labels. The record label is a side business of Selections, a gardening mail order company, and also distributes other labels.
