Island Records is a Jamaican 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, and MD Jon Turner. Partially due to its significant legacy, Island remains one of UMG's pre-eminent record labels.
Stephen William Bragg is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes.
Red Wedge was a collective of musicians formed in the UK in 1985 who attempted to educate youth with the policies of the Labour Party leading up to the 1987 general election in the hope of ousting the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.
Polydor Limited, also known as Polydor Records, is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. In turn, Polydor distributes Interscope releases in the United Kingdom. Polydor Records Ltd. was established in London in 1954 as a British subsidiary of German company Deutsche Grammophon/Schallplatte Grammophon GmbH. It was renamed Polydor Ltd. in 1972. The company is usually mentioned as "Polydor Ltd. (UK)", or a similar form, for holding copyrights.
Chrysalis Records is a British record label that was founded in 1968. The name is both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders' names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis. It started as the Ellis-Wright Agency.
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.
The Housemartins were an English indie rock group formed in Hull who were active in the 1980s and charted three top-ten albums and six top-twenty singles in the UK. Many of their lyrics conveyed a mixture of socialist politics and Christianity, reflecting the beliefs of the band. The group's a cappella cover version of "Caravan of Love" was a UK number one single in December 1986.
Phillip Christopher Jupitus is a retired English stand-up and improv comedian, actor, performance poet, cartoonist and podcaster. Jupitus was a team captain on all but one BBC Two-broadcast episode of music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks from its inception in 1996 until 2015, and also appeared regularly as a guest on several other panel shows, including QI and BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational major music record label and entertainment company 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.
Tabu Productions was an American record label founded by Clarence Avant in 1975. It focused on R&B and funk.
Philips Records is a record label founded by Dutch electronics company Philips and Dutch-American music corporation 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.
Independiente is a British independent record label formed in 1997 after Andy Macdonald sold his first label Go! Discs to PolyGram in 1996 for a reported £30 million. The label, which is currently dormant, is a division of Concord Music.
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.
Universal Music Group Nashville is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. It was officially opened on New Year's Day 1945 as MCA Nashville and Mercury Nashville which on New Year's Day 1950 as Capitol Nashville. Some of the labels in this group include MCA Nashville Records, Mercury Nashville Records, Lost Highway Records, Capitol Records Nashville and EMI Records Nashville. UMG Nashville not only handles these imprints, but also manages the country music catalogues of record labels Universal Music and predecessor companies acquired over the years including ABC Records, Decca Records, Dot Records, DreamWorks Records, Kapp Records, MGM Records and Polydor Records.
Acrobats of Desire were an English post-punk band originally from Sheffield, Yorkshire. The group were an electric string quartet fronted by a lead vocalist with an instrumental line-up which consisted of violin, viola, cello, and assorted percussion. The group was dominantly female and included some of the seminal female names of the late UK punk period, including Vicky Aspinall (violin), who went on to join The Raincoats and Mary Jenner (violin) who became a bassist for Leeds art house group The Mekons.
A&M Records is an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in late 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.
Total Experience Records was a record label founded by Lonnie Simmons. Its two major acts were The Gap Band and Yarbrough & Peoples. It originally began in 1975 as a production company with the first release being a 45 with the Semper led group New Experience on Ariola Records. By the fall of 1978, the production company signed a label deal with Mercury Records, before Simmons decided to transform the production company into a label in 1981. From its inception in 1981 to late 1983, Total Experience was a subsidiary label of Mercury's parent company, PolyGram. In 1984, the label became independent, changing its distribution from PolyGram to RCA Records.
Let Them Eat Bingo is the debut album by British electronic project Beats International, released in spring 1990 on Go! Beat in the United Kingdom and Elektra in the United States. The project was founded and led by disc jockey and former Housemartins bassist Norman Cook, who produced the album alone and intended Beats International to be a collective of permanent and temporary members including singers and other performers. Cook is joined on the album by a host of contributors, including Lindy Layton, Billy Bragg, Double Trouble, and Captain Sensible.
