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.
Virgin Records is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group. They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. They grew to be a worldwide success over time, with the success of platinum performers Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Devo, Tangerine Dream, Genesis, Phil Collins, OMD, the Human League, Culture Club, Simple Minds, the Spice Girls, Lenny Kravitz, the Sex Pistols, and Mike Oldfield among others, meaning that by the time it was sold, it was regarded as a major label, alongside other large international independents such as A&M and Island Records.
Universal Music Group N.V. is a Dutch–American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its operational headquarters are located in Santa Monica, California. The biggest music company in the world, it is one of the "Big Three" record labels, along with Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group. Tencent acquired ten percent of Universal Music Group in March 2020 for €3 billion and acquired an additional ten percent stake in January 2021. Pershing Square Holdings later acquired ten percent of UMG prior to its IPO on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. The company went public on September 21, 2021, at a valuation of €46 billion.
Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and is, as of 2013, a subsidiary of BMG Rights Management solely for reissues. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest music management company in the world. It was also the world's largest independent owner of music intellectual property rights, with over 160,000 songs.
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.
Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "big three" recording companies and the third-largest in the global music industry, after Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME). Formerly part of Time Warner, WMG was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange from 2005 until 2011, when it announced its privatization and sale to Access Industries. It later had its second IPO on Nasdaq in 2020, once again becoming a public company. With a multibillion-dollar annual turnover, WMG employs more than 4,500 people and has operations in more than 50 countries throughout the world.
V2 Records is a record label that was purchased by Universal Music Group in 2007, sold to PIAS in 2013 and partially acquired by Universal in 2022. In 2024, Universal acquired the remaining 51% of PIAS that it didn’t already own. In Benelux, V2 would operate separately from PIAS from 2013 to 2022, since the label was bought from Universal in 2007, henceforth Universal Music Group fully owns V2.
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Sony Entertainment and managed by the American umbrella division of multinational conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the publishing division, Sony Music Publishing.
Disney Music Group (DMG) is the music recording and publishing arm of Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. It is located at the studio's headquarters in Burbank, California. The division's subsidiaries consist of two owned record labels—Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records—along with Disney Music Publishing, the publishing entity that administers the company's music, as well as Disney Concerts. Disney Music's Vevo account on YouTube is currently one of the most-viewed YouTube channels as of June 2023.
The music industry refers to the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts.
Def Jam Recordings is an American multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It is based in Manhattan, New York City, specializing predominantly in hip hop, contemporary R&B, soul and pop.
Candlelight Records is a British record label based in London, founded by former Extreme Noise Terror bass guitarist Lee Barrett in 1993. The record label originally specialized in black metal, but quickly expanded to various other forms of heavy metal, extreme metal and hard rock, including death metal and melodic death metal, thrash metal, symphonic metal, metalcore, gothic rock, post-rock and post-metal.
Fontana Distribution was a division of San Francisco–based Isolation Network. A minority stake of the company was owned by Universal Music until Ingrooves acquired Fontana Distribution from UMG in 2012 to form Ingrooves Fontana.
Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA) is a music distribution company owned by Warner Music Group, which represents the rights to various independent record labels. ADA provides "independent artist and label partners with access to the resources, relationships and experience required to share their creative vision with a global audience."
PIAS is a Belgian corporation that specialises in independent music recording, licensing, distribution, sales, and marketing. The company was founded in 1983 by Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot in Brussels, Belgium,. It has over 250 employees, with 19 offices around the world. The group funds and partners with independent labels and artists.
Ingrooves Music Group was a global independent music marketing service and distribution company which provided custom services for artists and independent record labels, owned by Universal Music Group. They used proprietary distribution systems and focused on analytics and reporting technologies, as well as their own platform that artists and labels used to manage business.
Cadence Music Group, formerly MapleCore Ltd., is a music company founded in 1999 and located in Toronto, Canada. Cadence Music Group has multiple divisions, five record labels Cadence Recordings, Open Road Recordings, Pheromone Recordings, Physical Presents, and Known Accomplice. They also jointly own distribution arm Fontana North with Universal Music Group, a live ticket services TicketBreak and Fan Experience, and their licensing division called Cadence Songs.
An independent record label is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented by trade associations in their country or region, which in turn are represented by the international trade body, the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN).
Liberator Music was a record label owned by the Mushroom Group. It was founded in 2006 by Nick Dunshea and Michael Gudinski in Melbourne. The label was the international recording division of the company and is home to artists such as Childish Gambino, CHVRCHES, alt-J, Andy Grammer, FIDLAR, Steve Aoki, Garbage, AJR, We The Kings, Wolf Alice, Kylie Minogue, Gengahr, Faith No More, Day Wave, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Fontaines D.C., and IDLES.
