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.
EMI Group Limited was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its acquisition by Universal Music in 2012, it was the fourth largest business group and record label conglomerate in the music industry, and was one of the "Big Four" record companies. Its labels included EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records, and Capitol Records, which are now referenced under Universal Music due to their acquisition with the exception of Parlophone, as it is now owned by Warner Music.
ZTT Records is a British record label founded in 1983 by the record producer Trevor Horn, the businesswoman Jill Sinclair and the NME journalist Paul Morley. They released music by acts including Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, the Art of Noise and Seal.
Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) was a division of a German media company Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Sony Corporation of America on 1 October 2008.
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.
ASV Records was a London-based record label set up by Harley Usill, founder of Argo Records, Decca producer and former Argo general manager, Kevin Daly, and producer Jack Boyce, after Argo's parent company Decca was bought by PolyGram in 1980. ASV stood for "Academy Sound and Vision". The label was bought by the Sanctuary Records Group in May 1999.
Skint Records is a Brighton and Hove based dance music record label owned by JC Reid, Tim Jeffery and Damian Harris. It was created as a sublabel of Loaded Records, also founded by Reid and Jeffery. Along with Wall of Sound, the label was a leader in the big beat music scene of the mid to late 1990s.
Big Brother Recordings Ltd. is a British record label set up in 2000 to release material by rock band Oasis in the UK and Ireland. On 19 June 2008 a deal was signed with Sony BMG which entitled them to an arranged portion of the profits from the next three Oasis studio albums to be released through Big Brother. The name of the company is a reference to the band's guitarist, singer and songwriter Noel Gallagher, who is the older brother of lead singer Liam Gallagher. The catalogue number of each release begins with "RKID", which stands for "our kid"; Northern England slang to refer to a brother.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann. 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.
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.
Deconstruction Records is a British record label founded in 1987 by Pete Hadfield and Keith Blackhurst, together with Mike Pickering of M People. According to DJ Magazine it is "best remembered for marrying underground credibility and diversity with an open-minded attitude towards pop".
The Echo Label was a British record label started by Chrysalis Group in 1994, and linked with Pony Canyon in Japan. The Chrysalis Group were the original owners of Chrysalis Records, which they sold to EMI.
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.
Sugar Hill Records was an American record label specializing in hip hop music that was founded in 1979 by husband and wife Joe and Sylvia Robinson with Milton Malden and funding from Tony Riviera and Morris Levy, the owner of Roulette Records.
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."
Minos EMI is a record company based in Athens, Greece. The company serves as the Greek record label and offices of the multinational Universal Music Group.
EMI Music Publishing Ltd. is a British multinational music publishing company headquartered in London, owned by Sony Group Corporation.
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.
Albert Group Services Pty Ltd, known as Alberts, formerly Albert Music andJ Albert and Son, is an Australian music company. The company has major interests in music publishing and production and it earns significant royalties through its subsidiary, Albert Productions which manages the music catalogue of the Australian rock band AC/DC. Alberts was acquired by BMG Rights Management in July 2016.
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).
