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| EMI Records | |
|---|---|
.svg){kind=logo} | |
| Parent company |
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| Founded | 1 January 1973; 52 years ago (1973-01-01) (original) 2014; 11 years ago (2014) (Japan, Taiwan relaunch) 16 June 2020; 5 years ago (2020-06-16) (Europe relaunch) February 2024; 21 months ago (February 2024) (Philippines relaunch)[1][2] |
| Defunct | 2013; 12 years ago (2013) (original) |
| Distributors |
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| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Location | |
| Official website | emirecords |
EMI Records (formerlyEMI Records Ltd.) is a British multinationalrecord label owned byUniversal Music Group. It was originally founded as a British flagship label by the music companyEMI in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the successor to itsColumbia andParlophone record labels. The label was later launched worldwide.[3] It has a branch in India called EMI Records India, run by directorMohit Suri.[4] In 2014,Universal Music Japan revived the label in Japan as the successor toEMI Records Japan. In June 2020, Universal revived the label as the successor toVirgin EMI, withVirgin Records now operating as an imprint of EMI Records.[5] In February 2024,UMG Philippines relaunched EMI as a successor tothe former EMI Philippines label after 22 years.[1][2]
An EMI Records Ltd. legal entity was created in 1956 as the record manufacturing and distribution arm of EMI in the UK. It oversaw EMI's various labels, includingThe Gramophone Co. Ltd.,Columbia Graphophone Company, andParlophone Co. Ltd.[6]
The global success that EMI enjoyed in the 1960s exposed the fact that the company had the rights to some of its trademarks only in certain parts of the world, most notablyHis Master's Voice and Columbia, withRCA Victor and the AmericanColumbia Records, respectively, owning the rights to these trademarks in the Western Hemisphere.
Complicating matters was the American Columbia company's formation of its own operations in the UK by purchasingOriole Records and changing its name to that of its then-parent companyCBS (the legal trademark designation bearing the full name of the parent company, "Trade Mark of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc."), and asCBS Records International becoming highly successful, a serious rival to EMI, in the UK.
In July 1965, the standalone EMI Record labels were extracted from E.M.I. Records Ltd. and folded into The Gramophone Company Ltd. On 1 July 1973, The Gramophone Co. Ltd. was renamed EMI Records Ltd. At the same time, E.M.I. Records Ltd. was wound down and its activities were absorbed into EMI Records Ltd.[7]
Earlier, on 1 January 1973, all of The Gramophone Company Ltd. pop labels (Columbia, Parlophone, Harvest, Sovereign and Regal) had been rebranded as EMI. EMI Records then signed new music artists that became worldwide successes:Kraftwerk,Renaissance,Queen,Olivia Newton-John,Iron Maiden,Kate Bush,Sheena Easton, andPink Floyd (though some of these acts were on different labels in the US, not EMI'sCapitol Records). In 1978, EMI launchedEMI America Records as its second label in the United States after Capitol, and in 1988, EMI America later merged with sister labelManhattan Records, founded in 1984,[8] becoming EMI Manhattan Records and eventually EMI Records USA when Capitol absorbed it in 1989. In June 1997, the EMI Records USA division was folded intoVirgin Records and Capitol.[9]
In October 1979, EMI Ltd. merged withThorn Electrical Industries to become Thorn EMI,[10] whose shareholders voted on 16 August 1996 in favour of demerging Thorn from EMI again. The recorded music division became EMI Group plc, and the electronics and rentals divisions were divested as Thorn plc.[11]
In 2010, EMI Records opened acountry music division, EMI Records Nashville, which includes on its rosterTroy Olsen,Alan Jackson,Kelleigh Bannen, andEric Church. EMI Records Nashville is a sister label to theCapitol Nashville unit ofUniversal Music Group.[12]
Australia's most prolific artist,Slim Dusty, signed with the Columbia Graphophone Co. forRegal Zonophone Records in 1946 and remained with EMI until his death in 2003, selling over seven million records for the label in Australia by 2007.
Virgin EMI Records retained use of the EMI branding after Universal Music Group's acquisition of EMI in September 2012, but it is otherwise unrelated to the old label which was defunct and renamed Parlophone Records in 2013 and is now part ofWarner Music Group.[13] EMI Christian Music Group was renamedCapitol Christian Music Group.EMI Classics was sold to Warner Music Group in February 2013. After EU regulatory approval, EMI Classics was absorbed intoWarner Classics in July 2013.[14] The reissues of pre-1997 releases from EMI America and EMI Records USA are handled by UMG'sCapitol Music Group, Virgin Records' American distributor and a stand-alone British distributor. The distributors of the vast majority of EMI Records' UK catalogue areRhino Entertainment in the US and WEA International for the world outside the US.
In April 2013,EMI Music Japan became defunct following Universal's acquisition of EMI. The company's successor wasEMI Records Japan, a sublabel ofUniversal Music Japan.[15] In February 2014, Universal Japan did a label reorganization, with more than half of the formerEMI Records Japan artists being transferred to Nayutawave Records. Later that year, the two sublabels were combined and rebranded as EMI Records. Since 2018, Takeshi Okada has been the managing director of Universal Japan's EMI Records label.[16] In 2020, the label launched an official YouTube channel, six years after the label was formed.[17]
On 16 June 2020, Universal rebranded Virgin EMI Records as EMI Records and named Rebecca Allen (former president of UMG's Decca label) as the label's president.[5]
In September 2020, Universal launchedMotown UK, under EMI Records.[18]
In January 2023, EMI launched EMI North, based inLeeds, becoming the "first major to open a physical space outside of London".[19] In July 2023, Universal Japan announced a new imprint label, Holo-n, which will operate under their EMI Records division in partnership withHololive Production.[20]
In February 2024,UMG Philippines relaunched EMI Records as a successor to the former EMI Philippines label, now known asPolyEast Records.[1][2]
EMI United Kingdom is a brand of EMI Records that, despite the name, appeared worldwide between roughly 1993 and 1998, used mainly for artists such asIron Maiden,Kraftwerk andPink Floyd, as a sister imprint toParlophone, EMI Premiere, hEMIsphere, Eminence, EMI Gold and the home video divisionPicture Music International. During the 1990s, it reissued albums that originally bore theHarvest Records,Columbia Graphophone Company,RAK Records,Regal Zonophone,His Master's Voice,Music for Pleasure andStarline labels.
As of 2013, EMI UK's catalogue is owned by Warner Music Group after the acquisition of the Parlophone Label Group's assets. By contrast, UMG owns the catalogue of reissues fromDeep Purple's albums between 1972 and 1975 on the band's vanity labelPurple, in addition to their last albums for EMI in Europe,Abandon andBananas.
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