TheShanghai Pathé Record Company (Chinese:上海百代唱片公司;pinyin:Shànghǎi Bǎidài Gōngsī Chàngpiàn;Cantonese Yale:Baakdoih Cheungpín) was one of the first major record companies inShanghai,Republic of China, and later relocated to colonialBritish Hong Kong following the establishment of thePeople's Republic of China. The company was anAsia-Pacific subsidiary of thePathé Records based inFrance, and later ofEMI Group, which was broken up in 2012.
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Around the beginning of the 20th century, a young Frenchman named Labansat set up an outdoor stall on Tibet Road inShanghai and playedgramophone records to Chinese citizens who were curious. Thephonograph was purchased from Moutrie and Company, and he charged anyone 10 cents to listen to a novelty record called "Laughing Foreigners" (洋人大笑).[1] Anyone capable of resisting any laughs or chuckles got their money back. Phonographs were becoming popular in the city in 1906.[2] By 1908, he received help from a French engineer and an assistant fromNingbo and established "Pathé Orient" (東方百代),[1] also known as "Pathé Asia," though other sources point to the renaming in 1921.[2]
Originally specialising only inPeking Opera, the company later expanded into Chinese pop music. Mandarin popular songs became hits, and they were sold at stores likeWing On in Shanghai.[1]
In 1930, Pathé's factory was taken over byColumbia Records in Shanghai and was used to pressOdeon andBeka with the manufacturing portion named "China Record Co. Ltd," and the distributor continued asPathé Orient.[3] In the same decade, Pathé went under BritishEMI, which was originally seeking to make a profit onThe Bund sellinggramophone records.[2]Ren Guang becamePathé-EMI’s new director and began getting involved withleftist music devoted to theproletarian cause. In 1937 Ren was fired from the company when the leftist music was cut off by theJapanese military officials.[1] Any Japanese plants were also taken back to theNipponophone Company (日本蓄音器株式会社).[2]
From the late 1930s to the 1940s, the company held therights to 90% of themandopop songs.[4]
On October 1, 1949, thePeople's Republic of China was established by theChinese Communist Party (CCP). In 1952, the CCP accused Pathé's factory in Shanghai of promoting pornography. UnderChairmanMao Zedong, popular music produced and performed before 1952 was denounced asYellow Music, and the coloryellow was therefore banned and made illegal. As a result of the accusation, Pathé was immediately forced to stop cutting records, close down its factory and cease operations.
Pathé subsequently moved its main office from communistShanghai to colonialBritish Hong Kong and started to cut records inHong Kong (which there were made inChina before moving its production toIndia in 1950), thus restoring the glory of Shanghainese pop music in the British colony of theFar East of theAsia-Pacific region. In the same year, Pathé Records entered a public-private joint venture with the state-runChina Record Corporation (formerly People's Records and the China Record Company from 1954) inShanghai as one of its commercial wings to continue to sell all of Pathé Shanghai's records made inIndia into communistMainland China under its Shanghai Pathé Record Company (上海百代公司唱片) name.
After thecommunist victory in Mainland China, theKuomintang government of theRepublic of Chinaretreated toTaiwan and Pathé Records also set up local operations inTaipei.
Pathé Hong Kong faced fierce competition in the 1960s with the rise of Diamond Records and eventually ceased Shanghainese pop production and cutCantopop instead, which gained popularity in theChinese mainland the early 1970s.
Pathé Hong Kong later changed its English name toEMI Hong Kong but retained its original Chinese name. In 2012 the entireEMI Group was broken up and sold to various companies. Pathé Hong Kong was absorbed intoUniversal Music Hong Kong, a division ofUniversal Music Asia-Pacific.
