Everything about Warner Music Group totally explained
Warner Music Group (WMG) is the third-largest of the "big four"
major record labels, the others being
Sony BMG,
EMI, and
Universal.
Warner Music Group also has a publishing arm,
Warner/Chappell Music, which dates back to
1929, when
Jack Warner, president of
Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., founded Music Publishers Holding Company (“MPHC”) to acquire music copyrights as a means of providing inexpensive music for films. Amongst the historic compositions in which the publishing rights are controlled by WMG are the works of
Cole Porter,
Richard Rodgers and
Lorenz Hart. Its printed music operation,
Warner Bros. Publications, was sold to
Alfred Publishing on
2005-06-01.
History
WMG's roots in what became
Time Warner date back to the founding of
Warner Bros. Records as a division of the
Warner Bros. movie studio in 1958, in reaction to one of its contracted actors,
Tab Hunter scoring a hit for
Dot Records, a division of
Paramount Pictures. In 1963, Warner Bros. purchased
Reprise Records, founded by
Frank Sinatra 3 years earlier so that he could have more creative control over his recordings. Reprise was operated in conjunction with WBR.
After Warner Bros. was sold to
Seven Arts Productions in 1967 (forming
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts), it purchased
Atlantic Records, now WMG's oldest label. For the next 2 years, Atlantic and its subsidiary label Atco Records were operated separately from WBR and Reprise.
In 1969, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was sold to the
Kinney National Company. Kinney (later to be known as Warner Communications) combined the operations of all of its record labels. The following year, Kinney bought
Elektra Records and its sister label
Nonesuch Records, and assembled the labels into a group known as Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, also called WEA for short, or Warner Music Group. The WEA name was also used as a label outside the U.S.
In the mid-1970s, WEA expanded by purchasing
Asylum Records and
Sire Records. The former was merged with Elektra to form Elektra-Asylum, though the separate names would still be used as well. The latter became a sublabel of WBR in the meanwhile.
WEA's labels also distributed a number of otherwise independent labels. For example, Warner Bros. distributed
Straight Records,
DiscReet Records,
Bizarre Records,
Bearsville Records, and
Geffen Records (the latter was sold to
MCA in 1990). Atlantic Records distributed
Swan Song Records.
In 1987, it was announced that Warner Communications was to merge with
Time Inc. to form
Time Warner, a transaction which was completed in 1990.
Atlantic started 2 new subsidiary labels in the early 1990s -
EastWest Records (which absorbed Atco Records) and
Interscope Records. The former was later absorbed into Elektra, and the latter was also sold to MCA in 1995.
Time Warner sold the company in late 2003 to a group of investors led by
Edgar Bronfman, Jr. for $2.6 billion. Time Warner was reportedly attempting to reduce its debt load. This spinoff was completed on
February 27,
2004. In the 2004 transition to independent ownership, WMG hired record industry heavyweight
Lyor Cohen from
Universal Music Group (successor to MCA) to attempt to reduce cost and increase performance.
WMG's current logo is the former Warner Communications logo.
On
May 5,
2006, WMG apparently rejected a buyout offer from
EMI(External Link
). Then WMG offered to buy
EMI and it also rejected the offer. As of
2008, EMI has since been purchased by
Terra Firma Capital Partners.
Recently, WMG acquired
Rykodisc (home of the
Frank Zappa catalog), and
Roadrunner Records.
On
December 27,
2007, Warner announced that they'd sell
digital music without
Digital Rights Management through
AmazonMP3, making them the third major label to do so.
In 2007, Warner Chapell sent a Cease and Desist letter to the creator of a freeware program, PearLyrics which was used to find lyrics of songs using the internet. Apparently according to Warner Chapell annotating ones own music with lyrics is now classified as Piracy.
List of Warner labels
Warner Music Group's labels include the following. It should be noted that some labels are actually divisions of other labels than in the order listed; this order reflects the current order of each label's administration.
Asylum Records – founded in 1971 by David Geffen.
East West Records – founded in 1955 (today serves as an umbrella label for various indie labels.)
Atco Records
Rhino Records
Rhino Home Video
Warner Custom Products
Warner Music Group Soundtracks
WMG Film, Television & Commercial Licensing
Rykodisc Records
Ryko Distribution
Cordless Recordings
Warner Bros. Records – launched by Warner Bros. Pictures in 1958.
Blacksmith Records – founded by Talib Kweli in 2005.
Maverick – founded by Freddy DeMann and Madonna in 1992.
Nonesuch Records – founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 (but is technically a subsidiary of Elektra Records because of its UPC prefix).
Reprise Records – founded by Frank Sinatra in 1960
Festival Mushroom Records – launched from Festival Records and Mushroom Records in 1998.
RuffNation Records
Sire Records – founded by Seymour Stein in 1966.
Word Entertainment (co-owned with Curb Records)
- Word Distribution (Christian Booksellers market distribution)
- Word Label Group
- Word Music Publishing
- Word Music (Printed Music)
WEA International Inc.
WEA International Inc. has divisions worldwide such as Australia, Japan and all over Europe. These branches are usually called Warner Music followed by the name of the country. Some labels have more than one record company for example the UK has Warner Bros. UK and Atlantic UK.
Warner Music UK
Liberation Music (Australia)
Ivy League Records (Australia)
Warner Music Gallo Africa (joint venture between Warner Music and South African media giant Avusa Limited)
1967 Ltd
Chiyun Records
Vice Records
Lightyear Entertainment
Sub Pop
New Line Records
Green label records
SaraBellum Records
VMG Recordings
Teleprompt Records
Rhymesayers Entertainment
Trivia
Warner Music Group is the only one of the Big Four label groups that doesn't trace its roots back to the pre-1900 labels Columbia Records and Berliner Gramophone. Those U.S. labels' British licensees merged to become EMI in 1931. Then, in 2004, the successors to the original labels merged to form Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Universal Music Group's oldest label, Deutsche Grammophon, was founded in 1898 as the German licensee of Berliner Gramophone. In contrast, all of WMG's major labels were founded after World War II.
Warner Music Group is also the only one of the Big Four label groups that doesn't have a substantial link to European ownership. EMI is headquartered in London, Sony BMG is half owned by Bertelsmann (headquarted in Germany) and Universal Music Group is 100% owned by Vivendi SA (headquartered in Paris)Further Information
Get more info on 'Warner Music Group'.
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