Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:09, 20 October 2006

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Atlantic Records (Atlantic Recording Corporation) is an American record label that operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

History

Founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Upon its creation, Atlantic was principally a jazz and R&B label. In the early fifties Ahmet was joined by Jerry Wexler and then Nesuhi Ertegun. From 1955 Nesuhi headed the company's jazz division and was responsible for major signings such as Charles Mingus and John Coltrane; later Joel Dorn filled this position. Although it began as an independent record company, it became a major player in the music business in the 1960s, with mainstream pop signings like Sonny and Cher. Competing record labels included Columbia Records and RCA Records.

The engineer, and later producer, Tom Dowd headed Atlantic's engineering department. Several sub-labels have been created or acquired since then. Atco Records was started in 1955 by Herb Abramson. Spark Records (the record label of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) was purchased in November 1955. Others including Lava Records, and 143 Records became part of the Atlantic group. In 1960, Atlantic began a distribution relationship with a recording enterprise in Memphis, Tennessee, spearheaded by Jerry Wexler which became Stax Records. The association with Stax ended in 1968. Atlantic was acquired by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1967. It is currently a large part of the Warner Music Group, a former division of media conglomerate Time Warner that was sold to a group of investors in 2004. From 1968-1973 Led Zeppelin had a deal with Atlantic Records, then formed their own Atlantic distributed label, Swan Song Records.

In May of 1988, the label held a 40th Anniversary concert, broadcast on HBO. This featured performances by a large number of their artists and included reunions of some rock legends like Led Zeppelin and Crosby, Stills, and Nash (being David Crosby's first full band performance since being released from prison).

In the early 1990s, Atlantic owned 50% of Interscope Records, which released notable gangsta rap titles — many in conjunction with Death Row Records. Pressure from activist groups opposed to gangsta rap, however, later led to parent company Time Warner's decision to sell Atlantic's stake in the label.

Atlantic's biggest mainstream rock success could be found in the Stone Temple Pilots, a grunge band popular throughout the 1990's

The label has also a number of labels deals with independents such as Must Destroy (which brought Goldie Lookin' Chain and The Darkness into the label) and VP Records in Jamaica, home to reggae artists such as Sean Paul.

Craig Kallman is currently Chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records. Ahmet Ertegun is still nominally associated with the label as its "Founding Chairman".

Media references

In June 2006, "Weird Al" Yankovic released a parody of James Blunt's hit "You're Beautiful" via the internet (but not on his album Straight Outta Lynwood) called "You're Pitiful". The song is only available for download because even though Blunt gave Yankovic permission to record the song, he is signed with Custard Records (distributed by Atlantic Records), and Atlantic denied permission for the song's album release. Yankovic's record label, Volcano Records, decided not to "go to war" with Atlantic even though they could still legally use "You're Pitiful". Later on, Al recorded some replacement songs for his album, including "White & Nerdy", a parody of "Ridin'" by Chamillionaire. In the song's video, the "nerd," played by Yankovic, is editing Misplaced Pages's Atlantic Records page, adding "YOU SUCK!" in big, bold letters. This is a reference to this event. Because of this, the Atlantic Records Misplaced Pages article has been subject to several hundred joke edits and was subsequently protected, preventing anonymous editors from changing the article. Yankovic has said that he does not approve of the vandalism, though he admits being amused by it.

References

1. Kurutz, Steve. "Jerry Wexler Biography". allmusic.com. Retrieved 2006-06-28. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)
2. Adams, Cameron. “Weird Al Yankovic.” Herald Sun, October 5, 2006.

See also

• Atlantic Records artists
• List of record labels

External links

• Warner Music Group page about the Atlantic Records Group
• Atlantic Records label design at www.collectable-records.ru

• 1947 establishments
• Warner Music labels
• American record labels
• Jazz record labels