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Curated category

Pop record labels

  • Capitol RecordsCapitol Records was born on a golf course. Songwriter Johnny Mercer floated the idea of starting a record company while out on the links with Harold Arlen…
  • Interscope RecordsInterscope Records was founded on the 5th of September 1990, with a $20 million joint venture and a philosophy that would quietly upend how a major label…
  • Sire RecordsIn 1966, Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer each invested ten thousand dollars to found a record company they called Sire Productions.
  • ParlophoneCarl Lindström Company founded Parlophon in Germany during 1896. The name appeared on gramophones before the firm began pressing records of its own.
  • Columbia RecordsColumbia Records was born on the 15th of January, 1889, in Washington, D.C., making it the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business.
  • Polydor RecordsPolydor Records was born not in a recording studio, but in a music box factory. The firm that would become Polydor was founded in 1887 in Leipzig by Gustav…
  • King Records (Japan)King Records, the Japanese label founded in January 1931 as a division of the publisher Kodansha, takes its name from a magazine that no longer exists.
  • Capitol Music GroupCapitol Music Group sits at the center of one of the most consequential ownership chains in recorded music. A single merger in February 2007 brought Capitol…
  • Apple RecordsApple Records was founded in 1968 by the four members of the Beatles, and its origin story begins with a painting. Paul McCartney had become an admirer of…
  • MGM RecordsMGM Records was born in 1946 from a film studio's desire to sell its own music, and it ended up coining phrases the entire industry still uses today.
  • United Artists RecordsUnited Artists Records began in 1957 with a single, practical purpose: get movie music onto shelves. Max E. Youngstein of United Artists founded the label to…
  • Swan RecordsSwan Records, a small Philadelphia label founded in 1957, became the label that almost missed the biggest act in rock and roll history.