Concord Music Group

• 1. Eight Awards, Year One

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  Eight Grammy Awards came to Concord Music Group in its very first year of existence. The Beverly Hills company had taken shape in 2004 when Concord Records acquired Fantasy, Inc. and the two combined. That same year, CMG teamed with Starbucks to release Genius Loves Company. That Ray Charles album claimed Album of the Year alongside seven other Grammy wins. CMG distributed through Universal Music Group, giving the new independent worldwide reach. The company would spend the next eleven years acquiring more catalogs and reviving dormant labels. Within seven years of its founding, a CMG artist would claim the Grammy for Best New Artist, a first in Concord Records' history.

• 2. Inheriting the Archive

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  Fantasy, Inc. was not a single record label but a holding company for several distinct imprints. When Concord Records absorbed it in 2004, CMG gained control of Prestige, Milestone, Riverside, and Specialty at once. Alongside those came the post-Atlantic Stax recordings, a catalog of soul and rhythm-and-blues material spanning decades. Each label carried its own loyal audience and a body of work that predated CMG's founding by many years. CMG added to this foundation in 2005, buying Telarc, which brought jazz and classical recordings into the group. On the 18th of December, 2006, CMG would announce that one of those historic names was coming back as an active label.

• 3. Stax Reborn

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  On the 18th of December, 2006, CMG announced it would relaunch Stax as an active soul label. Isaac Hayes and Angie Stone were among the first artists named for the new roster. The relaunch committed CMG to signing and developing new talent under a historic name, rather than simply licensing old recordings. A parallel venture was already underway with a familiar partner: Starbucks.

• 4. The Coffeehouse Label

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  In March 2007, CMG and Starbucks jointly founded Hear Music as a proper record label. Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full was the first release, arriving in June of that year. Hear Music went on to release albums by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Alanis Morissette, Carly Simon, and John Mellencamp. Village Roadshow Pictures Group and CMG completed their own merger the following year, creating the diversified entertainment group, Village Roadshow Entertainment Group.

• 5. Grammy Wins and Growth

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  In April 2010, the distribution rights to Paul McCartney's post-Beatles output moved to CMG from EMI. CMG had purchased Rounder Records that same year. Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2011, the first time that award had gone to a Concord Records act. By 2012, the company had organized its holdings into four operating units. Those were the Fantasy Label Group, the Rounder Label Group, the Concord-Telarc Label Group, and the Prestige Group. At the 2013 Grammy ceremony, CMG artists collectively took home eight awards, the most of any label group that year. In March 2013, Wood Creek Capital Management purchased CMG from Village Roadshow Entertainment Group.

• 6. Into Concord Bicycle Music

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  Bicycle Music Company acquired the Wind-up Records back catalog on the 31st of October, 2013. The catalog included master recordings of 1,600 songs by Creed, Evanescence, Seether, and Alter Bridge. Bicycle then entered a service agreement with CMG to market those and other back-catalog titles. Tom Whalley's Loma Vista Recordings followed with its own deal on the 1st of July, 2014, agreeing to a multi-year worldwide partnership with CMG. Loma Vista's roster included St. Vincent, Little Dragon, Spoon, Cut Copy, Marilyn Manson, and Ghost, along with the Grammy-nominated Django Unchained soundtrack. One week after the Loma Vista agreement, on the 8th of July, CMG announced the acquisition of the Vee-Jay Records catalog. That purchase brought in more than 5,000 master recordings. Artists represented included Little Richard, John Lee Hooker, Betty Everett, Jimmy Reed, Jerry Butler, The Staple Singers, Gene Chandler, and the Dells. In April 2015, CMG and Bicycle Music Company merged to form Concord Bicycle Music. The newly combined company immediately acquired Vanguard Records and Sugar Hill Records from the Welk Music Group. On the 28th of April, 2026, BMG and Concord announced they would combine under the BMG name. The Concord Records name, which predated CMG itself, would carry forward as the name for the new company's recorded music division.