Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 22, 1889, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company.[3] Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business,[4][5][6] and the second major company to produce records.[7] From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels: Epic Records, and former longtime rivals, RCA Records and Arista Records as the latter two were originally owned by BMG before its 2008 relaunch after Sony's acquisition alongside other BMG labels.[8]
Not to be confused with Columbia Record.Columbia Records
- Columbia Graphophone Company
(October 5, 1925 – March 31, 1931) - Grigsby-Grunow Company
(December 1931 – May 1934) - American Record Corporation
(June 1934 – December 1938) - Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Inc.
(December 17, 1938[1][2] – 1988) - Sony Corporation
(1988–1991) - Sony Music Entertainment
(1991–2004, 2008–present) - Sony BMG Music Entertainment
(2004–2008)
January 22, 1889 (as Columbia Phonograph Company) in Washington, D.C.
- Sony Music Entertainment (International)
- Legacy Recordings (reissues)
Various
United States
New York City, New York, U.S.
Logos and branding[edit]
The acquisition of rights to the Columbia trademarks by EMI (including the "Magic Notes" logo) presented the company with a dilemma of which logo to use. For much of the 1990s, Columbia released its albums without a logo, just the "COLUMBIA" word mark in the Bodoni Classic Bold typeface.[85] Columbia experimented with bringing back the "Notes and Mic" logo but without the CBS mark on the microphone. That logo is currently used in the "Columbia Jazz" series of jazz releases and reissues.[86] A modified "Magic Notes" logo is found on the logo for Sony Classical. In mid to late 1999, it was eventually decided that the "Walking Eye" (previously the CBS Records logo outside North America) would be Columbia's logo, with the retained Columbia word mark design, throughout the world except in Japan where Nippon Columbia has the rights to the Columbia trademark to this day and continues to use the "Magic Notes" logo. In Japan, CBS/Sony Records was renamed Sony Records in 1991 and stopped using the "Walking Eye" logo in 1998.
Affiliated labels[edit]
Columbia Label Group (UK)[edit]
In January 2006, Sony BMG UK split its front-line operations into two separate labels. RCA Label Group, mainly dealing with Pop and R&B and Columbia Label Group, mainly dealing with Rock, Dance and Alternative music. Domestic artists include Calvin Harris, George Ezra, Central Cee and Robbie Williams. Dipesh Parmar is the President of Columba Label Group. Amy Wheatley is the Managing Director.
American Recording Company (ARC)[edit]
During August 1978 Maurice White, founder and leader of the band Earth, Wind & Fire, re-launched the American Recording Company (ARC). In addition to White's Earth, Wind & Fire, the Columbia Records-distributed label artist roster included successful R&B and pop singer Deniece Williams, jazz-fusion group Weather Report, and R&B trio the Emotions.[88][89] Since the 1940s, Columbia has also re-issued thousands of 1930s records issued on ARC labels.
Aware Records[edit]
In 1997, Columbia made an affiliation with unsigned artist promotion label Aware Records to distribute Aware's artists' music. Through this venture, Columbia has found highly successful artists. In 2002, Columbia and Aware accepted the option to continue this relationship.
Columbia Nashville[edit]
In 2007, Columbia formed Columbia Nashville, which is part of Sony Music Nashville. This gave Columbia Nashville complete autonomy and managerial separation from Columbia in New York City. Columbia had given its country music department semi-autonomy for many years and through the 1950s, had a 20,000 series catalog for country music singles while the rest of Columbia's output of singles had a 30,000, then 40,000 series catalog number.
In 2009, Columbia Nashville became part of Sony Music Nashville under the Sony Group Corporation umbrella through Sony Music Group.