gramophone record (phonograph record in American English) or vinyl record, commonly known as a "record", is ananalog sound storage medium in the form of a flat polyvinyl chloride (previously shellac) disc with an inscribed, modulatedspiral groove. The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. Phonograph records are generally described by their diameter in inches (12", 10", 7"), the rotational speed in rpm at which they are played (162⁄3, 331⁄3, 45, 78), and their time capacity resulting from a combination of those parameters (LP – long playing 331⁄3 rpm, SP – 78 rpm single, EP – 12-inch single or extended play, 33 or 45 rpm); their reproductive quality or level of fidelity (high-fidelity, orthophonic, full-range, etc.), and the number of audio channels provided (mono, stereo, quad, etc.).
The phonograph disc record was the primary medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century, replacing thephonograph cylinder record, with which it had co-existed, by the 1920s. By the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of thecompact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991.[1][2] They continue to be manufactured and sold in the 21st century. In 2009, 3.5 million units sold in the United States, including 3.2 million albums, the highest number since 1998,[3] and the format retains a niche market.[4] They are especially used by disc jockeys and manyaudiophiles for numerous types of music.
The phonautograph, patented by Léon Scott in 1857, used a vibrating diaphragm and stylus to graphically record sound waves as tracings on sheets of paper, purely for visual analysis and without any idea of playing them back. These tracings can now be scanned and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008. Along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound.
In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Unlike the phonautograph, it was capable of both recording and reproducing sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no documentary evidence that Edison's phonograph was based on Scott's phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a wax-impregnated paper tape, with the idea of creating a "telephone repeater" analogous to the telegraphrepeater he had been working on. Although the visible results made him confident that sound could be physically recorded and reproduced, his notes do not indicate that he actually reproduced sound before his first experiment using tinfoil as a recording medium several months later. The tinfoil was wrapped around a grooved metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately. The Scientific American article that introduced the tinfoil phonograph to the public mentioned Marey, Rosapelly and Barlow as well as Scott as creators of devices for recording but, importantly, not reproducing sound.[5] Edison also invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats.[6] Numerous applications for the phonograph were envisioned, but although it enjoyed a brief vogue as a startling novelty at public demonstrations, the tinfoil phonograph proved too crude to be put to any practical use. A decade later, Edison developed a greatly improved phonograph that employed a hollow wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet. This proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful device. The wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century.
Lateral-cut disc records were developed in the United States by Emile Berliner, who named his system the "gramophone", distinguishing it from Edison's wax cylinder "phonograph" and Columbia's wax cylinder "graphophone". Berliner's earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, but only in Europe, were 5 inches (13 cm) in diameter, and were played with a small hand-propelled machine. Both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity. In the United States in 1894, under the Berliner Gramophone trademark, Berliner started marketing records with somewhat more substantial entertainment value, along with somewhat more substantial gramophones to play them. Berliner's records had poor sound quality compared to wax cylinders, but his manufacturing associateEldridge R. Johnson eventually improved them. Abandoning Berliner's "Gramophone" trademark for legal reasons, in 1901 Johnson's and Berliner's separate companies reorganized to form the Victor Talking Machine Company, whose products would come to dominate the market for many years.[7]
In 1901, 10-inch disc records were introduced, followed in 1903 by 12-inch records. These could play for more than three and four minutes respectively, while contemporary cylinders could only play for about two minutes. In an attempt to head off the disc advantage, Edison introduced the Amberol cylinder in 1909, with a maximum playing time of 41⁄2 minutes (at 160 rpm), which in turn were superseded by Blue Amberol Records, which had a playing surface made of celluloid, a plastic, which was far less fragile. Despite these improvements, during the 1910s discs decisively won this early format war, although Edison continued to produce new Blue Amberol cylinders for an ever-dwindling customer base until late in 1929. By 1919 the basic patents for the manufacture of lateral-cut disc records had expired, opening the field for countless companies to produce them. Analog disc records would dominate the home entertainment market until they were gradually supplanted by the digital compact disc, introduced in 1983.
During the first half of the 1920s, engineers at Western Electric, as well as independent inventors such asOrlando Marsh, developed technology for capturing sound with a microphone, amplifying it with vacuum tubes, then using the amplified signal to drive an electromagnetic recording head. Western Electric's innovations resulted in a greatly expanded and more even frequency response, creating a dramatically fuller, clearer and more natural-sounding recording. Distant or feeble sounds that were impossible to record by the old method could now be captured. Volume was now limited only by the groove spacing on the record and the limitations of the intended playback device. Victor and Columbia licensed the new electrical system from Western Electric and began issuing electrically recorded discs in 1925. The first classical recording was of Chopin impromptus and Schubert's Litanei byAlfred Cortot for Victor.[12]
A 1926 Wanamaker's ad in The New York Times offers records "by the latest Victor process of electrical recording".[13] It was recognized as a breakthrough; in 1930, a Times music critic stated:
Electrical recording preceded electrical home reproduction because of the initial high cost of the new system. In 1925, the Victor company introduced the Victor Orthophonic Victrola, an acoustical record player that was specifically designed to play electrically recorded discs, as part of a line that also included electrically reproducing Electrolas. The acoustical Orthophonics ranged in price from US$95 to US$300, depending on cabinetry; by comparison, the cheapest Electrola cost US$650, the price of a new Ford automobile in an era when clerical jobs paid about $20 a week.
The Orthophonic had an interior folded exponential horn, a sophisticated design informed by impedance-matching and transmission-linetheory, and designed to provide a relatively flat frequency response. Its first public demonstration was front-page news in The New York Times, which reported:
Gradually, electrical reproduction entered the home. The spring motor was replaced by an electric motor. The old sound box with its needle-linked diaphragm was replaced by an electromagnetic pickup that converted the needle vibrations into an electrical signal. The tone arm now served to conduct a pair of wires, not sound waves, into the cabinet. The exponential horn was replaced by an amplifier and a loudspeaker.
During the Great Depression, RCA, which bought the Victor Talking Machine Company and became RCA Victor, helped to improve record sales by introducing an inexpensive turntable called the Duo Jr., which was designed to be connected to radios.[16]
The earliest disc records (1889–1894) were made of various materials including hard rubber. Around 1895, a shellac-based compound was introduced and became standard. Exact formulas for this compound varied by manufacturer and over the course of time, but it was typically composed of about one-third shellac and about two-thirds mineral filler, which meant finely pulverized rock, usually slate and limestone, with an admixture of cotton fibers to add tensile strength, carbon black for color (without this, it tended to be a "dirty" gray or brown color that most record companies considered unattractive), and a very small amount of a lubricant to facilitate mold release during manufacture. Some makers, notably Columbia Records, used a laminated construction with a core disc of coarser material or fiber. The production of shellac records continued until the end of the 78 rpm format (i.e., the late 1950s in most developed countries, but well into the 1960s in some other places), but increasingly less abrasive formulations were used during its declining years and very late examples in truly like-new condition can have as low noise levels as vinyl.
Flexible or so-called "unbreakable" records made of unusual materials were introduced by a number of manufacturers at various times during the 78 rpm era. In the UK, Nicole records, made of celluloid or a similar substance coated onto a cardboard core disc, were produced for a few years beginning in 1904, but they suffered from an exceptionally high level of surface noise. In the United States, Columbia Records introduced flexible, fiber-cored "Marconi Velvet Tone Record" pressings in 1907, but the advantages and longevity of their relatively noiseless surfaces depended on the scrupulous use of special gold-plated Marconi Needles and the product was not a success. Thin, flexible plastic records such as the German Phonycord and the British Filmophone and Goodson records appeared around 1930 but also did not last long. The contemporary French Pathé Cellodiscs, made of a very thin black plastic, which uncannily resembles the vinyl "sound sheet" magazine inserts of the 1965–1985 era, were similarly short-lived. In the US, Hit of the Week records, made of a patented translucent plastic called Durium coated on a heavy brown paper base, were introduced in early 1930. A new issue came out every week and they were sold at newsstands like a weekly magazine. Although inexpensive and commercially successful at first, they soon fell victim to the Great Depression and production in the US ended in 1932. Related Durium records continued to be made somewhat later in the UK and elsewhere, and as remarkably late as 1950 in Italy, where the name "Durium" survived far into the LP era as a trademark on ordinary vinyl records. Despite all these attempts at innovation, shellac compounds continued to be used for the overwhelming majority of commercial 78 rpm records during the lifetime of the format.
In 1931, RCA Victor introduced their vinyl-based Victrolac compound as a material for some unusual-format and special-purpose records. By the end of the 1930s vinyl's advantages of light weight, relative unbreakability and low surface noise had made it the material of choice for prerecorded radio programming and other critical applications. When it came to ordinary 78 rpm records, however, the much higher cost of the raw material, as well as its vulnerability to the heavy pickups and crudely mass-produced steel needles still commonly used in home record players, made its general substitution for shellac impractical at that time. During the Second World War, the United States Armed Forces produced thousands of 12-inch vinyl 78 rpm V-Discs for use by the troops overseas.[17] After the war, the wider use of vinyl became more practical as new record players with relatively lightweight crystal pickups and precision-ground styli made of sapphire or an exotic osmium alloy proliferated. In late 1945, RCA Victor began offering special transparent red vinyl De Luxe pressings of some classical 78s, at a de luxe price. Later, Decca Records introduced vinyl Deccalite 78s, while other record companies came up with vinyl concoctions such as Metrolite, Merco Plastic and Sav-o-flex, but these were mainly used to produce "unbreakable" children's records and special thin vinyl DJ pressings for shipment to radio stations.[18]
Columbia Records is an American flagship recording label, under the ownership of Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company—successor to the Volta Graphophone Company.[1] Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in recorded sound,[2][3][4] being the second major record company to produce recorded records as opposed to cylinders. [5] Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of notable singers, instrumentalists, and bands. From 1961 to 1990, its recordings were released outside the U.S. and Canada on the CBS Records label (for Columbia Broadcasting System, its parent from 1938 to 1988) before adopting the Columbia name in most of the world.
It is one of Sony Music's three flagship record labels with the others being Epic Records and RCA Records.
Until 1989, Columbia Records had no connection to Columbia Pictures, which used various other names for record labels they owned, including Colpix, Colgems, Bell and later Arista; rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, which stood for ColumbiaBroadcasting System, a broadcasting media company which had purchased Columbia Records in the late 1930s, and which had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista was sold to BMG, it would later become a sister label to Columbia Records through the mutual connection to Sony Music; both are connected to Columbia Pictures through Sony Corporation of America, worldwide parent of both the music and motion picture arms of Sony.
The artists signed to Columbia Records currently include Beyoncé, The Script, Adele, One Direction, Passion Pit, Calvin Harris, Juicy J, Daft Punk, Ella Henderson, Céline Dion, Little Mix, T.I., J. Cole, Train, the Neighbourhood, MKTO, Rita Ora, Pharrell Williams, and the casts of Fox's hit television shows Glee and Empire. In 2012 Columbia Records had the highest label share in Adult Contemporary radio in the US, it was also ranked the number-one AC label that year.[6]
The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton (1856–1915) and a group of investors. It derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered.[7][8] At first it had a local monopoly on sales and service ofEdison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Delaware. As was the custom of some of the regional phonograph companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own, and its catalogue of musical records in 1891 was 10 pages.
Columbia's ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Company's breakup. Thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the "XP" record, a molded brown wax record, to use up old stock. Columbia introduced "black wax" records in 1903, and, according to Tim Gracyk, continued to mold brown waxes until 1904; the highest number known to Gracyk is 32601, "Heinie", which is a duet by Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have been sold to Sears for distribution (possibly under Sears' "Oxford" trademark for Columbia products).[9]
Columbia began selling disc records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their "Toy Graphophone" of 1899, which used small, vertically cut records. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and theVictor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound.
In order to add prestige to its early catalog of artists, Columbia contracted a number of New York Metropolitan Opera stars to make recordings (from 1903 onwards). These stars included Marcella Sembrich, Lillian Nordica, Antonio Scotti and Edouard de Reszke, but the technical standard of their recordings were not considered to be as high as the results achieved with classical singers during the pre–World War I period by Victor, Edison, England's His Master's Voice or Italy's Fonotipia Records. After an abortive attempt in 1904 to manufacture discs with the recording grooves stamped into both sides of each disc—not just one—in 1908 Columbia commenced successful mass production of what they called their "Double-Faced" discs, the 10-inch variety initially selling for 65 cents apiece. The firm also introduced the internal-horn "Grafonola" to compete with the extremely popular "Victrola" sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company.
During this era, Columbia used the famous "Magic Notes" logo—a pair of sixteenth notes (semiquavers) in a circle—both in the United States and overseas (where this particular logo would never substantially change).
Columbia stopped recording and manufacturing wax cylinder records in 1908, after arranging to issue celluloid cylinder records made by the Indestructible Record Company of Albany, New York, as "Columbia Indestructible Records". In July 1912, Columbia decided to concentrate exclusively on disc records and stopped manufacturing cylinder phonographs although they continued selling Indestructible's cylinders under the Columbia name for a year or two more. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players. Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation.[7]
In late 1923, Columbia went into receivership. The company was bought by their English subsidiary, the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1925 and the label, record numbering system, and recording process changed. (The "New Process" [still acoustic] was used on budget labels until 1930). See more at American Columbia single record cataloging systems. On February 25, 1925, Columbia began recording with the new electric recording process licensed from Western Electric. The new "Viva-tonal" records set a benchmark in tone and clarity unequaled on commercial discs during the "78-rpm" era. The first electrical recordings were made by Art Gillham, the popular "Whispering Pianist". In a secret agreement with Victor, neither company made the new recording technology public knowledge for some months, in order not to hurt sales of their existing acoustically recorded catalog while a new electrically recorded catalog was being compiled.
In 1926, Columbia acquired Okeh Records and its growing stable of jazz and blues artists, including Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams. (Columbia had already built an impressive catalog of blues and jazz artists, including Bessie Smith in their highly successful 14000-D Race series.) Columbia also had a very successful "Hillbilly" series (15000-D). In 1928, Paul Whiteman, the nation's most popular orchestra leader, left Victor to record for Columbia. That same year, Columbia executive Frank Buckley Walker pioneered some of the first country music or "hillbilly" genre recordings with the Johnson City sessions in Tennessee, including artists such as Clarence Horton Greene and the legendary fiddler and entertainer, "Fiddlin'" Charlie Bowman. He followed that with a return to Tennessee the next year, as well as recording sessions in other cities of the South. Nineteen twenty-nine saw industry legend Ben Selvin signing on as house bandleader and A. & R. director. Other favorites in the Viva-tonal era included Ruth Etting, Paul Whiteman, Fletcher Henderson, Ipana Troubadours (a Sam Lanin group), Ben Selvin, and Ted Lewis. Columbia kept using acoustic recording for "budget label" pop product well into 1929 on the labels Harmony, Velvet Tone (both general purpose labels) and Diva (sold exclusively at W.T. Grant stores). 1929 was the year that Columbia's older rival and former affiliate Edison Records folded, leaving Columbia as the oldest surviving record label.
In 1931, the British Columbia Graphophone Company (itself originally a subsidiary of American Columbia Records, then to become independent, actually went on to purchase its former parent, American Columbia, in late 1929) merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd. (EMI). EMI was forced to sell its American Columbia operations (because of anti-trust concerns) to the Grigsby-Grunow Company, makers of the Majestic Radio. But Majestic soon fell on hard times. An abortive attempt in 1932 (around the same time that Victor was experimenting with their 331⁄3 "program transcriptions") was the "Longer Playing Record", a finer-grooved 10" 78 with 4:30 to 5:00 playing time per side. Columbia issued about 8 of these (in the 18000-D series), as well as a short-lived series of double-grooved "Longer Playing Record"s on its Harmony, Clarion and Velvet Tone labels. All of these experiments (and indeed the Harmony, Velvet Tone and Clarion labels) were discontinued by mid-1932.
A longer-lived marketing ploy was the Columbia "Royal Blue Record," a brilliant blue laminated product with matching label. Royal Blue issues, made from late 1932 through 1935, are particularly popular with collectors for their rarity and musical interest. The C.P. MacGregor Company, an independent recording studio in Oakland, California, did Columbia's pressings for sale west of the Rockies and continued using the Royal Blue material for these until about mid-1936. It was also used for their own radio-only music library.
With the Great Depression's tightened economic stranglehold on the country, in a day when the phonograph itself had become a passé luxury, nothing slowed Columbia's decline. It was still producing some of the most remarkable records of the day, especially on sessions produced by John Hammond and financed by EMI for overseas release. Grigsby-Grunow went under in 1934 and was forced to sell Columbia for a mere $70,000 to the American Record Corporation (ARC).[11] This combine already includedBrunswick as its premium label so Columbia was relegated to slower sellers such as the Hawaiian music of Andy Iona, the Irving Mills stable of artists and songs and the still unknown Benny Goodman. By late 1936, pop releases were discontinued, leaving the label essentially defunct.
In 1935, Herbert M. Greenspon, an 18-year-old shipping clerk, led a committee to organize the first trade union shop at the main manufacturing factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Elected as president of the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) local, Greenspon negotiated the first contract between factory workers and Columbia management. In a career with Columbia that lasted 30 years, Greenspon retired after achieving the position of executive vice president of the company. The former Columbia Records factory in Bridgeport (which closed in 1964)[12] has been converted into an apartment building called Columbia Towers.[13]
As southern gospel developed, Columbia had astutely sought to record the artists associated with that aspiring genre; for example, Columbia was the only company to recordCharles Davis Tillman. Most fortuitously for Columbia in its Depression Era financial woes, in 1936 the company entered into an exclusive recording contract with the Chuck Wagon Gang, a symbiotic relationship which continued into the 1970s. A signature group of southern gospel, the Chuck Wagon Gang became Columbia's bestsellers with at least 37 million records,[14] many of them through the aegis of the Mull Singing Convention of the Air sponsored on radio (and later television) by southern gospel broadcaster J. Bazzel Mull (1914–2006).
In 1938 ARC, including the Columbia label in the USA, was bought by William S. Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System for US$750,000.[15](Columbia Records had originally co-founded CBS in 1927 along with New York talent agent Arthur Judson, but soon cashed out of the partnership leaving only the name; Paley acquired the fledgling radio network in 1928.) CBS revived the Columbia label in place of Brunswick and the Okeh label in place of Vocalion. CBS renamed the company Columbia Recording Corporation[16] and retained control of all of ARC's past masters, but in a complicated move, the pre-1931 Brunswick and Vocalion masters, as well as trademarks of Brunswick and Vocalion, reverted to Warner Brothers (who had leased their whole recording operation to ARC in early 1932) and Warners sold the lot to Decca Records in 1941.[17]
The Columbia trademark from this point until the late 1950s was two overlapping circles with the Magic Notes in the left circle and a CBS microphone in the right circle. The Royal Blue labels now disappeared in favor of a deep red, which caused RCA Victor to claim infringement on its Red Seal trademark (RCA lost the case). The blue Columbia label was kept for its classical music Columbia Masterworks Records line until it was later changed to a green label before switching to a gray label in the late 1950s, and then to the bronze that is familiar to owners of its classical and Broadway albums. Columbia Phonograph Company of Canada did not survive the Great Depression, so CBS made a distribution deal with Sparton Records in 1939 to release Columbia records in Canada under the Columbia name.
During the 1940s Columbia had a contract with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra helped boost Columbia in revenue. Sinatra recorded over 200 songs with Columbia which include his most popular songs from his early years. Other popular artists on Columbia were Benny Goodman (signed from RCA Victor), Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford (both signed from Decca),Eddy Duchin, Ray Noble (both moved to Columbia from Brunswick), Kate Smith, Mildred Bailey, Will Bradley, etc.
In 1947, CBS founded its Mexican record company, Discos Columbia de Mexico.[12] 1947 also saw the first classical LP Nathan Milstein's recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Columbia's 33 rpm format quickly spelled the death of the classical 78 rpm record and gave Columbia a commanding lead over RCA Red Seal.[18][19]
The Columbia Graphophone Company was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom. Under EMI, asColumbia Records, it became a successful label in the 1950s and 1960s. It was eventually replaced by the newly created EMI Records as part of an EMI label consolidation.
In 1922, Columbia Phonograph, as the American Columbia Records was then known, sold its UK subsidiary Columbia Graphophone.[1] However, in 1925 Columbia Graphophone bought its former parent for $2.5 million. In 1926 Odeon Records andParlophone Records were acquired. On 21 April, 1931, the Gramophone Company and the Columbia Graphophone Company merged and formed a new company, Electric and Musical Industries (EMI). American anti-trust laws forced EMI to sell its American Columbia operations.
EMI continued to operate the Columbia record label in the UK until the early 1970s, and everywhere else except for the US, Canada, Mexico, Spain and Japan, until it sold its remaining interest in the Columbia trademark to Sony Music Entertainment in 1990.
Under EMI, English Columbia's output was mainly licenced recordings from American Columbia until 1951 when American Columbia switched British distribution to Philips Records. English Columbia continued to distribute American Columbia sister labels Okeh and Epic until 1968 when American Columbia's then parent CBS moved distribution of all its labels to the new CBS Records[2] created from the purchase of Oriole Records (UK) in late 1964. The loss of American Columbia product had forced English Columbia to groom its own talent[3] such as Russ Conway, Acker Bilk, John Barry, Cliff Richard, the Shadows, Helen Shapiro, Frank Ifield, Rolf Harris, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Dave Clark Five, Shirley Bassey, Frankie Vaughan, Des O'Connor, Ken Dodd, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Seekers, the Yardbirds and Pink Floyd.[4] Led by avuncular A&R man Norrie Paramor, the label was arguably the most successful in Britain in the rock era prior to the beat boom.
In the mid 1960s, English Columbia added an audiophile imprint called Studio 2 Stereo. During that time, the Columbia Graphophone Company was absorbed into theGramophone Company with the label maintaining its identity.[5][6]
EMI has engaged in litigation with CBS regarding the importing of American records bearing the Columbia imprint into areas where EMI owned the Columbia name.[7]
EMI decided to reserve the HMV label for classical repertoire and had transferred HMV's remaining pop acts to Columbia and Parlophone by 1967.[8] EMI began to replace the Columbia label with the eponymous EMI Records in January 1973.[9][10] The last Columbia single was issued in 1989.[11] EMI sold its remaining interest in the Columbia name in 1990 to Sony Music Entertainment (formerly CBS Records), who already owned Columbia Records in the U.S. and Canada. The formal reassignment of British registered trade marks, including the "magic notes" logo, from EMI took place in 1993.
Today, Sony Music prefers using the "walking eye" logo (previously used by the old CBS Records and based on the Columbia Records logo introduced in the US and Canada in 1955) for the Columbia Records trade mark in the UK[12] and elsewhere. However, the "magic notes" logo is occasionally used, usually to give a 'retro' feel (such as the 2008MGMT singles that use the "magic notes" on the vinyl labels but the "walking eye" on the covers).[13]
The Columbia name was still on some EMI releases between 1973 and 1990 (such as Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy" in 1985,[14] Jeanne Mas and the 1987 Kiki Dee album Angel Eyes),[15][16] but it had ceased acting as a fully functioning label.
In Australia and Germany, EMI continued using the Columbia label throughout the 1970s, but added the EMI label in 1973.
Through its ownership of the former Columbia/EMI catalogue, Parlophone Label Group's new owner Warner Music Group assumed Columbia's artist roster and catalogue.[17][18]
| Columbia Records | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Parent company | Parlophone Label Group/Warner Music Group |
| Founded | 1922 |
| Defunct | 1973 |
| Status | Catalogue and artist roster presently owned by Parlophone Label Group, trade mark and name sold to Sony Music Entertainment |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Sony Classical Records is an American record label. It was started in 1927 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of the American Columbia Records.[1] In 1948, it issued the first commercially successful long-playing 12" record. Over the next decades its artists included Isaac Stern, Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, Eugene Ormandy, Vangelis, Elliot Goldenthal and Leonard Bernstein.
Columbia Records used the Masterworks brand name not only for classical and Broadway records, but also for spoken-word albums such as Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly's successful I Can Hear It Now series. Parent CBS also featured the Masterworks name on its consumer electronics equipment.
In 1980, the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed CBS Masterworks Records, but in 1990, after CBS Records was acquired by Sony, it was finally renamed Sony Classical Records (Its logo echoes the "Magic Notes" logo that was Columbia's emblem until 1955). During the 1990s, the label attracted controversy under the leadership of Peter Gelb as it emphasizedcrossover music over mainstream classical releases, failing to make available much of its archive of great recordings.
Going "back to the future", the Masterworks name lives on in its series of Broadway cast albums, Masterworks Broadway Records, and as the name of Sony Music Entertainment's classical music division, Sony Masterworks.