179-887: Warner Records Inc. (known as Warner Bros. Records Inc. until 2019) is an American record label . A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group , it is headquartered in Los Angeles , California . It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the American film studio Warner Bros. Artists who have recorded for Warner Records include Madonna , Prince , Linkin Park , Zach Bryan , Van Halen , Kylie Minogue , ZZ Top , Gorillaz , Bette Midler , Grateful Dead , Jane's Addiction , Duran Duran , Fleetwood Mac , Rod Stewart , Funkadelic , James Taylor , Red Hot Chili Peppers , Mac Miller , R.E.M. , Bob James , David Sanborn , and
358-538: A "record group" which is, in turn, controlled by a music group. The constituent companies in a music group or record group are sometimes marketed as being "divisions" of the group. From 1929 to 1998, there were six major record labels, known as the Big Six: PolyGram was merged into Universal Music Group (UMG) in 1999, leaving the remaining record labels to be known as the Big Five. In 2004, Sony and BMG agreed to
537-405: A 50% profit-share agreement, aka 50–50 deal, not uncommon. In addition, independent labels are often artist-owned (although not always), with a stated intent often being to control the quality of the artist's output. Independent labels usually do not enjoy the resources available to the "big three" and as such will often lag behind them in market shares. However, frequently independent artists manage
716-452: A Gold Record award, and is cited as being the fastest-selling LP ever released in the US up to that time. Sherman also scored a hit single in late 1963 with a cut from his third WBR album, My Son, The Nut , when his song "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" (which satirized the American summer camp tradition) became a surprise novelty hit, peaking at #2. Bill Cosby broke through soon after and he continued
895-410: A US No. 1 with " Windy ", and they reached No. 8 on the album chart with their first Warner Bros. album Insight Out . Their next single " Never My Love " also topped the charts in autumn 1967 (No. 2 Billboard , No. 1 Cashbox ), and now ranks as one of the most successful of all Warner Bros. recordings—it became a radio staple and is now accredited by BMI as the second most-played song on US radio in
1074-558: A US Senate committee, that the Byrds never received any of the royalties they had been promised for their biggest hits, " Mr. Tambourine Man " and " Turn! Turn!, Turn! ". A contract either provides for the artist to deliver completed recordings to the label, or for the label to undertake the recording with the artist. For artists without a recording history, the label is often involved in selecting producers, recording studios , additional musicians, and songs to be recorded, and may supervise
1253-603: A Wonderful Life , It Happened One Night , the original King Kong , Mutiny on the Bounty , Top Hat , City Lights , Red River , The Lady from Shanghai , Rear Window , On the Waterfront , Rebel Without a Cause , Some Like It Hot , and The Manchurian Candidate . The studio system and the Golden Age of Hollywood succumbed to two forces that developed in the late 1940s: In 1938, Walt Disney's Snow White and
1432-470: A bigger company. If this is the case it can sometimes give the artist greater freedom than if they were signed directly to the big label. There are many examples of this kind of label, such as Nothing Records , owned by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails ; and Morning Records, owned by the Cooper Temple Clause , who were releasing EPs for years before the company was bought by RCA . If an artist and
1611-549: A compromise with Arnold in October 1940 and signing a consent decree agreeing to, within three years: The "Little Three" ( Universal Studios , United Artists , and Columbia Pictures ), who did not own any theaters, refused to participate in the consent decree. A number of independent film producers were also unhappy with the compromise and formed a union known as the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers and sued Paramount for
1790-419: A computer and manipulate them digitally. The possibilities became apparent in director James Cameron 's Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), in images of the shape-changing character T-1000 . Computer graphics or CG advanced to a point where Jurassic Park (1993) was able to use the techniques to create realistic looking animals. Jackpot (2001) became the first film that was shot entirely in digital. In
1969-408: A conventional cash advance to sign the artist, who would receive a royalty for sales after expenses were recouped. With the release of the artist's first album, however, the label has an option to pay an additional $ 200,000 in exchange for 30 percent of the net income from all touring, merchandise, endorsements, and fan-club fees. Atlantic would also have the right to approve the act's tour schedule, and
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#17328700607352148-578: A deal with a proper label. In 2002, ArtistShare was founded as the Internet's first record label where the releases were directly funded by the artist's fans. Cinema of the United States The cinema of the United States , consisting mainly of major film studios (also known metonymically as Hollywood ), has remained a significant influence on the global film industry beginning in
2327-596: A dinner, he recalled that Warner effusively greeted him as "the man who saved Warner Brothers Records". Despite the turnaround in the label's commercial and critical fortunes at the start of the new decade, Jim Conkling was unexpectedly forced out as CEO during 1961. The ostensible reason for his ousting was that Warner and the studio executives doubted Conkling's commitment to the label, after they discovered that he had sold his shares of Warner Bros stock, netting him around $ 1 million. However, label biographer Warren Zanes and former WBR executive Stan Cornyn both opined that this
2506-434: A few local radio and TV appearances. His break came thanks to a friend, local DJ Dan Sorkin, who knew Warner CEO Jim Conkling. Sorkin arranged for Newhart to make a demo tape of a few of his original sketches, which Conkling heard and liked. Equally remarkably, Newhart revealed that he had never performed in a club prior to recording the album. Warners arranged to record him at a Houston, Texas club called The Tidelands, where he
2685-410: A freelance producer for some of Autumn's acts including The Tikis (who later became Harpers Bizarre ), The Beau Brummels , and The Mojo Men , and for these recording sessions he brought in several musician friends who were then becoming established on the L.A. music scene: composer/musicians Randy Newman (a childhood friend), Leon Russell , and Van Dyke Parks . Together they became the foundation of
2864-566: A generous retainer of $ 200 per week. Hanging out around Laurel Canyon , Wickham scouted for new talent and established a rapport with the young musicians Warner Bros. was seeking to sign. Like Lenny Waronker, Wickham's youth, intelligence and hip attitude allowed him to bridge the "generation gap between these young performers and the older Warner 'establishment'". He played a major role in signing Eric Andersen , Jethro Tull , Van Morrison , and Joni Mitchell (who signed to Reprise), whom Wickham successfully recommended to Ostin in his first week with
3043-412: A high profile in the industry thanks to songs he wrote that were covered by other acts like Three Dog Night and Alan Price . Although Warner Bros. spent large sums on albums that sold poorly, and there were some missteps in its promotion strategy, the presence of unorthodox acts like The Grateful Dead and critically acclaimed 'cult' performers like Newman and Parks, combined with the artistic freedom that
3222-516: A homegrown supply of actors—lured west from the New York City stage after the introduction of sound films—to form one of the 20th century's most remarkable growth industries. At motion pictures' height of popularity in the mid-1940s, the studios were cranking out a total of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week. Sound also became widely used in Hollywood in
3401-609: A joint venture and merged their recorded music division to create the Sony BMG label (which would be renamed Sony Music Entertainment after a 2008 merger); BMG kept its music publishing division separate from Sony BMG and later sold BMG Music Publishing to UMG. In 2007, the remaining record labels—then known as the Big Four—controlled about 70% of the world music market , and about 80% of the United States music market. In 2012,
3580-471: A label want to work together, whether an artist has contacted a label directly, usually by sending their team a demo, or the Artists & Repertoire team of the label has scouted the artist and reached out directly, they will usually enter in to a contractual relationship. A label typically enters into an exclusive recording contract with an artist to market the artist's recordings in return for royalties on
3759-462: A large international media group , or somewhere in between. The Association of Independent Music (AIM) defines a 'major' as "a multinational company which (together with the companies in its group) has more than 5% of the world market(s) for the sale of records or music videos." As of 2012 , there are only three labels that can be referred to as "major labels": Universal Music Group , Sony Music , and Warner Music Group . In 2014, AIM estimated that
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#17328700607353938-624: A major film production center. In Colorado , Denver was home to the Art-O-Graf Film Company, and Walt Disney 's early Laugh-O-Gram Studio was based in Kansas City , Missouri . From 1908, Jacksonville, Florida's motion picture industry saw more than 30 silent film companies establish studios in town, including Kalem Studios , Metro Pictures (later MGM ), Edison Studios , Majestic Films, King-Bee Films Corporation , Vim Comedy Company , Norman Studios , Gaumont Film Company and
4117-453: A major reorganization of the entire Warner-Seven Arts music division. Mike Maitland was promoted to Executive Vice-president of both the recorded music and publishing operations, and George Lee took over from Victor Blau as operational head of the recording division. The restructure also reversed the reporting arrangement put in place in 1960, and from this point the Warner publishing arm reported to
4296-430: A meeting with Jerry Wexler , and Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun , co-owners of leading independent label Atlantic Records , which eventually resulted in the purchase of Atlantic in 1968. In June 1967, Mo Ostin attended the historic Monterey International Pop Festival , where The Association performed the opening set. Ostin had already acquired the US rights to The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's recordings, sight unseen, but he
4475-478: A new four-year production and distribution deal with local label Festival Records without informing Warner Bros. During 1969, the rivalry between Mike Maitland and Ahmet Ertegun quickly escalated into an all-out executive battle, but Steve Ross favored Ertegun, and the conflict culminated in Maitland being dismissed from his position on January 25, 1970. He declined an offer of a job with Warner Bros. Pictures and left
4654-692: A number of theaters in the late 1920s, and would hold a monopoly on theaters in Detroit, Michigan . By the 1930s, almost all of the first-run metropolitan theaters in the United States were owned by the Big Five studios— MGM , Paramount Pictures , RKO , Warner Bros. , and 20th Century Fox . Motion picture companies operated under the studio system . The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, crafts persons, and technicians. They owned or leased Movie Ranches in rural Southern California for location shooting of westerns and other large-scale genre films, and
4833-605: A return by recording for a much smaller production cost of a typical big label release. Sometimes they are able to recoup their initial advance even with much lower sales numbers. On occasion, established artists, once their record contract has finished, move to an independent label. This often gives the combined advantage of name recognition and more control over one's music along with a larger portion of royalty profits. Artists such as Dolly Parton , Aimee Mann , Prince , Public Enemy , among others, have done this. Historically, companies started in this manner have been re-absorbed into
5012-567: A seat on the Warner/Reprise board; Warner Bros. Records head Mike Maitland became the president of the new combine and Mo Ostin was retained as manager of the Reprise label. Reprise was heavily in debt at the time of the takeover, and the Warner Records management team was reportedly dismayed at their balance sheet being pushed back into the red by the acquisition, but they were given no choice in
5191-515: A set of still cameras placed in a row. Muybridge's accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices. In the United States , Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the kinetoscope and kinetograph . The history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast , where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey , was the motion-picture capital of America. The American film industry began at
5370-418: A substantial advance of $ 30,000 and, most significantly, it set a new benchmark for recording contracts by stipulating that the trio would have complete creative control over the recording and packaging of their music. Soon after, Grossman and Mogull signed a publishing deal that gave Witmark one of its most lucrative clients, Bob Dylan . Grossman bought out Dylan's previous contract with Leeds Music and signed
5549-490: A successful production partnership with noted British studio Hammer Films . Hyman's purchase of Jack L. Warner's controlling share of the Warner group for US$ 32 million stunned the film world—Warner Records executive Joe Smith later quipped that it was ... as if the Pasadena Star-News bought The New York Times . As ludicrous as that." The newly merged group was renamed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts (often referred to in
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5728-634: A time to theaters and use the lock-in to cover for releases of mediocre quality. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold —a noted " trust buster " of the Roosevelt administration—took this opportunity to initiate proceedings against the eight largest Hollywood studios in July 1938 for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act . The federal suit resulted in five of the eight studios (the "Big Five": Warner Bros. , MGM , Fox , RKO and Paramount ) reaching
5907-401: A vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the company decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood: a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, In Old California , a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century, when the state
6086-544: Is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos , or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture , distribution , marketing, promotion, and enforcement of copyright for sound recordings and music videos, while also conducting talent scouting and development of new artists , artist financing and maintaining contracts with recording artists and their managers. The term "record label" derives from
6265-469: Is co-credited with the band on the album). The group and their concert sound engineer Dan Healy then took over production of the album themselves, taking the unusual step of intermixing studio material with multitrack recordings of their concerts. Anthem of the Sun proved to be the least successful of The Grateful Dead's 1960s albums—it sold poorly, the extended sessions put the band more than $ 100,000 in debt to
6444-454: Is often marketed as a "unit" or "division" of the parent label, though in most cases, they operate as pseudonym for it and do not exist as a distinct business operation or separate business structure (although trademarks are sometimes registered). A record label may give a musical act an imprint as part of their branding, while other imprints serve to house other activities, such as side ventures of that label. Music collectors often use
6623-684: Is owned by Sony Group Corporation ). Record labels and music publishers that are not under the control of the big three are generally considered to be independent ( indie ), even if they are large corporations with complex structures. The term indie label is sometimes used to refer to only those independent labels that adhere to independent criteria of corporate structure and size, and some consider an indie label to be almost any label that releases non-mainstream music, regardless of its corporate structure. Independent labels are often considered more artist-friendly. Though they may have less sales power, indie labels typically offer larger artist royalty with
6802-542: The Billboard Hot 100 . It was nominally performed by Warner contract actor Edd Byrnes , who played the wisecracking hipster character Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III on Warner's TV detective series 77 Sunset Strip . The story behind the recording illustrates the sharp practices often employed by major recording companies. Actress and singer Connie Stevens (who appeared in the Warner TV series Hawaiian Eye ) spoke on
6981-638: The Best Comedy Performance–Spoken Word category, and Newhart himself won Best New Artist , the first time in Grammy history that a comedy album had won Album of the Year, and the only time a comedian has won Best New Artist. Interviewed for the official Warner Bros Records history in 2008, Newhart recalled that at the time he signed with the label he was totally unknown outside Chicago, he was still working full-time as an accountant, and he had done only
7160-550: The Columbia label, reverted to Warner Bros. Warner Bros. sold Brunswick a second time (along with Brunswick's back catalog up to 1931) in 1941, this time along with the old Brunswick pressing plants Warner owned, to Decca Records (which formed its American operations in 1934) in exchange for a financial interest in Decca. The heavy loss it incurred in the Brunswick deal kept the studio out of
7339-489: The Compo Company . This was the origin of Warner Music Canada. In November 1966 the entire Warner group was taken over by and merged with Seven Arts Productions , a New York-based company owned by Eliot Hyman . Seven Arts specialized in syndicating old movies and cartoons to TV, and had independently produced a number of significant feature films for other studios, including Stanley Kubrick 's Lolita , as well as forging
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7518-561: The Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles County, California . Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of a film grammar . Orson Welles 's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time . The first recorded instance of photographs capturing and reproducing motion was a series of photographs of a running horse by Eadweard Muybridge , which he took in Palo Alto, California , using
7697-1072: The Kalem Company began using Fort Lee as a location for filming in the area, other filmmakers quickly followed. In 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios , the Champion Film Company , built the first studio. Others quickly followed and either built new studios or leased facilities in Fort Lee. In the 1910s and 1920s , film companies such as the Independent Moving Pictures Company, Peerless Pictures Studios , Solax Studios , Eclair , Goldwyn Pictures Corporation , Star Film ( Georges Méliès ), World Film Company , Biograph Studios , Fox Film Corporation , Société Pathé Frères , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. , Victor Film Company , and Selznick International Pictures were all making pictures in Fort Lee. Such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York,
7876-674: The Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens , which was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields . The Edison Studios were located in the Bronx . Chelsea, Manhattan , was also frequently used. Other Eastern cities, most notably Chicago and Cleveland , also served as early centers for film production. In the West, California was already quickly emerging as
8055-486: The Lubin Manufacturing Company . Picture City, Florida was a planned site for a movie picture production center in the 1920s, but due to the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane , the idea collapsed and Picture City, Florida returned to its original name of Hobe Sound . An attempt to establish a film production center in Detroit also proved unsuccessful. The film patents wars of the early 20th century helped
8234-734: The Sex Pistols . At the end of the silent movie period, Warner Bros. Pictures decided to expand into publishing and recording so that it could access low-cost music content for its films. In 1928, the studio acquired several smaller music publishing firms which included M. Witmark & Sons , Harms Inc., and a partial interest in New World Music Corp., and merged them to form the Music Publishers Holding Company. This new group controlled valuable copyrights on standards by George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern , and
8413-614: The antagonist and protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir , in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho . The New Hollywood is the emergence of a new generation of film school-trained directors who had absorbed the techniques developed in Europe in the 1960s as a result of the French New Wave;
8592-459: The free software and open source movements and the success of Linux . In the mid-2000s, some music publishing companies began undertaking the work traditionally done by labels. The publisher Sony/ATV Music, for example, leveraged its connections within the Sony family to produce, record, distribute, and promote Elliott Yamin 's debut album under a dormant Sony-owned imprint , rather than waiting for
8771-407: The studios and Hollywood grew. Before World War I , films were made in several American cities, but filmmakers tended to gravitate towards southern California as the industry developed. They were attracted by the warm, predictable climate with reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film their films outdoors year-round alongside the varied scenery that was available. War damage contributed to
8950-505: The "parent" of any sublabels. Vanity labels are labels that bear an imprint that gives the impression of an artist's ownership or control, but in fact represent a standard artist/label relationship. In such an arrangement, the artist will control nothing more than the usage of the name on the label, but may enjoy a greater say in the packaging of their work. An example of such a label is the Neutron label owned by ABC while at Phonogram Inc. in
9129-533: The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde marked the beginning of American cinema rebounding as well, as a new generation of films would afterwards gain success at the box offices as well. Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola , Steven Spielberg , George Lucas , Brian De Palma , Stanley Kubrick , Martin Scorsese , Roman Polanski , and William Friedkin came to produce fare that paid homage to the history of film and developed upon existing genres and techniques. Inaugurated by
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#17328700607359308-609: The 1969 release of Andy Warhol 's Blue Movie , the phenomenon of adult erotic films being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope ), and taken seriously by critics (like Roger Ebert ), a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times , as " porno chic ", and later known as the Golden Age of Porn , began, for the first time, in modern American culture. According to award-winning author Toni Bentley , Radley Metzger 's 1976 film The Opening of Misty Beethoven , based on
9487-520: The 1990s had access to technological, political and economic innovations that had not been available in previous decades. Dick Tracy (1990) became the first 35 mm feature film with a digital soundtrack. Batman Returns (1992) was the first film to make use of the Dolby Digital six-channel stereo sound that has since become the industry standard. Computer-generated imagery was greatly facilitated when it became possible to transfer film images into
9666-544: The 20th century, surpassing both " Yesterday " by the Beatles and " Stand by Me " by Ben E. King . The group's 1968 Greatest Hits album was also a major hit, reaching No. 4 on the US album chart. In 1968, Mason Williams ' instrumental composition " Classical Gas " reached No. 2 on the Billboard chart, selling more than a million copies, and Williams won three Grammys that year. Another notable Warner release from this period
9845-542: The Catholic watchdog organization The Legion of Decency —appalled by some of the provocative films and lurid advertising of the era later classified Pre-Code Hollywood —threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it did not go into effect. The films that did not obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration had to pay a $ 25,000 fine (equivalent to $ 455,976 in 2023) and could not profit in
10024-526: The Ertegun brothers and Wexler between them 66,000 shares of Warner Bros.' common stock. On June 1, 1968, Billboard announced that Warner Bros. Records' star comedy performer Bill Cosby had turned down a five-year, US$ 3.5 million contract renewal offer, and would leave the label in August of that year to record for his own Tetragrammaton Records label. Just over one month later (July 13) Billboard reported on
10203-656: The Fox Film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre . RKO (a 1928 merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America ) also responded to the Western Electric/ERPI monopoly over sound in films, and developed their own method, known as Photophone , to put sound in films. Paramount, which acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO by purchasing
10382-510: The Hollywood antitrust case, as did the Little Three studios. The United States Supreme Court eventually ruled in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. that the major studios ownership of theaters and film distribution was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act . As a result, the studios began to release actors and technical staff from their contracts with the studios. This changed
10561-466: The Hollywood studios. The Classical style began to emerge in 1913, was accelerated in 1917 after the U.S. entered World War I , and finally solidified when the film The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent film era and increasing box-office profits for the film industry by introducing sound to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a formula— Western , slapstick comedy , musical , animated cartoon , biographical —and
10740-492: The Seven Dwarfs was released during a run of lackluster films from the major studios, and quickly became the highest grossing film released to that point. Embarrassingly for the studios, it was an independently produced animated film that did not feature any studio-employed stars. This stoked already widespread frustration at the practice of block-booking , in which studios would only sell an entire year's schedule of films at
10919-501: The UK. At one point artist Lizzie Tear (under contract with ABC themselves) appeared on the imprint, but it was devoted almost entirely to ABC's offerings and is still used for their re-releases (though Phonogram owns the masters of all the work issued on the label). However, not all labels dedicated to particular artists are completely superficial in origin. Many artists, early in their careers, create their own labels which are later bought out by
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#173287006073511098-460: The US (said rights previously being held by Laurie Records ). Clark soon scored a No. 1 US hit with " Downtown ". Warner also released other Pye artists in the US market such as the Kinks. Another significant development in the label's history came in 1966 when Ostin hired young independent producer Lenny Waronker as an A&R manager, beginning a strong and enduring mentor/protegé relationship between
11277-451: The US and selling more than eight million copies, and their debut Warner Bros. album It's Everly Time reached No. 9 on the album chart. In late 1959, Warner Bros signed a virtually unknown Chicago-based comedian, Bob Newhart , marking the beginning of the label's continuing involvement with comedy. Newhart provided the label's next major commercial breakthrough — in May 1960, three months after
11456-457: The US film industry. They were able to make their mark in a brand-new business: the exhibition of short films in storefront theaters called nickelodeons , after their admission price of a nickel (five cents). Within a few years, men like Samuel Goldwyn , William Fox , Carl Laemmle , Adolph Zukor , Louis B. Mayer , and the Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack) had switched to
11635-557: The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful and most commercially successful movies in the world. Hollywood is considered to be the oldest film industry, where the earliest film studios and production companies emerged. It is the birthplace of various genres of cinema —among them comedy , drama , action , musical , romance , horror , science fiction , and epic —and has set
11814-546: The United States would typically bear a 4th & B'way logo and would state in the fine print, "4th & B'way™, an Island Records, Inc. company". Collectors discussing labels as brands would say that 4th & B'way is a sublabel or imprint of just "Island" or "Island Records". Similarly, collectors who choose to treat corporations and trademarks as equivalent might say 4th & B'way is an imprint and/or sublabel of both Island Records, Ltd. and that company's sublabel, Island Records, Inc. However, such definitions are complicated by
11993-573: The Warner board was reluctant to write off the additional $ 2 million the label was owed in outstanding receivables and inventory. After a restructure, Conkling was obliged to report to Herman Starr; he rejected a buyout offer by Conkling and a group of other record company employees but agreed to keep the label running in exchange for heavy cost-cutting—the staff was reduced from 100 to 30 and Conkling voluntarily cut his own pay from $ 1000 to $ 500. Warner Bros. now turned to rock'n'roll acts in hopes of advancing its sales but their first signing, Bill Haley ,
12172-484: The Warner family of labels were The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's Are You Experienced , Van Morrison 's Astral Weeks , The Grateful Dead 's Anthem of the Sun , The Doobie Brothers ' Toulouse Street , Tiny Tim 's God Bless Tiny Tim , and Joni Mitchell 's Clouds , which set off a trend of musicians creating the artwork for their own record sleeves. In 1973, when Frank Sinatra emerged from retirement with his comeback album, Thrasher shot candid photographs for
12351-560: The Warner group in the years ahead– National Periodical Publications (which included DC Comics and All American Comics ), the Ashley-Famous talent agency, and Panavision . In the summer of 1969, Atlantic Records agreed to assist Warner Bros. Records in establishing overseas divisions, but when Warner executive Phil Rose arrived in Australia to begin setting up a subsidiary there, he discovered that just one week earlier Atlantic had signed
12530-419: The actors who appeared in it; MGM , for example, claimed it had contracted "more stars than there are in heaven." Each studio had its own style and characteristic touches which made it possible to know this—a trait that rarely exists today. For example, To Have and Have Not (1944) is notable not only for the first pairing of actors Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) and Lauren Bacall (1924–2014), but because it
12709-407: The album will sell better if the artist complies with the label's desired requests or changes. At times, the record label's decisions are prudent ones from a commercial perspective, but these decisions may frustrate artists who feel that their art is being diminished or misrepresented by such actions. In other instances, record labels have shelved artists' albums with no intention of any promotion for
12888-514: The album would be released, he was amazed to be told that the label was rushing all available copies to Minneapolis, because radio DJs there had broken it, and it had become so popular that a local newspaper was even printing the times that tracks would be played on air. He recalled that the success of the album almost instantly kick-started his career, and that he was soon being deluged with appearance offers, including The Ed Sullivan Show . A few months later, when Newhart met Conkling and Jack Warner at
13067-411: The artist from their contract, leaving the artist in a state of limbo. Artists who have had disputes with their labels over ownership and control of their music have included Taylor Swift , Tinashe , Megan Thee Stallion , Kelly Clarkson , Thirty Seconds to Mars , Clipse , Ciara , JoJo , Michelle Branch , Kesha , Kanye West , Lupe Fiasco , Paul McCartney , and Johnny Cash . In
13246-415: The artist in question. Reasons for shelving can include the label deciding to focus its resources on other artists on its roster, or the label undergoing a restructure where the person that signed the artist and supports the artist's vision is no longer present to advocate for the artist. In extreme cases, record labels can prevent the release of an artist's music for years, while also declining to release
13425-425: The artist is established and has a loyal fan base. For that reason, labels now have to be more relaxed with the development of artists because longevity is the key to these types of pact. Several artists such as Paramore , Maino , and even Madonna have signed such types of deals. A look at an actual 360 deal offered by Atlantic Records to an artist shows a variation of the structure. Atlantic's document offers
13604-484: The artists may be downloaded free of charge or for a fee that is paid via PayPal or other online payment system. Some of these labels also offer hard copy CDs in addition to direct download. Digital Labels are the latest version of a 'net' label. Whereas 'net' labels were started as a free site, digital labels represent more competition for the major record labels. The new century brought the phenomenon of open-source or open-content record labels. These are inspired by
13783-518: The band presented Warner Bros. with a planned live double album that they wanted to call Skull Fuck , but Ostin handled the matter diplomatically. Rather than refusing point-blank to release it, he reminded The Grateful Dead that they were heavily in debt to Warner's and would not see any royalties until this had been repaid; he also pointed out that the provocative title would inevitably hurt sales because major retailers like Sears would refuse to stock it. Realizing that this would reduce their income,
13962-452: The band voluntarily changed the title to Grateful Dead, known generally as Skull and Roses . Some of Warner Bros.' biggest commercial successes during this period were with " Sunshine Pop " acts. Harpers Bizarre scored a No. 13 Billboard hit in April 1967 with their version of Simon & Garfunkel 's " The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) ", and a month later The Association scored
14141-475: The band was ultimately signed by Atlantic Records , they eventually became part of the Warner Bros. catalogue after Atlantic was purchased by Warner Bros. Records. In 1967, Warner Bros. took over Valiant Records , which added hit-making harmony pop group The Association to the Warner roster. This acquisition proved to be another huge money-maker for Warner Bros.; The Association scored a string of major hits in
14320-650: The circular label in the center of a vinyl record which prominently displays the manufacturer's name, along with other information. Within the mainstream music industry , recording artists have traditionally been reliant upon record labels to broaden their consumer base, market their albums, and promote their singles on streaming services, radio, and television. Record labels also provide publicists , who assist performers in gaining positive media coverage, and arrange for their merchandise to be available via stores and other media outlets. Record labels may be small, localized and " independent " ("indie"), or they may be part of
14499-460: The company, subsequently becoming president of MCA Records . Mo Ostin was appointed president of Warner Bros. Records with Joe Smith as executive vice-president. In 1970, the 'Seven Arts' name was dropped and the WB shield became the Warner Bros. Records logo again. Record label [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company
14678-403: The company. Some independent labels become successful enough that major record companies negotiate contracts to either distribute music for the label or in some cases, purchase the label completely, to the point where it functions as an imprint or sublabel. A label used as a trademark or brand and not a company is called an imprint , a term used for a similar concept in publishing . An imprint
14857-418: The company. Over the next thirty years, Wickham became one of Warner's most influential A&R managers, signing such notable acts as Emmylou Harris , Buck Owens , and Norwegian pop trio a-ha . During this formative period, Warner Bros. made several other notable new signings including Randy Newman and Van Dyke Parks . Newman would not make his commercial breakthrough until the mid-1970s but he achieved
15036-544: The concert, Warner A&R manager Joe Smith took the stage and announced, "I just want to say what an honor it is to be able to introduce the Grateful Dead and its music to the world," which prompted a cynical Jerry Garcia to quip in reply, "I just want to say what an honor it is for the Grateful Dead to introduce Warner Bros. Records to the world." Also in 1967, Warner/Reprise established its Canadian operation Warner Reprise Canada Ltd., replacing its distribution deal with
15215-400: The corporate mergers that occurred in 1989 (when Island was sold to PolyGram) and 1998 (when PolyGram merged with Universal). PolyGram held sublabels including Mercury, Island and Motown. Island remained registered as corporations in both the United States and UK , but control of its brands changed hands multiple times as new companies were formed, diminishing the corporation's distinction as
15394-452: The cover and also devised the album title Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back , which was widely used to promote Sinatra's return to recording and touring. Besides his work on album covers, Thrasher art-directed many of Warner Bros.' ads and posters from 1964 to 1979. In 1964, Warner Bros. successfully negotiated with French label Disques Vogue and Warner Bros.' British distributor Pye Records for the rights to distribute Petula Clark 's recordings in
15573-438: The creative salon that centered on Waronker at Warner Bros. and which, with Ostin's continuing support, became the catalyst for Warner Records' subsequent success as a rock music label. Initially, Waronker looked after the acts that Warner Bros. took over when they bought Autumn Records for $ 10,000, but during the year he also avidly pursued rising Los Angeles band The Buffalo Springfield . Although (much to his and Ostin's chagrin)
15752-399: The decline of the then-dominant European film industry, in favor of the United States , where infrastructure was still intact. The stronger early public health response to the 1918 flu epidemic by Los Angeles compared to other American cities reduced the number of cases there and resulted in a faster recovery, contributing to the increasing dominance of Hollywood over New York City. During
15931-471: The early 20th century . Classical Hollywood cinema , which developed from 1910 to 1962, is still typical of most films made in America today. While French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, American cinema soon came to be a dominant force in the emerging industry. With more than 600 English-language films released annually as of 2017 , it has produced
16110-506: The early New Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider had been relatively low-budget affairs with amoral heroes and increased sexuality and violence, the enormous success enjoyed by Friedkin with The Exorcist , Spielberg with Jaws , Coppola with The Godfather and Apocalypse Now , Scorsese with Taxi Driver , Kubrick with 2001: A Space Odyssey , Polanski with Chinatown , and Lucas with American Graffiti and Star Wars , respectively helped to give rise to
16289-416: The early days of the recording industry, recording labels were absolutely necessary for the success of any artist. The first goal of any new artist or band was to get signed to a contract as soon as possible. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, many artists were so desperate to sign a contract with a record company that they sometimes ended up signing agreements in which they sold the rights to their recordings to
16468-486: The early times of talkies, American studios found that their sound productions were rejected in foreign-language markets and even among speakers of other dialects of English. The synchronization technology was still too primitive for dubbing . One of the solutions was creating parallel foreign-language versions of Hollywood films. Around 1930, the American companies opened a studio in Joinville-le-Pont , France, where
16647-601: The end of the 19th century, with the construction of Thomas Edison's " Black Maria ", the first motion-picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey . The cities and towns on the Hudson River and Hudson Palisades offered land at costs considerably less than New York City across the river, and benefited greatly as a result of the phenomenal growth of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century. The industry began attracting both capital and innovative work forces. In 1907, when
16826-521: The end of their careers or used the same creative teams on their films so that a DeMille film still looked like one whether it was made in 1932 or 1956. Post-classical cinema is the changing methods of storytelling in the New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical period: chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature " twist endings ", and lines between
17005-512: The end of their contract with EMI when their album In Rainbows was released as a " pay what you want " sales model as an online download, but they also returned to a label for a conventional release. Research shows that record labels still control most access to distribution. Computers and internet technology led to an increase in file sharing and direct-to-fan digital distribution, causing music sales to plummet in recent years. Labels and organizations have had to change their strategies and
17184-599: The eventual shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. At the time, Thomas Edison owned almost all the patents relevant to motion picture production and movie producers on the East Coast acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents while movie makers working on the West Coast could work independently of Edison's control. In Los Angeles,
17363-470: The example for other national film industries. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion-picture exhibition was given in New York City , using Thomas Edison 's kinetoscope and kinetograph. In the following decades, the production of silent films greatly expanded, studios formed and migrated to California , and
17542-543: The film Titanic , Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain and Pacific Data Images to continue the developments in digital technology which the director pioneered while working on The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day . Many previous films about the RMS Titanic shot water in slow motion , which did not look wholly convincing. Cameron encouraged his crew to shoot their 45-foot-long (14 m) miniature of
17721-418: The films and stories they told became much longer. The United States produced the world's first sync-sound musical film , The Jazz Singer , in 1927, and was at the forefront of sound-film development in the following decades. It was fully released to the public on October 6, 1927. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has primarily been based in and around the thirty-mile zone centered in
17900-417: The financial year 1961–62 in the black for the first time since its founding. In August 1963, Warner Bros. made a "rescue takeover" of Frank Sinatra 's ailing Reprise Records as part of a deal to acquire Sinatra's services as a recording artist and as an actor for Warner Bros. Pictures. The total deal was valued at around US$ 10 million, and it gave Sinatra a one-third share in the combined record company and
18079-459: The foreign language. The Spanish-language crews included people like Luis Buñuel , Enrique Jardiel Poncela , Xavier Cugat , and Edgar Neville . The productions were not very successful in their intended markets, due to the following reasons: Classical Hollywood cinema , or the Golden Age of Hollywood, is defined as a technical and narrative style characteristic of American cinema from 1913 to 1962, during which thousands of movies were issued from
18258-602: The fourth-largest number of films of any national cinema , after India , Japan , and China . While the national cinemas of the United Kingdom , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand also produce films in the same language, they are not part of the Hollywood system. Because of this, Hollywood has also been considered a transnational cinema , and has produced multiple language versions of some titles, often in Spanish or French. Contemporary Hollywood often outsources production to
18437-470: The hit record, rather than Hunter's latest Warner movie. In 1958, the studio signed Hunter as its first artist to its newly formed record division, although his subsequent recordings for the label failed to duplicate his success with Dot. Warner Bros. agreed to buy Imperial Records in 1956 and, although the deal fell apart, it marked the breaking of a psychological barrier: "If the company was willing to buy another label, why not start its own?" To establish
18616-425: The hits by Sinatra and his daughter Nancy , and the label also secured the US distribution rights to the recordings of the Kinks and Jimi Hendrix . Most importantly for the future of the company, the merger brought Reprise manager Mo Ostin into the Warner fold and "his ultimate value to Warner Bros. would dwarf Sinatra's." Ostin's business and musical instincts, and his rapport with artists were to prove crucial to
18795-456: The industry standard of the day. The duo were fielding offers from all the major labels as their Cadence contract wound up, but Warners eventually won out because the brothers harboured ambitions to branch out into film, and the label's connection to the movie studio provided the perfect opportunity. Luckily, the Everlys' first Warner Bros. single " Cathy's Clown " was a smash hit, climbing to No. 1 in
18974-415: The introduction of television in the late 1940s. Legal changes also had a major impact on their business—lawsuits brought by major stars had effectively overthrown the old studio contract system by the late 1940s and, beginning in 1949, anti-trust suits brought by the U.S. government forced the five major studios to divest their cinema chains. In 1956, Harry Warner and Albert Warner sold their interest in
19153-426: The label afforded them, proved significant in building Warner Bros.' reputation and credibility. Bob Krasnow , who briefly headed Warner Bros.' short-lived 'black' label Loma Records, later commented that The Grateful Dead "...were really the springboard. People said, 'Wow, if they'll sign The Dead, they must be going in the right direction.'" Although not widely known to the general public at that time, Van Dyke Parks
19332-498: The label's creation was the music career of Warner Bros. actor Tab Hunter . Although Hunter was signed to an exclusive acting contract with the studio, it did not prevent him from signing a recording contract, which he did with Dot Records , owned at the time by Paramount Pictures . Hunter scored several hits for Dot, including the US No. 1 single , " Young Love " (1957) and, to Warner Bros.' chagrin, reporters were primarily asking about
19511-499: The label's dream run with comedy LPs into the late 1960s, releasing a string of highly successful albums on Warner Bros. over the next six years, alongside his groundbreaking career as a TV actor. The label's fortunes had finally turned around by 1962 thanks to the Everly Brothers , Newhart , folk stars Peter, Paul & Mary , jazz and pop crossover hit Joanie Sommers and comedian Allan Sherman , and Warner Bros. Records ended
19690-527: The label, and Warner Bros. executive Joe Smith later described it as "the most unreasonable project with which we have ever involved ourselves." The Grateful Dead's relationship with Warner Bros. Records was stretched even further by the making of their third album Aoxomoxoa (1969), which also took around seven months to record and cost $ 180,000, almost twice as much as its predecessor. It sold poorly and took almost thirty years to be accredited with gold-record status. There were further difficulties in 1971 when
19869-515: The label, the company hired former Columbia Records president James B. Conkling; its founding directors of A&R were Harris Ashburn, George Avakian , and Bob Prince . Conkling was an able administrator with extensive experience in the industry—he had been instrumental in launching the LP format at Columbia and had played a key role in establishing the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
20048-536: The late 1920s. After The Jazz Singer , the first film with synchronized voices was successfully released as a Vitaphone talkie in 1927, Hollywood film companies would respond to Warner Bros. and begin to use Vitaphone sound—which Warner Bros. owned until 1928—in future films. By May 1928, Electrical Research Product Incorporated (ERPI), a subsidiary of the Western Electric company, gained a monopoly over film sound distribution. A side effect of these " talkies "
20227-479: The late 1960s, and their 1967 hit " Never My Love " went on to become the second-most-played song on American radio and TV in the 20th century. During the year, the label also took its first tentative step into the burgeoning rock market when they signed leading San Francisco psychedelic rock group The Grateful Dead . Warner Bros. threw the band a release party at Fugazi Hall in San Francisco's North Beach . During
20406-403: The mainstream audience, and Warner Bros. took an early (though largely unsuccessful) lead in recording stereo LPs that targeted the new " hi-fi " market. The catalogue in this period included: Some albums featured jokey or self-deprecating titles such as: Almost all were commercial failures; and the only charting album in Warner Bros.' first two years was Warren Barker's 'soundtrack' album for
20585-678: The major divisions of EMI were sold off separately by owner Citigroup : most of EMI's recorded music division was absorbed into UMG; EMI Music Publishing was absorbed into Sony/ATV Music Publishing; finally, EMI's Parlophone and Virgin Classics labels were absorbed into Warner Music Group (WMG) in July 2013. This left the so-called Big Three labels. In 2020 and 2021, both WMG and UMG had their IPO with WMG starting trading at Nasdaq and UMG starting trading at Euronext Amsterdam and leaving only Sony Music as wholly-owned subsidiary of an international conglomerate ( Sony Entertainment which in turn
20764-433: The major labels (two examples are American singer Frank Sinatra 's Reprise Records , which has been owned by Warner Music Group for some time now, and musician Herb Alpert 's A&M Records , now owned by Universal Music Group). Similarly, Madonna 's Maverick Records (started by Madonna with her manager and another partner) was to come under control of Warner Music when Madonna divested herself of controlling shares in
20943-468: The major studios owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across the nation in 1920 film theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPPDA President Will Hays created the Hays (Production) Code , which followed censorship guidelines and went into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. However, the code was never enforced until 1934, after
21122-537: The majors had a collective global market share of some 65–70%. Record labels are often under the control of a corporate umbrella organization called a "music group ". A music group is usually affiliated to an international conglomerate " holding company ", which often has non-music divisions as well. A music group controls and consists of music-publishing companies, record (sound recording) manufacturers, record distributors, and record labels. Record companies (manufacturers, distributors, and labels) may also constitute
21301-488: The matter. Ben Kalmenson, a Warner Bros. company director and close aide to Jack Warner , summoned the label's directors to a meeting in New York and explicitly told them that both he and Warner wanted the deal and that they expected them to vote in favor of it. Despite these misgivings, the purchase ultimately proved very beneficial to the Warner group. Reprise flourished in the late 1960s thanks to Sinatra's famous comeback and
21480-556: The modern " blockbuster ", and induced studios to focus ever more heavily on trying to produce enormous hits. In the US, the PG-13 rating was introduced in 1984 to accommodate films that straddled the line between PG and R, which was mainly due to the controversies surrounding the violent content of the PG films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins (both 1984). Film makers in
21659-561: The monopoly they still had over the Detroit Theaters—as Paramount was also gaining dominance through actors like Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Betty Hutton, crooner Bing Crosby, Alan Ladd, and longtime actor for studio Gary Cooper too- by 1942. The Big Five studios did not meet the requirements of the Consent of Decree during WWII, without major consequence, but after the war ended they joined Paramount as defendants in
21838-470: The most expensive 'pop' albums ever made up to that time. It sold very poorly despite rave critical reviews, so publicist Stan Cornyn (who had helped the label to sign The Grateful Dead) wrote an infamous tongue-in-cheek advertisement to promote it. The ad cheekily declared that the label had "lost $ 35,509 on 'the album of the year' (dammit)," suggested that those who had purchased the album had probably worn their copies out by playing it over and over, and made
22017-508: The most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . This distinction was promptly topped in 1939 when Selznick International created what is still, when adjusted for inflation, the most successful film of all time in Gone with the Wind . Many film historians have remarked upon the many great works of cinema that emerged from this period of highly regimented filmmaking. One reason this
22196-521: The movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey , built the first studio in the Hollywood neighborhood in 1911. Nestor Studios, owned by David and William Horsley, later merged with Universal Studios; and William Horsley's other company, Hollywood Film Laboratory, is now the oldest existing company in Hollywood, presently called the Hollywood Digital Laboratory. California 's more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to
22375-402: The new division was soon earning solid profits of up to US$ 2 million every year. In 1930, Music Publishers Holding Company (MPHC) paid US$ 28 million to acquire Brunswick Records (which included Vocalion ), whose roster included Duke Ellington , Red Nichols , Nick Lucas , Al Jolson , Earl Burtnett , Ethel Waters , Abe Lyman , Leroy Carr , Tampa Red and Memphis Minnie , and soon after
22554-437: The offer that listeners could send these supposedly worn-out copies back to Warner Bros., who would exchange it for two new copies, including one "to educate a friend with." Incensed by the tactic, Parks accused Cornyn of trying to kill his career. Cornyn encountered similar problems with Joni Mitchell—he penned an advertisement that was meant to convey the message that Mitchell was yet to achieve significant market penetration, but
22733-553: The opportunity to use the company's cars, which were idle at night, he founded a successful car hire operation, which he later merged with the Kinney parking garage company. Ross took the company public in 1962, and from this base it expanded rapidly between 1966 and 1968, merging with National Cleaning Services in 1966 to form the Kinney National Company, and then acquiring a string of companies that would prove of enormous value to
22912-507: The output of recording sessions. For established artists, a label is usually less involved in the recording process. The relationship between record labels and artists can be a difficult one. Many artists have had conflicts with their labels over the type of sound or songs they want to make, which can result in the artist's artwork or titles being changed before release. Other artists have had their music prevented from release, or shelved. Record labels generally do this because they believe that
23091-503: The pandemic, public health officials temporarily closed movie theaters in some jurisdictions, large studios suspended production for weeks at a time, and some actors came down with the flu. This caused major financial losses and severe difficulties for small studios, but the industry as a whole more than recovered during the Roaring Twenties . In the early 20th century, when the medium was new, many Jewish immigrants found employment in
23270-437: The paradigm of film making by the major Hollywood studios, as each could have an entirely different cast and creative team. The decision resulted in the gradual loss of the characteristics which made Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, RKO Pictures, and 20th Century Fox films immediately identifiable. Certain movie people, such as Cecil B. DeMille , either remained contract artists until
23449-477: The play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, My Fair Lady ), and due to attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets, is considered the "crown jewel" of this ' Golden Age '. At the height of his fame in the early 1970s, Charles Bronson was the world's No. 1 box office attraction, commanding $ 1 million per film. In the 1970s, the films of New Hollywood filmmakers were often both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. While
23628-465: The previous year. However, Conkling had decidedly middle-of-the-road musical tastes (he was married to Donna King of vocal trio the King Sisters ), and was thus rather out of step with emerging trends in the industry, especially the fast-growing market for rock'n'roll music. Warner Bros. Records opened for business on March 19, 1958. Its early album releases (1958–1960) were aimed at the upscale end of
23807-487: The price of records from 75 to 35 cents. In December 1931, Warner Bros. offloaded Brunswick to the American Record Corporation (ARC) for a fraction of its former value, in a lease arrangement which did not include Brunswick's pressing plants. Technically, Warner maintained actual ownership of Brunswick, which with the sale of ARC to CBS in 1939 and their decision to discontinue Brunswick in favor of reviving
23986-629: The production side of the business. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the movie studio . The US had at least two female directors, producers and studio heads in these early years: Lois Weber and French-born Alice Guy-Blaché . They also set the stage for the industry's internationalism; the industry is often accused of Amero centric provincialism . Other movie makers arrived from Europe after World War I: directors like Ernst Lubitsch , Alfred Hitchcock , Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir ; and actors like Rudolph Valentino , Marlene Dietrich , Ronald Colman , and Charles Boyer . They joined
24165-578: The profits from Warner/Reprise, W7 purchased Atlantic Records for $ 17.5 million, including the label's valuable archive, its growing roster of new artists, and the services of its three renowned executives Jerry Wexler , Nesuhi Ertegun and Ahmet Ertegun . However, the purchase again caused rancor among the Warner/Reprise management, who were upset that their hard-won profits had been co-opted to buy Atlantic, and that Atlantic's executives were made large shareholders in Warner-Seven Arts—the deal gave
24344-441: The record business booming – sales had topped US$ 500 million by 1958 – Semnenko argued that it was foolish for Warner Bros. to make deals with other companies to release its soundtracks when, for less than the cost of one motion picture, they could establish their own label, creating a new income stream that could continue indefinitely and provide an additional means of exploiting and promoting its contract actors. Another impetus for
24523-422: The record business for almost 20 years, and during this period it licensed its film music to other companies for release as soundtrack albums. Warner Bros. returned to the record business on March 19, 1958, with the establishment of its own recording division, Warner Bros. Records. By this time, the established Hollywood studios were reeling from multiple challenges to their former dominance—the most notable being
24702-487: The record division under Maitland. The Billboard article also noted the enormous growth and vital significance of W7's music operations, which were by then providing most of Warner-Seven Arts' revenue—during the first nine months of that fiscal year, the recording and publishing divisions generated 74% of the corporation's total profit, with the publishing division alone accounting for over US$ 2 million of ASCAP 's collections from music users. In 1969, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
24881-543: The record label in perpetuity. Entertainment lawyers are usually employed by artists to discuss contract terms. Due to advancing technology such as the Internet , the role of labels is rapidly changing, as artists are able to freely distribute their own material through online radio , peer-to-peer file sharing such as BitTorrent , and other services, at little to no cost, but with correspondingly low financial returns. Established artists, such as Nine Inch Nails , whose career
25060-502: The right. Below the shield in white Rockwell font, it read "VITAPHONIC HIGH FIDELITY;" this 45 label was used for two years, 1958 – 1960. This initial 45 label was soon replaced by a new, all-red label with the WB shield logo at 9 o'clock and a number of different-colored arrows (blue, chartreuse, and yellow) surrounding and pointing away from the center hole. The first hit was the novelty record " Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb) ", with words and music by Irving Taylor, which reached No. 4 on
25239-418: The salaries of certain tour and merchandise sales employees hired by the artist. In addition, the label also offers the artist a 30 percent cut of the label's album profits—if any—which represents an improvement from the typical industry royalty of 15 percent. With the Internet now being the dominant source for obtaining music, netlabels have emerged. Depending on the ideals of the net label, music files from
25418-498: The sale to Warner Bros., the label signed rising radio and recording stars Bing Crosby , Mills Brothers , and Boswell Sisters . Unfortunately for Warner Bros., the dual impact of the Great Depression and the introduction of broadcast radio greatly harmed the recording industry—sales crashed, dropping by around 90% from more than 100 million records in 1927 to fewer than 10 million by 1932 and major companies were forced to halve
25597-449: The same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. For example, Cedric Gibbons and Herbert Stothart always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman worked at 20th Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. De Mille 's films were almost all made at Paramount , and director Henry King 's films were mostly made for 20th Century Fox . At the same time, one could usually guess which studio made which film, largely because of
25776-469: The same sets and wardrobe and even mass scenes were used for different time-sharing crews. Also, foreign unemployed actors, playwrights, and winners of photogenic contests were chosen and brought to Hollywood, where they shot parallel versions of the English-language films. These parallel versions had a lower budget, were shot at night and were directed by second-line American directors who did not speak
25955-419: The selling price of the recordings. Contracts may extend over short or long durations, and may or may not refer to specific recordings. Established, successful artists tend to be able to renegotiate their contracts to get terms more favorable to them, but Prince 's much-publicized 1994–1996 feud with Warner Bros. Records provides a strong counterexample, as does Roger McGuinn 's claim, made in July 2000 before
26134-466: The ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line". Even The Blair Witch Project (1999), a low-budget indie horror film by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick , was a huge financial success. Filmed on a budget of just $ 35,000, without any big stars or special effects, the film grossed $ 248 million with the use of modern marketing techniques and online promotion. Though not on
26313-604: The song's chorus, but although her record contract entitled her to a five-percent royalty rate, the label arbitrarily defined her contribution to be a favor to Byrnes, and assigned her just 1% royalty on the song, despite the fact that, as she soon discovered, her name was being prominently displayed on the single's label. Warner Bros. also charged her for a share of the recording costs, which was to be recouped from her drastically reduced royalty. When Stevens scored her own hit single with " Sixteen Reasons " in 1960, Warner Bros. refused to allow her to perform it on Hawaiian Eye because it
26492-443: The spread of film companies to other parts of the US, outside New York. Many filmmakers worked with equipment for which they did not own the rights to use. Therefore, filming in New York could be dangerous, as it was close to Edison's company headquarters, and close to the agents the company sent out to seize cameras. An alternative was Los Angeles , which had mild winters, a large selection of places to film, and, most importantly, it
26671-498: The studio and the board was joined by new members who favored a renewed expansion into the music business—Charles Allen of the investment bank Charles Allen & Company, Serge Semenenko of the First National Bank of Boston and investor David Baird. Semenenko in particular had a strong professional interest in the entertainment business and he began to push Jack Warner on the issue of setting up an 'in-house' record label. With
26850-405: The studio's hit series 77 Sunset Strip , which reached No. 3 in 1959. Tab Hunter's " Jealous Heart " (WB 5008), which reached No. 62, was Warner Bros.' only charting single during its first year. Early Warner Bros. singles had distinctive pink labels, with the WB logo at the top center and "WARNER" in white Hellenic font to the left of the WB shield and "BROS." in the same color and style font to
27029-451: The studios in order to achieve their artistic visions. The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939, which saw the release of such classics as The Wizard of Oz , Gone with the Wind , Stagecoach , Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Wuthering Heights , Only Angels Have Wings , Ninotchka and Midnight . Among the other films from the Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca , It's
27208-504: The success of "Cathy's Clown", Newhart's debut album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart unexpectedly shot straight to No. 1 in the US, staying at the top for fourteen weeks, charting for more than two years and selling more than 600,000 copies. Capping this commercial success, Newhart scored historic wins in three major categories at the 1961 Grammy Awards — he won Album of the Year for Button-Down Mind , his quickly released follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back (1960) won
27387-527: The success of the Warner labels over the next two decades. In 1964, Warner Bros. launched Loma Records , which was meant to focus on R&B acts. The label, run by former King Records promotion man Bob Krasnow , would release over 100 singles and five albums, but saw only limited success and was wound down in 1968. An important addition to the Warner Bros. staff in this period was Ed Thrasher , who moved from Columbia Records in 1964 to become Warner/Reprise's head art director. Among his design credits for
27566-403: The tag-line "Joni Mitchell is 90% Virgin" reportedly reduced Mitchell to tears, and Cornyn had to withdraw it from publication. Warner Bros. also struggled with their flagship rock act, The Grateful Dead who, like Peter, Paul and Mary , had negotiated complete artistic control over the recording and packaging of their music. Their debut album had been recorded in just four days, and although it
27745-400: The term sublabel to refer to either an imprint or a subordinate label company (such as those within a group). For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, 4th & B'way Records (pronounced as "Broadway") was a trademarked brand owned by Island Records Ltd. in the UK and by a subordinate branch, Island Records, Inc., in the United States. The center label on a 4th & Broadway record marketed in
27924-723: The theaters, as the MPPDA controlled every theater in the country through the Big Five studios. Throughout the 1930s, as well as most of the golden age, MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood, and they were also credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether. Some MGM stars included "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable , Lionel Barrymore , Jean Harlow , Norma Shearer , Greta Garbo , Joan Crawford , Jeanette MacDonald , Gene Raymond , Spencer Tracy , Judy Garland , and Gene Kelly . Another great achievement of American cinema during this era came through Walt Disney's animation company . In 1937, Disney created
28103-559: The then-unknown singer-songwriter to Witmark for an advance of $ 5000. Two years later in 1963, Peter, Paul & Mary scored two consecutive Top 10 hits with Dylan songs, launching Dylan's career, and this was followed by many more hits by artists covering Dylan's songs, alongside the growing commercial success of Dylan himself. Grossman benefited enormously from both deals, because he took a 25% commission as Dylan's manager, and he structured Dylan's publishing deal so that he received 50% of Witmark's share of Dylan's publishing income—a tactic that
28282-648: The time was an independent city. In the Sultan's Power, directed by Boggs for Selig Polyscope Company, also starring Bosworth, is considered the first film shot entirely in Los Angeles, with shooting at 7th and Olive Streets, in 1909. In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the West Coast with his acting troupe, consisting of actors: Blanche Sweet , Lillian Gish , Mary Pickford , Lionel Barrymore and others. They started filming on
28461-416: The trade press by the abbreviation it adopted for its new logo, "W7"). Although Warner Bros. Pictures was faltering, the purchase coincided with a period of tremendous growth in the music industry, and Warner-Reprise was now on its way to becoming a major player in the industry. Hyman's investment banker Alan Hirshfeld, of Charles Allen and Company, urged him to expand the company's record holdings, and arranged
28640-406: The two. Waronker, the son of Liberty Records founder Simon Waronker , had previously worked as an assistant to Liberty producer Snuff Garrett . Later he worked with the small San Francisco label Autumn Records , founded by disc jockeys Tom Donahue , Bobby Mitchell , and Sylvester Stewart (who would soon become famous as a musician under his stage name Sly Stone). Waronker had been hired as
28819-435: The verge of signing with Atlantic Records , but before the deal could be completed they were poached by Warner Bros. Artie Mogull (who worked for one of Warner Bros.' publishing companies, Witmark Music) had introduced their manager Albert Grossman to Herman Starr, and as a result the group signed a recording and publishing deal with Warner Bros. Grossman's deal for the group broke new ground for recording artists — it included
28998-433: The way they work with artists. New types of deals called "multiple rights" or "360" deals are being made with artists, where labels are given rights and percentages to artist's touring, merchandising, and endorsements . In exchange for these rights, labels usually give higher advance payments to artists, have more patience with artist development, and pay higher percentages of CD sales. These 360 deals are most effective when
29177-430: Was Astral Weeks , the second solo album by Van Morrison (his first was on Bang ), who signed with the label in 1968. Although it sold relatively poorly on its first release (and did not reach gold record status until 2001), it has been widely acclaimed by musicians and critics worldwide, has featured on many "Best Albums of All Time" lists, and has remained in release almost continuously since 1968. During 1968, using
29356-432: Was a figure of high repute on the L.A. music scene thanks to his work as a session musician and songwriter (notably with the Byrds and Harper's Bizarre ), and especially because of his renowned collaboration with Brian Wilson on the legendary unreleased Beach Boys album Smile . In 1967, Lenny Waronker produced Parks' Warner debut album Song Cycle , which reportedly cost more than $ 35,000 to record, making it one of
29535-449: Was booked for a two-week residency as the opening act, beginning February 12, 1960, and Newhart freely admitted to being "terrified" on his first night. He quickly realised that he had only enough material for one side of an album, but by the time Warner A&R manager George Avakian arrived for the recording, Newhart had hastily written enough new material to fill both sides of an LP. When Newhart contacted Warners in April to find out when
29714-539: Was by then past his prime and failed to score any hits. The label was more fortunate with its next signing, the Everly Brothers , whom Warner Bros. secured after the end of their previous contract with Cadence Records . Herman Starr effectively gambled the future of the company by approving what was reputed to be the first million-dollar contract in music history, which guaranteed the Everly Brothers $ 525,000 against an escalating royalty rate of up to 7 percent, well above
29893-448: Was claimed as the first to have been filmed in Los Angeles , in 1907. A plaque was unveiled by the city, in 1957, at Dearden's flagship store on the corner of Main Street and 7th Street, to mark the filming on the site when it had been a Chinese laundry. Bosworth's widow suggested the city had got the date and location wrong, and that the film was actually shot in nearby Venice , which at
30072-455: Was developed with major label backing, announced an end to their major label contracts, citing that the uncooperative nature of the recording industry with these new trends is hurting musicians, fans and the industry as a whole. However, Nine Inch Nails later returned to working with a major label, admitting that they needed the international marketing and promotional reach that a major label can provide. Radiohead also cited similar motives with
30251-472: Was later emulated by other leading artist managers such as David Geffen . Meanwhile, the label enjoyed further major success with comedy recordings. Comedian Allan Sherman (who had been signed on the personal recommendation of George Burns ), issued his first Warner LP My Son, the Folk Singer in 1962. The album, which satirized the folk boom, became a major hit, selling over a million copies, and winning
30430-514: Was merely a pretext, and that the studio effectively scapegoated Conkling for the label's earlier failures, pointing to the fact that Conkling's successor had been selected well before Conkling was terminated. Conkling resigned in the fall of that year, and was replaced by Mike Maitland, another former Capitol Records executive. Around the same time, Joe Smith was appointed as head of promotions. Warner Bros. made another prescient signing in folk group Peter, Paul & Mary . The trio had been on
30609-593: Was not a major hit, it cracked the US Top 50 album chart and sold steadily, eventually going gold in 1971. For their second album, The Grateful Dead took a far more experimental approach, embarking on a marathon series of recording sessions lasting seven months, from September 1967 to March 1968. They started the album with David Hassinger , who had produced their first album, but he quit the project in frustration in December 1967 while they were recording in New York City (although he
30788-409: Was not published by MPHC, and they also prevented her from singing it on The Ed Sullivan Show , thereby robbing her of nationwide promotion (and a $ 5000 appearance fee). With only two hits to its credit in two years, the label was in serious financial trouble by 1960, having lost at least US$ 3 million and music historian Fredric Dannen reports that the only reason it was not closed down was because
30967-492: Was only 90 miles to the border of Mexico , in case they needed to run if Edison's enforcement agents found them. By 1912, most major film companies had set up production facilities in Southern California , near or in Los Angeles , because of the region's favorable year-round weather. The 1908 Selig Polyscope Company production of The Count of Monte Cristo , directed by Francis Boggs and starring Hobart Bosworth ,
31146-464: Was possible is that, with so many movies being made, not everyone had to be a big hit. A studio could gamble on a medium-budget feature with a good script and relatively unknown actors: Citizen Kane , directed by Orson Welles (1915–1985) and often regarded as the greatest film of all time , fits this description. In other cases, strong-willed directors like Howard Hawks (1896–1977), Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980), and Frank Capra (1897–1991) battled
31325-475: Was reportedly unimpressed by Hendrix's now-famous performance. During his visit he met Andy Wickham , who had come to Monterey as an assistant to festival promoter Lou Adler . Wickham had worked as a commercial artist in London , followed by a stint with Andrew Loog Oldham 's Immediate Records before moving to Los Angeles to work for Adler's Dunhill label. Ostin initially hired Wickham as Warner's "house hippie" on
31504-521: Was taken over by the Kinney National Company , headed by New York businessman Steve J. Ross , who would successfully lead the Warner group of companies until his death in 1992. The US$ 400 million deal created a new conglomerate that combined the Warner film, television, recording, and music publishing divisions with Kinney's multi-faceted holdings. Ross had founded the company in the late 1950s while working in his family's funeral business—seeing
31683-587: Was that many actors who had made their careers in silent films suddenly found themselves out of work, as they often had bad voices or could not remember their lines. Meanwhile, in 1922, US politician Will H. Hays left politics and formed the movie studio boss organization known as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The organization became the Motion Picture Association of America after Hays retired in 1945. In
31862-494: Was under Mexican rule . Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. Also in 1910, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago established the first film studio in the Los Angeles area in Edendale , and the first studio in Hollywood opened in 1912. After hearing about Griffith's success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison , who owned patents on
32041-637: Was written by two future winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature : Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), the author of the novel on which the script was nominally based, and William Faulkner (1897–1962), who worked on the screen adaptation. After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros. gained huge success and were able to acquire their own string of movie theaters after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928. In contrast, Loews theaters owned MGM since forming in 1924, while
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