Virgin Records


Virgin Records Ltd is a British record label founded by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman in 1972. It grew to be a worldwide phenomenon over time, with the success of platinum performers such as Aaliyah, George Michael, Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Roy Orbison, Devo, Tangerine Dream, Genesis, Keith Richards, the Human League, Culture Club, Rolling Stones, Simple Minds, Lenny Kravitz, dc Talk, the Smashing Pumpkins, Mike Oldfield, Charlie Brown Jr., Gorillaz, and Spice Girls, among others.
After its acquisition by Universal Music Group through its purchase of EMI in 2012, UMG absorbed Virgin's British operations to create Virgin EMI Records in March 2013. Today, the operations of Virgin Records America, Inc., the company's North American operations founded in 1986, are still active and headquartered in Hollywood, California, and have operated exclusively under the Capitol Music Group imprint, also owned by UMG, since 2007. The US operations have also taken on the name Virgin Records. A minor number of artists remain on Virgin Records America's roster, which is currently mostly occupied with European artists such as Bastille, Circa Waves, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ella Eyre, Grizfolk, Walking on Cars, Seinabo Sey, and Prides; American artists include Knox Hamilton, L'Tric, Loren Gray, and Rise Against.
Virgin Classics was founded in 1988 as part of Virgin Records. Along with EMI Classics, it too was acquired by UMG in 2012 as part of the takeover of the EMI Group. But the terms of the European Commission's approval of the takeover required divestment of the two classical labels. Accordingly, both were sold in February the following year to Warner Music Group, and this transaction was approved by the European Union that May. Warner placed the Virgin Classics artist roster and catalogue in its Erato Records division, and the “Virgin Classics” name, along with “EMI Classics,” disappeared.
In June 16th 2020, Universal rebranded Virgin EMI Records as EMI Records and named Rebbeca Allen as the label's president, bringing back the EMI brand.

History

Branson and Powell had initially run a small record shop called Virgin Records and Tapes on Notting Hill Gate, London, specializing in krautrock imports, and offering bean bags and free vegetarian food for the benefit of customers listening to the music on offer. The first real store was above a shoe shop at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street.
After making the shop into a success, they turned their business into a fully fledged record label. The name Virgin, according to Branson, arose from Tessa Watts, a colleague of his, when they were brainstorming business ideas. She suggested Virgin – as they were all new to business – like "virgins". The original Virgin logo was designed by English artist and illustrator Roger Dean: a young naked woman in mirror image with a large long-tailed lizard and the word "Virgin" in Dean's familiar script. A variation on the logo was used for the spin-off Caroline Records label.
The first release on the label was the progressive rock album Tubular Bells by multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield, who was discovered by Tom Newman and brought to Simon Draper – who eventually persuaded Richard and Nik to present it as their first release
in 1973, produced by Tom Newman, for which the fledgling label garnered unprecedented acclaim. This was soon followed by some notable krautrock releases, including electronic breakthrough album Phaedra by Tangerine Dream, and The Faust Tapes and Faust IV by Faust. The Faust Tapes album retailed for 49p and as a result allowed this relatively unknown band to reach number 12 in the album charts. Other early albums include Gong's Flying Teapot , which Daevid Allen has been quoted as having never been paid for.
The first single release for the label was Kevin Coyne's "Marlene", taken from his album Marjory Razorblade and released in August 1973. Coyne was the second artist signed to the label after Oldfield.

Rebranding

Although Virgin was initially one of the key labels of English and European progressive rock, the 1977 signing of the Sex Pistols reinvented the label PM in a new-wave outpost, a move that plunged the record company into the mainstream of the punk rock era. Under the guidance of Tessa Watts, Virgin's Head of Publicity, the Pistols rocketed the label to success. Shortly afterwards, the Nottingham record shop was raided by police for having a window display of the Sex Pistols' album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols in the window. Afterwards they signed other new wave groups: Public Image Ltd, Boxer, Culture Club, Fingerprintz, Gillan, Holly and the Italians, Human League, Magazine, Skids, the Motors, Penetration, the Ruts, Shooting Star, Simple Minds, and XTC.
After modified versions of the twins label came the red, white and blue design introduced in 1975, which coincided with the height of punk and new wave. The current Virgin logo was created in 1978, commissioned by Simon Draper, then managing director of Virgin Records Limited. Brian Cooke of Cooke Key Associates commissioned a graphic designer to produce a stylised signature. The logo was first used on Mike Oldfield's Incantations album in 1978 and by the Virgin Records label exclusively until gradually other parts of the Virgin Group adopted it, including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile and Virgin Money.

Subsidiary labels

Current

The Virgin label was distributed in the US by Atlantic from 1973 to 1975. During this period, 14 albums were issued. All had been previously issued in the UK on Virgin, although one album, Marjory Razorblade by Kevin Coyne, was truncated from a 20-song double album to an 11-song single album.
Beginning with Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn album in 1975, American distribution switched to Columbia Records. Columbia was unwilling to release all Virgin artists, and so many were licensed to other labels: Epic , Atlantic, A&M, Warner Bros., Geffen, MCA, RCA and Arista. Some of these records had a small Virgin logo added to the regular company design on the label. One of Virgin's and Epic's biggest acts of the 1980s was Culture Club.
In 1978, Virgin set up US operations first in New York on Perry Street under Atlantic distribution, and then moved operations to New Jersey along with a short-lived subdivision called Virgin International, handled by independent New Jersey-based distributor Jem Records. Virgin International used mainly for progressive rock artists with a smaller following in the US, including reissues of earlier Virgin / Atlantic albums such as Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Fish Rising by Steve Hillage, which Columbia chose not to reissue. Virgin International also issued albums by some of Virgin's reggae artists, including Gregory Isaacs. At the same time, Virgin releases distributed by Columbia continued, distribution returning to Atlantic in 1980, at which time Virgin International ceased operations.
In 1986, Virgin Records opened up another American division, Virgin Records America. Its first release was the debut album by Cutting Crew which included the hit single " Died in Your Arms". Other Virgin America signings included Camper Van Beethoven, Bob Mould, Warren Zevon, Paula Abdul, T'pau, Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers, Redhead Kingpin & The F.B.I., Neneh Cherry, Steve Winwood and Hindsight. Virgin Records America's releases were distributed through WEA again by Atlantic Records until 1992. Virgin Records America was founded by the executive team of Jordan Harris, Jeff Ayeroff and Phil Quartararo.
Another American company called Caroline Records co-existed during this time. Caroline records rarely mentioned a connection with Virgin, and some UK and European Virgin albums that were distributed internationally named Caroline as their American distributor. Some Caroline records bore the label name Caroline Blue Plate.

Canadian editions

The first Canadian editions were distributed by WEA, and were parallel issues of the same early 14 albums issued in the US by Virgin/Atlantic.
In 1975, distribution transferred to Columbia, but the following year distribution was transferred again to Polydor Records, and issued a different and larger selection of records from what was being issued in the US. Canadian editions of the Dindisc label were issued as Dindisc/Virgin. Virgin's Canadian division arranged to have Canadian artists Martha & the Muffins and Nash the Slash signed to Dindisc in the UK as well; both artists had releases in Canada and the UK on Dindisc.
In 1983, an independent Virgin Records Canada Inc. company was created, three years before a similar move occurred in the US. From this time onward, Virgin Canada used unique label designs not seen in other countries: a red label with five horizontal bars across the top and an extra-large "scrawl" logo from 1983 to 1985, followed by a purple label with round logo up to 1992 when Virgin was acquired internationally.

Purchase by Thorn EMI

Virgin Records was sold by Branson to Thorn EMI in June 1992 for a reported US$1 billion, with a special non-competition clause that would prevent Branson from founding another recording company during the five years following the agreement. It now faces competition from Branson's new label: V2 Records. Branson sold Virgin Records to fund Virgin Atlantic which at that time was coming under intense anti-competitive pressure from British Airways..
After being acquired by Thorn EMI, Virgin launched several subsidiaries like Realworld Records, Innocent Records, blues speciality label Point Blank Records, and Hut Records, and continued signing new and established artists like Korn, A Fine Frenzy, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Tina Turner, Depeche Mode, Beenie Man, The Rolling Stones, Spice Girls, The Smashing Pumpkins, We Are Scientists, Darren Hayes, The Kooks, Lenny Kravitz, dcTalk, Captain Beefheart, Meat Loaf, Placebo, Janet Jackson, Daft Punk, My Favorite Highway, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Massive Attack, The Future Sound of London, Blur, The Chemical Brothers, Gorillaz, Paula Abdul, Brooke Allison, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, The Almost, Mariah Carey, N.E.R.D., Laura Marling, Swami, RBD, Thalía and Priscilla Renea.
In 1997, Virgin absorbed the remainder of EMI Records US, which earlier consolidated EMI America Records and Manhattan Records, with Capitol Records acquiring EMI's other American operations, and in 1998, opened a country music division called Virgin Records Nashville, of which record producer Scott Hendricks was president. The label's signees comprised Julie Reeves, Jerry Kilgore, Roy D. Mercer, Tom Mabe, Chris Cagle, Clay Davidson, and River Road. In 2001, Virgin Nashville closed and its roster was folded into Capitol Records' Nashville division.

Merger

Capitol Records and Virgin Records America merged in 2007 to form Capitol Music Group after a massive restructuring of EMI Group Ltd. Stepping down as chief executive of Capitol Records was Andy Slater, with Jason Flom, former executive of Virgin, taking the reins as chairman and CEO of the newly created company.

Virgin Music Publishers

Soon after Virgin Records was founded, the label created a music publisher for its artists, who also served as songwriters. Starting in the 1980s, Virgin Music signed songwriters from other record labels. After Virgin was acquired by EMI, the publisher was folded into EMI Music Publishing as EMI Virgin Music.
In 2012, a consortium led by Sony/ATV Music Publishing acquired EMI Music Publishing for $2.2 billion. However, the European Union ruled that Sony/ATV would represent over half of all the charting hits in the United Kingdom, and required the company to auction off Virgin Music and Famous Music UK, as well as twelve unrelated authors.
In December 2012, BMG Rights Management acquired the Virgin and Famous publishers, and concluded the deal in May 2013. Virgin Music was renamed BMG VM Music, while Famous Music became BMG FM Music.
Before its demise, Virgin Music's songwriters included Iggy Pop, Texas, Ozzy Osbourne, Cannibal Corpse, Nirvana, Winger, Wax, Tears for Fears, The Prodigy, Goo Goo Dolls, Tool, The Crystal Method, Terence Trent D'arby, Lenny Kravitz, Ben Harper, Warrant, Mark Ronson, Devo, Culture Club, Take That, Bullet For My Valentine, Robbie Williams, Wayne Hector, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

Virgin Music international companies