Arista Records
Arista Records | |
---|---|
Parent company |
|
Founded | 1974 2018 (as Arista Records LLC) | (original label; as Arista Records, Inc.)
Founder | Clive Davis |
Status | Active |
Distributor(s) |
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Genre | Various |
Country of origin | United States |
Location | New York City, New York, U.S. |
Official website | aristarecordings |
Arista Records (
History
Background
After being fired from
Davis's real goal was to reorganize and revitalize Columbia Pictures's music division. With a $10 million investment by CPI, and a reorganization of the various Columbia Pictures legacy labels (Colpix, Colgems, and Bell), Davis introduced Columbia Pictures' new record division, Arista Records, in November 1974,[2] ultimately owning 20 percent of the company.
The label was named after Arista, New York City's public secondary school honor society (of which Davis was a member at Erasmus Hall High School).
In early 1975, most of the artists who had been signed to Bell were let go, except
The British Bell label kept that name for a couple of years before changing its name to Arista. The label was mentioned in the 1978 Nick Lowe song "They Called It Rock", in the lyric, "Arista says they love you/But the kids can't dance to this."
Arista signed the Grateful Dead in 1976, and the group released their only Top 40 pop hit, "Touch of Grey", on the label in 1987.[3][4] In addition to Outlaws, Patti Smith, Eric Carmen, Air Supply, the Kinks, Lou Reed, Alan Parsons and Dionne Warwick, Arista signed Aretha Franklin in 1980, after her long relationship with Atlantic Records ended. The label's most significant acquisition came in 1983 when Davis signed Whitney Houston. Houston would become Arista's biggest-selling recording act and one of the best-selling acts in music history with sales of over 200 million records worldwide, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[5]
Subsidiary imprint labels
Arista had an imprint label in the 1970s called
Acquisitions, sell-offs
Looking to stave off bankruptcy, Columbia Pictures sold Arista to German-based
After General Electric absorbed the RCA Corporation in 1986, GE sold off various RCA assets, including all of its interest in RCA/Ariola to Bertelsmann, and it was renamed Bertelsmann Music Group, though Arista's U.S. releases would not note BMG until 1987. That year, in 1987, Arista Records formed a home video subsidiary, 6 West Home Video, in order to release home video titles on Arista Records' musical catalog, and the initial release, which served as the first title for the 6 West Home Video division was a one-hour performance on The Grateful Dead, So Far, with an October release and a list price of $29.95.[9]
Into the 1980s, Arista continued its success, including major UK act
Milli Vanilli controversy
In 1989, Arista Records signed Milli Vanilli, a contemporary R&B duo consisting of Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan that was based in Germany. The label released its debut album, Girl You Know It's True, which was a remixed and re-edited version of All or Nothing, which had been out in Europe the previous year. The album was certified sextuple platinum in the U.S., and charted five top-ten singles, three of them reaching the number one position. In 1990, Milli Vanilli won two American Music Awards and a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Carol Decker, lead singer of the band T'Pau, was interviewed after their performance on MTV and said that Milli Vanilli had used a Synclavier and were not singing. Later that year, Frank Farian, producer of Milli Vanilli, confirmed that the duo had not performed a single note on their album.
This revelation caused a huge firestorm in the music industry, as recording artists, particularly
A court ruling in the U.S. allowed anyone who had bought the album to get a refund
In response to the scandal, Arista's position was that the company had been completely unaware of Morvan and Pilatus having not themselves recorded their album. In a post-debacle interview, Morvan defended himself for his part in the deception by saying: "[Before Milli Vanilli] I was working at a McDonald's. What would you have done?"
Reconstructing Arista and the L.A. Reid years
At the end of the year 2000, following its 25th anniversary, BMG fired Davis as president/CEO due to age restrictions. Although Davis was still one of the most successful record heads in the entire music industry, BMG had an age restriction policy. L.A. Reid succeeded Davis as Arista's president/CEO.
Under Reid, the label had success with newer acts such as Avril Lavigne, Pink, and Kelis, but struggled with newer releases by more established acts already on the label. Reid seemed to lose focus and have many miscalculations when it came to promoting Arista's established acts such as TLC, Toni Braxton, Whitney Houston (Houston being BMG's biggest selling act out of all BMG labels), and several other acts.
Reid seemed to put more money in promoting newer acts and less money into promoting established acts. Whitney Houston's December 2002, Just Whitney, as well as her November 2003 album One Wish: The Holiday Album failed to achieve the same success as her previous albums with Davis as head of Arista. Reid's extravagant spending, meanwhile, and lower sales of big-name established acts under his tenure, caused Arista to lose money. In two years, with Reid as CEO of Arista, Arista lost over $100 million.
After BMG and
The merged Arista and J record labels began operating under the newly formed RCA Music Group—of which Davis was re-instated as CEO after the merger of BMG and Sony, thus Davis once again became in control of Arista and several other labels from the very company that previously fired him.
The Arista label continued to be used for new releases, although heavily scaled back, while its reissues are released through Sony Music's
Dissolution and revival
After the Sony-BMG merger, LaFace Records was eventually revived; the label was now fully owned by Sony-BMG and began operating under the JIVE Label Group.
During the summer of 2011, the RCA Music Group underwent a restructuring that saw the elimination of the Arista name later on that year, along with sister labels J Records and Jive.[12] RCA Records started releasing all RCA Music Group releases under RCA Records.[13][14][15] Arista Nashville continued to operate through Sony Music Nashville and was not affected by the closing of Arista Records.[16]
Arista Records France was founded in September 2012, making it initially the last active remnant of the label, In 2023, Sony Music France closed Arista Records France, with the existing roster transferring to other labels under Sony's ownership.
In July 2018, it was announced that Arista would be revived as a frontline label, making it now the fourth flagship record label under
Arista Nashville
In 1989, Arista Records launched Arista Nashville, which specializes in country music artists. Alan Jackson was the first act signed label. In 1995, Arista Nashville launched a subsidiary label known as Career Records, the roster of which at the time included Brett James, Tammy Graham, and Lee Roy Parnell. Currently, Arista Nashville falls under the wing of Sony Music Nashville, hosting such artists as Carrie Underwood, Ronnie Dunn and Jerrod Niemann.
Artists
See also
- Arista Records artists
- Arista Nashville
- List of record labels
References
- ^ "CPI Tabs Davis to Expand Line" Billboard on Google Books (June 1, 1974). Retrieved March 18, 2011
- ^ "The New Record Company: Arista Records". Billboard via Google Books (November 23, 1974). Retrieved March 18, 2011.
- ^ "Hal Kant: Lawyer for the Grateful Dead". The Independent. December 8, 2008. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
- ^ Browne, David (May 7, 2015). "The Dead's Not-So-Grateful Response to Going Mainstream". Medium. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
- ^ RIAA sales statistics Archived July 1, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Arista/Freedom Records Listing". Jazzdiscography.com. April 26, 1998. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ "Columbia Pictures To Sell Record Unit". The New York Times. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ "COLUMBIA COMPLETES SALE OF ARISTA RECORDS UNIT". Los Angeles Times. October 2, 1979. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ "Arista Label Forms Homevid Division". Variety. August 5, 1987. p. 32.
- ^ PARELES, JON (November 20, 1990). "Wages of Silence: Milli Vanilli Loses A Grammy Award". The New York Times. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
- ^ "L.A. Reid Exits Arista". Rolling Stone. January 14, 2004. Retrieved June 30, 2022.
- ^ Halperin, Shirley (October 7, 2011). "RCA Records' Peter Edge and Tom Corson on Why the Label Downsized and its Place in Sony's Big Picture (Q&A)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ Christman, Ed (August 23, 2011). "RCA's New Executive Team Named Under CEO Peter Edge Amid Layoffs (Update)". Billboard.biz. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ "Unveiling The New Look RCA Records". FMQB. August 23, 2011. Archived from the original on November 8, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ Halperin, Shirley (October 7, 2011). "RCA's Peter Edge, Tom Corson on the Shuttering of Jive, J and Arista". Billboard.biz. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ "Quick Takes: RCA closes subsidiaries". Los Angeles Times. October 8, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ "David Massey to Helm Relaunched Arista Records For Sony Music Entertainment". Billboard.com. July 9, 2018. Retrieved July 9, 2018.