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MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by Music Corporation Of America (MCA). PRE-HISTORY MCA entered the recorded music business in . {Link without Title} MCA RECORDS FORMATION OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA MCA's Decca Records only had the rights to the Decca name in North America. British Decca owned the rights to the Decca name in most of the world. The two Deccas severed their ties during World War II . After the war, British Decca formed a new American subsidiary, London Records . American Decca issued their records outside North America on the Brunswick and Coral labels. In 1968, the Brunswick and Coral labels were replaced by the MCA label to release American Decca and Kapp label material outside North America. The first artists to appear on the new MCA label were mostly British rock groups such as Budgie , Stackridge , and Wishbone Ash . Leapy Lee had one of MCA's first UK hits with "Little Arrows." Uni material was issued globally on the Uni label. At this point, American Brunswick material was issued in the UK on Brunswick. MCA lost control of Brunswick in 1970. MCA RECORDS In 1971, MCA consolidated the , the final Decca pop label release was issued. The catalogues of the Decca, Uni and Kapp labels were reissued on the MCA label. In the same period a music icon scored a series of hit singles and albums under the MCA (at that time Kapp Records): Cher . While Sonny & Cher became less popular, Cher as a solo artist reached the #1 and the Top 10 in the Billboard Hot 100 and internationally with the singles " Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves " (1971), " Half-Breed " (1973) on MCA and " Dark Lady " (1974) and others singles released from the albums of the same name. With these successes Cher became the most popular female artist in the world and one of the biggest-selling artist of the 1970's . MCA also profited from reissuing in the 1970s classic early Rock And Roll recordings made by artists who recorded for the numerous labels absorbed by MCA over the years. One notable example was the 1954 Decca recording " Rock Around The Clock " by Bill Haley & His Comets , which was featured as the lead track of MCA's No. 1-charting '' American Grafitti '' soundtrack album, and as a single returned to the American top 40 that year, 20 years after it was recorded. In 1977 MCA set up the Infinity Records division, based in New York City with Ron Alexenberg as CEO. The intention was to give MCA a stronger presence on the east coast. The only big hit the Infinity label had was " Escape " by Rupert Holmes which was #1 at the end of 1979. Infinity also had some success with Hot Chocolate , Spyro Gyra , New England and TKO . But MCA pulled the plug on Infinity after it failed to sell most of the 1 million advance copies of an album featuring Pope John Paul II in October 1979. Infinity was fully absorbed by the parent company in 1980. In 1979 it acquired ABC Records along with its subsidiaries Paramount Records , Dunhill Records , Impulse Records , Westminster Records , and Dot Records . ABC had acquired the Paramount and Dot labels when they purchased Gulf+Western 's record labels, the Famous Music Group, thus MCA now controlled the following material once owned by Paramount Pictures: the music released by Paramount's record labels, and the pre-1950 films by Paramount as well. The better selling ABC Records catalogue albums were reissued on the MCA label. The combined effects of the Infinity Records failure, the purchase of ABC Records, rising vinyl costs and a huge slump in record sales produced tremendous losses for the company between 1979 and 1982. It was not until the mid 1980s that the record labels returned to significant profitability. The Chess Records catalog was acquired from the remnants of Sugar Hill Records in 1985. Motown Records was bought in 1988 (and sold to PolyGram in 1993). GRP Records and Geffen Records were acquired in 1990. In the same year, the MCA Inc holding company was purchased by the Matsushita Group . MCA RECORDS BECOMES UNIVERSAL MUSIC In 1995, Seagram Company Ltd. acquired 80% of MCA and the following year the new owners dropped the MCA name; the company became Universal Studios, Inc. and its music division, MCA Music Entertainment Group, was renamed Universal Music Group . In 1998 Seagram acquired PolyGram (owner of British Decca) from Philips and merged it with its music holdings. When Seagram's drinks business was bought by France -based Pernod Ricard , its media holdings (including Universal) were sold to Vivendi which became Vivendi Universal which was later renamed back to Vivendi SA after selling most of the entertainment division (which included Universal Pictures ) to General Electric . MCA LABEL PHASEOUT In Spring 2003 , the MCA Records label was absorbed by Geffen Records , which continues to manage MCA's rock, pop, and urban back catalogues (including those from ABC Records and Famous Music Group). Its Country Music label, MCA Nashville Records is still in operation. MCA's Jazz catalogue is managed by Verve Records , while its Classical Music catalogue is managed by Deutsche Grammophon . |
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