Black Sabbath

Epic Records is an American record label, owned and operated by Sony Music Entertainment.

Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest independent music management company in the world. It was also the world's largest... independent owners of music intellectual property rights, with over 150,000 songs. The company was formed in 1979 by Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor, who had first met as undergraduates at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later organized dance events for students together. In 1979, they discovered and then managed Iron Maiden. They consequently named the record company after the band's song “Sanctuary", a 1980 single later included on the reissued version of their 1980 eponymous debut album. Sanctuary Records is noted for preferring to sign artists with long-term appeal, usually the artists are those considered heritage acts, being artists that have had a long career and steady fan base. Between 1989 and 1991, Sanctuary was co-owned by the Zomba Group, whose music publishing arm still held the music of Iron Maiden in 2001. In 1994, the company diversified.
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I.R.S. Records was a record label, started in the United States in 1979 by Miles Copeland III along with Jay Boberg and Carl Grasso. Miles was also the manager of Wishbone Ash, The Police, and later, Sting, as well as other bands. I.R.S. was the sister label of Copeland's Illegal Records . I.R.S.... releases were distributed by A&M Records until 1985, by MCA Records until 1990, and finally by EMI until the label folded in 1996. In 1985, Copeland brokered a deal to switch the label's distributor to MCA Records. Under the agreement, A&M continued to release the label's pre-1985 catalog, much of which still can be found under the A&M banner. In 1990, the band Green Day included a mock letter from then-I.R.S. college radio rep Lori Blumenthal in one of their last cassette releases for Lookout Records. The fictional letter expressed IRS' interest in signing the band to the label. A mock reply letter from Lookout, also included in the cassette artwork, deemed I.R.S. a "cheesy" and "washed up" record label. The last IRS release was the 1996 Buzzcocks CD All Set before it folded. Shortly after, Copeland formed Ark 21 Records.
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