Cream

ATCO Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, currently operating through WMG's Rhino Entertainment. Atco Records was founded in 1955 as a division of Atlantic Records. It was devised as an outlet for productions by one of Atlantic's founders, Herb Abramson, who had returned... to the company from military service. It was also intended as a home for acts that did not fit the format of Atlantic, which at the time was only releasing blues, jazz, and R&B/soul. The Atco name is simply an abbreviation of ATlantic COrporation. Atco's biggest acts during its early years were Bobby Darin and The Coasters. In the early 1960s Atlantic began to license material from international sources for release on Atco, leading to instrumental hit singles from such acts as Jorgen Ingmann, Acker Bilk and Bent Fabric. Starting in the mid-1960s, Atco became a force on the burgeoning rock scene, with American acts such as Sonny and Cher, Buffalo Springfield and Vanilla Fudge. A relationship with manager Robert Stigwood brought The Bee Gees and Cream to the label.
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Reaction Records was an independent British record label, run by music executive Robert Stigwood in 1966 and 1967. Although Reaction released only three albums, one EP and eighteen singles in its brief existence, its roster included two of the most popular British bands of the time, The Who and... Cream. The label's first single, the Who's "Substitute", was released several times with different B-sides due to the band's legal dispute with their former record producer, Shel Talmy. This experience could be seen as one of the deciding factor in the Who's manager's Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp deciding to form their own Track Records label which was also distributed by Polydor Records. Polydor's involvement with these two "independent" labels can be seen as a learning process by Polydor who were interested in expanding their base and had little or no experience in the 1960s pop/rock market; at the time, most of their business was done in the easy listening genre, as exemplified by Bert Kaempfert. Stigwood operated the RSO Records label in the 1970s and 1980s. As with Reaction, RSO was distributed through Polydor Records.
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RSO Records was a record label, formed by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood in 1973. The "RSO" stands for the Robert Stigwood Organisation. The company's main headquarters were at 67 Brook Street, in London's Mayfair. It underwent four distribution stages: first by... Atlantic Records, then as an independent label, then by Polydor Records, and finally by Polygram Records. RSO managed the careers of several superstars , and, as a record label, released the soundtracks to Fame, Sparkle, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Times Square, Grease , and Saturday Night Fever . The release of the latter two albums made RSO one of the most financially successful labels of the 1970s. As successful as the label was financially, the independent label produced successes on the pop charts never before seen by the recording industry. By one point in 1978, the label boasted an unprecedented 6th consecutive #1 single on the Billboard pop charts, holding the top spot for 21 consecutive weeks.
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Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and in the... United States. With roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are generally associated with masculinity and machismo. The first heavy metal bands, such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, eventually attracted large audiences, though many were critically reviled , a status common throughout the history of the genre. In the mid-1970s Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence; Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Iron Maiden followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers".
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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