Idlewild

Parlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company... which later became EMI. George Martin joined in 1950 as assistant label manager, taking over as manager in 1955. Martin produced and released a mix of product including comedy recordings of The Goons, the pianist Mrs Mills, and teen idol Adam Faith. In 1962 Martin signed rising new Liverpool band The Beatles. With Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer, the Fourmost, and contemporary Mancunian band The Hollies also signed to the label, Parlophone in the sixties became one of the world's most famous and prestigious record labels. For a long time Parlophone claimed the best selling UK single "She Loves You", and the best selling UK album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The label also achieved placement of seven singles at #1 during 1964, when it also claimed top spot in the album charts for 40 of the 52 weeks during that year.
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Pye Records was a British record label. In its first incarnation, perhaps Pye's best known artists were Lonnie Donegan , Petula Clark , The Searchers , The Kinks , Sandie Shaw and Brotherhood of Man . The label changed its name in 1980, but was briefly reactivated in 2006. The Pye Company... originally manufactured televisions and radios. Its main plant was situated off what used to be Haig Road, in Cambridge, and it entered the record business when it bought Nixa Records in 1953. In 1955, the company acquired Polygon Records, a label that had been established by Petula Clark's father to control distribution of her recordings, and merged it with Nixa Records to form Pye Nixa Records. In 1958, Pye International Records was started. The company licensed recordings from American and other foreign labels for the UK market, including Chess, A&M, Kama Sutra, Colpix, Warner Bros., Buddah, 20th Century, and King. It also released recordings from British artist Labi Siffre which were produced outside the company. In 1959, Pye Nixa became Pye Records and ATV acquired 50% of the label. ATV bought the other half of the business in 1966.
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The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a British multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and was one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a... major publishing arm, EMI Music Publishing – also based in London with offices globally. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but since February 2011 it has been wholly owned by Citigroup . EMI is a member of the RIAA & IFPI. In November 2011 Citigroup announced a tentative deal to sell off pieces of the company with the music arm going to Vivendi's Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion and the publishing business going to a Sony/ATV consortium for around $2.2 billion. Other members of the Sony consortium include Blackstone and Abu Dhabi-owned investment fund Mubadala. Both before and after the sale announcement, Universal Music Group pledged to sell off EMI assets to the value of half a billion Euros.
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