Rammstein

Republic Records was a record label and subsidiary of Universal Motown Republic Group. They originally went by the name Cheese Factory Records. The label has been reincarnated into the current Universal Republic Records. According to Avery Lipman, he and his brother Monte Lipman first conceived of... Cheese Factory Records at the kitchen table of their apartment: "My brother and I had been working at record companies. He was in between jobs and we started putting records out as a hobby. We had a grassroots approach to the business. The first record we put out happened to work really well. That was the Bloodhound Gang." Frustrated by the limitations of being an independent with a very small staff, the Lipman brothers accepted an offer from Universal. One of several labels that comprise Universal Motown Republic Group, the newly named Republic Records was formed in 1995 as a sub-label of MCA's Geffen Records. Avery Lipman told HitQuarters that the pairing was a "complete disaster", saying: "Our ideas and vision didn’t fit with the label. We didn’t trust our own instincts. We let others decide what was right for the project.
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Universal Music Group is a multinational music company. It is the largest of the "big four" record companies by its leading market share and its multitude of global operations. Universal Music Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of French media conglomerate Vivendi. Universal Music Group owns a... music publisher, Universal Music Publishing Group, which became the world's largest following the 2007 acquisition of BMG Music Publishing. The UMG corporate headquarters are located in Santa Monica, California, United States. "Universal Music" was once the music company attached to film studio Universal Pictures. Its origins go back to the formation of the American branch of Decca Records in 1934. The Decca Corporation of England spun American Decca off in 1939. MCA Inc. bought American Decca in 1962. The present organization was formed when its parent company Seagram purchased PolyGram and merged it with Universal Music Group in 1998. However, the name first appeared in 1996 when MCA Music Entertainment Group was renamed Universal Music Group.
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Slash Records is a record label in Los Angeles, originally specializing in local and punk rock bands. The label was formed in 1978 by Bob Biggs as an outgrowth of the Los Angeles-based fanzine, Slash. Biggs, a painter, initiated the label with a seven-inch single from The Germs in 1978. A full... album from that band was released the next year, and X's Los Angeles followed in 1980. Until 1981, the label was distributed through Jem; when that company went bankrupt, Slash entered into a distribution deal with Warner Bros., a move that was among the first collaborations between a self-started indie and a major label. During the time of this arrangement, the label released albums by prominent Los Angeles punk and Rock and roll bands, including Fear, The Blasters, L7 and Los Lobos. The label flourished even after the magazine stopped in 1980. A subsidiary, Ruby Records, was started in 1981; Ruby released albums by The Misfits, Dream Syndicate, and The Gun Club. By the mid-1980s, Slash had branched out into other parts of the country, signing such acts as Violent Femmes and BoDeans and releasing albums by Robyn Hitchcock and Burning Spear.
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