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Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records. The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a record label... were issued in 1968, distributed by London Records. From the beginning, Sire introduced underground, progressive British bands to the American market. Early releases included the Climax Blues Band, Barclay James Harvest, Tomorrow, Matthews Southern Comfort and proto-punks The Deviants. The label was distributed by Polydor Records from 1970 until 1971, during which time the now-famous logo was introduced, and then by Famous Music from 1972 to 1974, during which the progressive rock band Focus charted with their 1972 hit "Hocus Pocus". In the seventies, Sire released a number of compilation LPs, including the 3 volume "History Of British Rock" series, and diverse artists such as The Turtles, Duane Eddy, The Small Faces and Del Shannon. ABC Records inherited Sire's distribution contract when it acquired Famous Music in 1974.
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ZTT Records is a record label founded in 1983 by NME journalist Paul Morley, record producer Trevor Horn, and businesswoman Jill Sinclair. The label's name was also printed as "Zang Tumb Tuum" and "Zang Tuum Tumb" on various releases. ZTT is an initialism of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's sound poem... "Zang Tumb Tumb". The word "Tuuuum" is also featured on the cover of the original publication of the poem in book form. The majority of the creative team at ZTT had first assembled when Horn produced the acclaimed album The Lexicon of Love for British pop band ABC. A precursor to ZTT was the short-lived Perfect label, spun off from the newly founded Perfect Songs publishing subsidiary of Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair's company. Perfect Recordings only released the Buggles' Adventures in Modern Recording and the singles derived from it. ZTT enjoyed considerable success in the 1980s with the composer Andrew Poppy, bands such as Propaganda, Art of Noise, and the chart-topping Frankie Goes to Hollywood. In 1987 and 1989 respectively, Propaganda and Frankie Goes to Hollywood frontman Holly Johnson went to court to be released from their contracts.
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Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It was mostly inactive from 1976 to 1987. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records. Reprise was formed in 1960 by Frank Sinatra in order to allow more artistic freedom for his own... recordings. Hence, he garnered the nickname "The Chairman of the Board." Having left Capitol/EMI, and after trying to buy Norman Granz's Verve Records, the first album Sinatra released on Reprise was Ring-a-Ding-Ding! As CEO of Reprise, Sinatra recruited a host of his cronies for the fledgling label, such as fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. The original roster from 1961 to '63 included Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Esquivel and stand-up comedian Redd Foxx. The label still issues any Sinatra work recorded while on the label and, after his death in 1998, it had great success with his greatest hits collections. One of the label's founding principles under Sinatra's leadership was that each artist would have full creative freedom, and at some point complete ownership of their work; including publishing rights.
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Pop music is a genre of popular music which originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll. The terms popular music and pop... music are often used interchangeably, even though the former is a description of music which is popular , whilst the latter is a specific genre containing qualities of mass appeal. As a genre, pop music is very eclectic, often borrowing elements from other styles including urban, dance, rock, Latin and country; nonetheless, there are core elements which define pop. Such include generally short-to-medium length songs, written in a basic format , as well as the common employment of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, and catchy hooks. So-called "pure pop" music, such as power pop, features all these elements, utilising electric guitars, drums and bass for instrumentation; in the case of such music, the main goal is usually that of being pleasurable to listen to, rather than having much artistic depth.
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