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Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009. Elektra was formed in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt in Holzman's St. John's... College dorm room. Each invested $300. The usual spelling of the Greek mythological Pleiad Electra was changed. Holzman famously explained, “I gave her the ‘K’ that I lacked”. He found the 'C' in the original name "too soft" but liked the "solid bite" of the letter 'K', citing its use in the Kodak name. The first Elektra LP, New Songs , was a collection of Lieder and similar 'art' songs which sold few copies. During the Fifties and early Sixties the label concentrated on folk music recordings, releasing a number of best-selling albums by Theodore Bikel, Ed McCurdy, Oscar Brand, Judy Collins and protest singers such as Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton. Holzman also recorded Josh White, who was without a record deal as a result of McCarthyite blacklisting. In 1964, Elektra launched Nonesuch Records.
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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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