The Police

Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom. Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone Company having... severed their ties during World War I. Deutsche Grammophon claimed the rights to the His Master's Voice trademark for Germany, where HMV recordings were released under the Electrola trademark. In turn, DGG records exported out of Germany were released on the Polydor label. Polydor became a popular music label in 1946 while Deutsche Grammophon became a classical music label. The German rights to the His Master's Voice trademark was sold by Deutsche Grammophon to the Electrola Records unit of EMI in 1949. Polydor remained Deutsche Grammophon's export label, including classical music, in France and the Spanish-speaking world for the remainder of the long-playing era, as a result of language and cultural concerns. In the early 1960s orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert signed unknowns Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers - who would later become famous as The Beatles - to Polydor.
more

Illegal Records is a record label founded by Miles Copeland III with his younger brother Stewart Copeland and the manager of The Police, Paul Mulligan in 1977. The label released The Police's debut single, Fall Out. Copeland went on to sign more artists and start several other indie sublabels... including Deptford Fun City Records, Step-Forward Records and Total Noise Records. He also launched the foreign divisions, France & Netherlands, that released some of the same titles with different catalog numbers, and some exclusive titles as well. In 1979, after Copeland started I.R.S. Records, Illegal became its distributor in UK & Europe. It continued its operations until 1988, when it merged its operations with I.R.S.
more

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.
more

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican... music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is most easily recognized by the rhythmic accents on the off-beat, usually played by guitar or piano , known as the skank. This pattern accents the second and fourth beat in each bar and combines with the drums emphasis on beat three to create a unique feel and sense of phrasing in contrast to most other popular genres focus on beat one, the "downbeat". The tempo of reggae is usually felt as slower than the popular Jamaican forms, ska and rocksteady, which preceded it. It is this slower tempo, the guitar/piano offbeats, the emphasis on the third beat, and the use of syncopated, melodic bass lines that differentiates reggae from other music, although other musical styles have incorporated some of these innovations separately. The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as "a recently estab. sp.
more