The EMI record label came into being in 1973. It was started by its parent company, also called EMI (Electric & Musical Industries) which had been around since 1931. The parent company was a big fish in the music industry, and already owned many labels such as Columbia Graphophone Company and Parlophone. EMI was introduced as their namesake flagship label.
By January 1973, many or all of their pop labels were rebranded as EMI – this included label like Progressive Rock label Harvest who had signed Pink Floyd, and Parlophone who had been releasing records by artists such as The Beatles and Cilla Black. Read our post about Parlophone here. During the 70s, they also brought in many new artists including Kate Bush and Iron Maiden. For decades they remained a true music industry powerhouse.
Unlike many companies that lost out their independence to Sony buyouts around 1990, EMI (the parent company) managed to keep going until 2012. They sold their recorded music operations to Universal Music Group (UMG) for $1.9 billion and the music publishing operations to Sony/ATV for $2.2 billion!
Nowadays (as a subsidiary of UMG) EMI appear to be working hard and successfully to remain current and develop the industry. Their current major signings include Taylor Swift and Lorde, and they say that “In 2020 the label began an exciting new chapter paving the way for a new generation of cultural trailblazers,” with upcoming artists like Greentea Peng and Lancey Foux.
Despite being based in the UK, EMI has been internationally successful since it began. EMI are also the distributors for Positiva records, who have been releasing dance music in the UK since the 90s. Their roster includes the iconic Dutch Eurodance group Vengaboys and more recently David Guetta and Avicii.
DID YOU KNOW?
The first ever commercially available CT brain scanner was developed by Godfrey Hounsfield at EMI (Electric & Music Industries) in 1970/71.
