Parlophone Records… of course, most famous as the home of The Beatles.
However, it has a broad history and in the past twenty years has become home to a huge number of celebrated artists across many genres. These include The Chemical Brothers, Coldplay, Iron Maiden and Pet Shop Boys.
The early days of Parlophone really were made and defined by the impact of The Beatles having been signed by George Martin in 1962. Pre-1962, he had joined as assistant label manager in 1950 and became manager in 1955. In this time, he produced and released a variety of recordings such as work by comedian Peter Sellers.
This piece of history just goes to show how defining the early 60s and Martin’s decision to sign The Beatles really was. Other artists who defined the 1960s success of Parlophone include Cilla Black and The Hollies.
Parlophone was originally started in Germany back in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company. The British branch came about in 1923 and made its name as a jazz label.
Despite the success with The Beatles, Parlophone stopped releasing under its own name in 1973 after being acquired by EMI, other than for Beatles reissues. After 1980, EMI brought the Parlophone name back with many major pop signings like Radiohead and Duran Duran.
Since 2013, Parlophone has been owned by Warner Label Group and is one of their main labels alongside Atlantic and Warner. It remains a significant name in the music industry with their most consistently successful signing being Coldplay.
DID YOU KNOW?
The company logo ₤ may look like a British pound sign but it is actually a stylised version of L that stands for Lindström as a reference back to its parent company. The pound sign looks similar because it derives from the Ancient Roman measurement libra. In fact, some other languages like Portuguese call GBP ‘libra'.
