1.
Sony Music
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Sony Music Entertainment is an American music company owned by Sony. It is incorporated as a partnership of Sony Music Holdings Inc. through Sony Entertainment. The company was first founded in 1929 as American Record Corporation and renamed Columbia Recording Corporation in 1938, in 1966, the company was reorganized to become CBS Records. Sony Corporation bought the company in 1987 and renamed it Sony Music Entertainment in 1991, the buyout led to the dissolution of BMG, which relaunched as BMG Rights Management. Sony Music Entertainment is one of the Big Three record companies, being the second largest after Universal Music Group, in 1929, ARC was founded through a merger of several record companies. In 1934, in the midst of Great Depression, the Columbia Phonograph Company, ARC was acquired in 1938 by the Columbia Broadcasting System, which, in turn, had been formed by the Columbia Phonograph Company, but then sold off. ARC was renamed Columbia Recording Corporation, RCA Victor Records executive Ted Wallerstein convinced CBS head William S. Paley to buy ARC and Paley made Wallerstein head of the newly acquired record company. The renamed company made Columbia its flagship label and Okeh its subsidiary label and this allowed ARCs leased labels Brunswick Records and Vocalion Records to revert to their former owner Warner Bros. which sold them to Decca Records. Columbia kept the Brunswick catalogue recorded from December 1931 onward on the Columbia label and he was succeeded by James Conkling as head of Columbia Records. In 1951, Columbia severed its ties with the EMI-owned record label of the same name, Okeh Records continued to be distributed by EMI on the Columbia label. Columbia founded Epic Records in 1953 and in 1956, Conkling left Columbia and he would help establish the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences before eventually becoming the first president of the newly launched Warner Bros. His successor, Goddard Lieberson began the first of two stints as head of the record company, and in 1958, Columbia founded another label, Date Records, which initially issued rockabilly music. In 1960, Columbia/CBS began negotiations with its international distributor Philips Records with the goal of starting its own global record company. Philips acquisition of US-based Mercury Records in 1961 paved the way for this, elsewhere, CBSs Mexican record company, Discos Columbia, was renamed Discos CBS by 1963. In 1964, Columbia set out acquiring record companies in countries for its CBS Records International Unit. EMI continued to distribute Epic and Okeh label material on the Columbia label in the UK until the deal with EMI expired in 1968 when CBS took over distribution. In late 1965, the Date subsidiary label was revived and this label released the first string of hits for Peaches & Herb and scored a few minor hits from various other artists. Dates biggest success was Time of the Season by the Zombies, the label was discontinued in 1970
2.
RCA Music Group
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RCA Music Group was created by BMG in March 2004 shortly after the formation of Zomba Label Group. It became a part of the BMG Label Group along with Zomba, in 2008, BMG sold their half of the Sony BMG merger back to Sony, but retained the use of the BMG name. Thus, in early 2009, the BMG Label Group was rebranded to the RCA/JIVE Label Group, in mid-2011, Sony announced that they were again restructuring RCA/JIVE Label Group. Some artists moved under a restructured Epic Records which is now headed by L. A. Reid, Epic will focus on urban music while the RCA Music Group continued on its own. JIVE Records was moved under RCA Music Group, minus those artists who were moved to Epic. Some of JIVEs urban artists such as Usher moved to RCA, while other JIVE pop artists, including Britney Spears & P. nk, Peter Edge serves as CEO of the company. The company was expected to start releasing all of its recordings under RCA Records, Arista Records, J Records and JIVE Records have been shut down with all of their artists moving to RCA. In August 2011, RCA laid off 20 members of its staff, RCA Records Arista Records LaFace Records J Records JIVE Records Peter Edge, Chairman & CEO Tom Corson, President & COO RCA/JIVE Label Group Epic Records Columbia Records
3.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
4.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
5.
Zomba Group of Companies
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The Zomba Group of Companies was a music group and division which was owned by and operated under Sony Music Entertainment. The division was renamed to Jive Label Group in 2009 and was placed under the RCA/Jive Label Group umbrella, in 2011, the RCA/Jive Label Group was split in half. Multiple Jive Label Group artists were moved to Epic Records while others stayed with Jive as it moved under the RCA Music Group, in October 2011 Jive Records was shut down and their artists were moved to RCA Records. Calder and Simon both served as CEOs until 1990 when Calder bought out Simons share and ran the company himself until 2002. In 2002, BMG purchased the company and subsequently restructured the labels under the umbrella company Zomba Label Group, the label group served as a parent for many different labels including Jive, Silvertone, Volcano and LaFace. Because of the market in South Africa, there was a need to branch out into various aspects of the business and you couldnt do just one thing. It was too small, explained David Gresham, CEO of David Gresham Record Company and this is not a country where you have a million-seller. A No.1 record is a 10,000 unit seller and that only pays the rent for a month or two. While almost mandatory in South Africa, this style of music company would be adapted to other markets throughout the companies history. Early companies formed by Calder and Simon were Sagittarius Management and Clive Calder Productions, CCP was distributed by EMI Records South Africa who purchased the company in 1972. Although Calder has no stake in it now, it exists as a wholly owned subsidiary of EMI, specializing in the recording, development. Calders relationship with EMI began when he had been an A&R Manager at EMI South Africa for eighteen months, there he had signed some big groups for the time such as Freedoms Children and the Otis Waygood Blues Band. During this time, Calder was also a bassist in a few bands and he formed the Four Dukes and the In Crowd with EMI artist Peter Vee, whom he also produced. Calder eventually paired Lee with a producer named Mutt Lange. The trio of Calder, Simon and Lange decided in 1974 that they had to get out of South Africa and we were politically very much opposed to the old apartheid regime says Simon. They pooled together what little money they had and moved to London, having landed right in the middle of the British punk rock movement, they felt their experience would not be best utilized in marketing and promotion in such a different context. Instead, they opted to create a company and Zomba Corporation was officially registered in Switzerland in 1975. The name Zomba referred to the capital of African country Malawi, next, Calder and Simon began looking for songwriters
6.
Hip hop music
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It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements, MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, while often used to refer solely to rapping, hip hop more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. Hip hops early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with the breaks and Jamaican toasting, rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat. The Sugarhill Gangs 1979 song Rappers Delight is widely regarded to be the first hip hop record to gain popularity in the mainstream. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles, prior to the 1980s, hip hop music was largely confined within the United States. However, during the 1980s, it began to spread to scenes in dozens of countries. New school hip hop was the wave of hip hop music, originating in 1983–84 with the early records of Run-D. M. C. The Golden age hip hop period was a period between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. Notable artists from this era include the Juice Crew, Public Enemy, & Rakim, Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One, EPMD, Slick Rick, Beastie Boys, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Ultramagnetic MCs, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest. Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that often focuses on the violent lifestyles, in the West Coast hip hop style, G-funk dominated mainstream hip hop for several years during the 1990s. I. G. In the 1990s, hip hop began to diversify with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap, at the same time, hip hop continued to be assimilated into other genres of popular music, examples being Neo soul and nu metal. Hip hop became a pop music genre in the mid-1990s. The popularity of hip hop music continued through the 2000s, with hip hop influences also increasingly finding their way into mainstream pop, the United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics. Starting in 2005, sales of hip hop music in the United States began to severely wane, during the mid-2000s, alternative hip hop secured a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of artists such as OutKast and Kanye West. Creation of the hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash. However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was known as disco rap. Cowboy later worked the hip hop cadence into a part of his stage performance, the first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop
7.
Boy band
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Being vocal groups, most boy band members do not play musical instruments, either in recording sessions or on stage, making the term something of a misnomer. Many boy bands dance as well as sing, usually giving highly choreographed performances, some such bands form on their own. They can evolve out of church choral or gospel music groups, due to this and their general commercial orientation towards a female audience of preteens, teenyboppers, or teens, the term may be used with negative connotations in music journalism. Boy bands are similar in concept to their counterparts, girl groups, the earliest forerunner of boy band music began in the late 19th century as a cappella barbershop quartets. They were usually a group of males and sang in four part harmonies, the popularity of barbershop quartets had been prominent into the earlier part of the 20th century. A revival of the vocal group took place in the late 1940s and 1950s with the use of doo-wop music. Doo-wop bands sang about topics such as love and other used in pop music. The earliest traces of boy bands were in the mid-1950s although the boy band was not used. African American vocal group The Ink Spots was one of the first of what would now be called boy bands, the term boy band was not established until the late 1980s as before that they were called male vocal groups or hep harmony singing groups. For instance, their music featured close harmonies from soul music and catchy pop hooks influenced as much as they were by Motown and acts like the Supremes. All members of the band sang, which is a convention of a boy band, as opposed to having a front man. Even so, the members conveniently fitted into the convention of having stereotypical personality types, the Beatles were a direct influence on the conception of the Monkees, as they used rock band instrumentation and played more rock oriented music. With music produced by Don Kirshner, The Monkees became eventually dissatisfied with Kirshners control over them and they became independent two years later, working on their own up to 1970, when the group first dissolved. Other antecedents exist throughout the history of pop music, the genre has been copied into languages and cultures other than the Anglo-American. The Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, appealing to young Latina audiences, was founded in 1977, Menudo had a convention unique among boy bands, when a member turned 16, became too tall, or their voice changed, they were replaced. The members of Menudo were generally aged 12–17, the Bay City Rollers were a Scottish pop band who were most popular in the mid-1970s. For a relatively brief but fervent period, they were worldwide teen idols, the group were one of the first bands like The Monkees before them to take the formula shown by The Beatles and apply it to a teen market. The group achieved the same amount of success but for a period of time
