MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc. established in 1972, though MCA had released recordings under that name in the United Kingdom from the 1960s. The label achieved success in the 1970s through the 1980s, often by acquiring other record labels, such as ABC, Motown, and Geffen. The MCA record label was folded into Universal Music Group's Geffen Records in 2003, but Universal's MCA Nashville continues to use the moniker.
History
Background
The U.S. arm of Britain's Decca Records was established in New York in 1934[1] In 1937, the owner of Decca, Edward R. Lewis, chose to split off the UK Decca company from the U.S. company (keeping his U.S. Decca holdings), fearing the financial damage that would arise for UK Companies if the emerging hostilities of Nazi Germany should lead to war – correctly foreseeing World War II. Lewis sold the remainder of his American Decca holdings when war did break out.[2] U.S.-based Decca Records kept the rights to the Decca name in North and South America and parts of Asia including Japan. UK Decca owned the rights to the Decca name in the rest of the world. After the war, British Decca formed a new U.S. subsidiary, London Records. During this time, American Decca issued records outside North America on the Coral Records and Brunswick Records labels.
The early years
In 1962, MCA, a talent agency and television production company, entered the recorded music business with the acquisition of American Decca, which became a wholly owned subsidiary. As American Decca owned Universal Pictures, MCA was forced to exit the talent agency business in order to complete the merger. MCA assumed full ownership of Universal and made it into a top film studio, producing several hits.[3]
In 1966, MCA formed Uni Records[4] and in 1967, purchased Kapp Records[5] which was placed under Uni Records management.[6]
Brunswick and Coral were replaced by the new MCA label, which was used to release U.S. Decca and Kapp label material outside North America.[7]
MCA Records formation in Canada and the United States
In 1970, MCA reorganized its Canadian record company Compo Company Ltd. into MCA Records (Canada).[11] In April 1970, former Warner Records president Mike Maitland joined MCA and initially served as Decca's general manager. Maitland was unsuccessful in his attempt to consolidate Warner Records with co-owned Atlantic Records which led to his departure from Warner.
In April 1971, Maitland supervised the consolidation of the New York–based Decca and Kapp labels plus the California-based Uni label into MCA Records based in Universal City, California, with Maitland serving as president.[12] The three labels maintained their identities for a short time, but were retired in favor of the MCA label in 1973.[4][13]
Early success
The first MCA Records release in the U.S. was former Uni artist Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" single in 1972, which appeared on a plain black and white label.[15] Immediately following this, the American MCA label used a black with curved rainbow design until the late 1970s. This design was directly inspired by the U.S. Decca label of the 1960s.
In December 1972, Neil Diamond, another Uni artist, reached superstar status with his first MCA release, the live multi-platinum Hot August Night. Elton John's double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was released in October 1973 and was number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart for eight straight weeks. The management of former Decca artists the Who had formed their own label Track Records in the UK, but were still under contract with MCA for American distribution. The Who's double album Quadrophenia was released by Track/MCA also in October 1973. Quadrophenia peaked at number 2 as it was held back from the number 1 slot by Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
Other successful artists on MCA, after the consolidation, included former Kapp artist Cher, and Uni artist Olivia Newton-John. In 1973 MCA released the highly successful soundtrack album to the film The Sting. The movie used the Ragtime music of Scott Joplin, arranged and conducted by Marvin Hamlisch
Expansion and struggles
In 1977, MCA president Sidney Sheinberg set up the Infinity Records division, based in New York City with Ron Alexenberg as CEO. Alexenberg had been with the Epic division of CBS Records, now Sony Music Entertainment. The intention was to give MCA a stronger presence on the East Coast. The only big hit the Infinity label had was "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes, a number one single at the end of 1979. Infinity also had some success with Hot Chocolate, Spyro Gyra, New England and TKO. But MCA pulled the plug on Infinity after it failed to sell most of the one million advance copies of an album featuring Pope John Paul II in October 1979. Infinity was fully absorbed by the parent company in 1980.
In 1979, Bob Siner replaced Maitland as MCA Records president.[16] Shortly afterwards, MCA acquired ABC Records along with its subsidiaries Paramount, Dunhill, Impulse!, Westminster
The 1980s
The combined effects of the Infinity Records failure, the purchase of ABC, rising vinyl costs and a major slump in record sales produced tremendous losses for the company between 1979 and 1982. It was not until the mid-1980s that the record labels returned to significant profitability. In late 1980, MCA received negative publicity when it attempted to raise the list price of new releases by top selling artists from $8.98 to $9.98 ($ and $ in dollars respectively). This policy, known as "superstar pricing", ultimately failed. The Xanadu soundtrack album and Gaucho, by former ABC act Steely Dan, were the first releases with the higher list price. Backstreet artist Tom Petty succeeded in his campaign to force MCA to drop prices back to $8.98 for the release of his album Hard Promises, in May 1981.[21]
MCA had a distribution deal with the independent label Unicorn Records, which in turn signed an agreement with another rising independent label, SST Records to manufacture and distribute Black Flag's first album Damaged. Reportedly, MCA executive Al Bergman heard an advance copy of the album and refused to let MCA Distributing Inc. handle it, stating that it was "an anti-parent record". The members of Black Flag found themselves covering the MCA Distributing logo on the first 25,000 copies with a sticker reading "As a parent... I found it an anti-parent record."
SST Records partner Joe Carducci later said that Bergman's comments were actually a red herring for MCA to cut ties with Unicorn, which had not produced any successful releases; the fact that MCA would, not soon afterward, directly commission a new recording of "TV Party" from Black Flag and SST Records for the Repo Man soundtrack seemed to bear this out.
Recovery, further expansion and MCA Music Entertainment Group
Irving Azoff became the head of MCA Records in 1983. Azoff is known as an experienced music industry veteran who received credit amongst MCA management and staff for saving the company from bankruptcy.
In 1983, rock musician Frank Zappa negotiated a distribution agreement for his Barking Pumpkin label with MCA. As the records were being manufactured, a woman in the quality control department objected to the lyrics of Zappa's album Thing-Fish. After this MCA cancelled the Zappa contract.[22] At about the same time, Zappa publicly argued with members of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) over censorship and warning stickers for albums with potentially offensive content. The experience with MCA prompted Zappa to create a satirical "WARNING/GUARANTEE" sticker of his own. Thing-Fish was released with Zappa's sticker in December 1984 under a new agreement with Capitol/EMI.[22] Despite the conflict with Zappa, MCA later became the biggest label to oppose the PMRC and the use of warning stickers. In October 1985, Azoff said "Never will you find a sticker on one of our records."[23]
The 1990s
GRP Records and Geffen Records were acquired in 1990. Unlike most of MCA's previous acquisitions, GRP (which began managing MCA's jazz holdings) and Geffen (which became a second mainstream subsidiary) labels kept their identities. MCA sold Motown Records to PolyGram in 1993.
Singer and songwriter Alanis Morissette became a noteworthy MCA artist in Canada with her debut album in 1991. After her second album in 1992 she was dropped following disagreements in artistic direction.[27] However, the company kept her on their song publishing roster, both being owned by Universal Music. Morissette's next album, Jagged Little Pill (written and produced independently, but released through Warner Music's Maverick Records label) eventually sold more than 30 million copies.
Universal Music Group
In 1995, drinks conglomerate Seagram Company Ltd. acquired 80% of MCA.[28] In November of that year, Teller was fired and replaced by former Warner Music Group head Doug Morris.[29] Palmese left MCA a week later.[30] Afterwards, Jay Boberg was named as the new president of MCA.[31] On December 9, 1996, the new owners dropped the MCA name; the company became Universal Studios, Inc. and its music division, MCA Music Entertainment Group, was renamed Universal Music Group (UMG), headed by Morris.
In 1997, MCA Records adopted a new logo that featured the parent company's former full name, Music Corporation of America. That many younger people had been unaware of what MCA had stood for in the past inspired the new logo. In conjunction with the new logo, the first MCA Records website was launched.
MCA label phaseout
On January 16, 2003, Jay Boberg resigned from his position as president of MCA Records.[31] Boberg's resignation arrived in the wake of slumping sales at MCA, which had seen the label's overall album market share decline to just 2.61% in 2002, down from 9% the previous year.[33] His demise was hastened by the relative commercial failure of Shaggy's Lucky Day, released in October 2002, which MCA hoped would sell well enough to turn around their declining fortunes.[34] Richard Nichols, manager of The Roots, felt that MCA had been attempting to spend lots of money on different projects, and subsequently many acts on MCA were "underfinanced" by the label, leading to poor sales.[35] Rob Hitt of Midtown (who was signed to MCA through Drive-Thru Records) stated that MCA had lost a substantial amount of money that year from investing in several unsuccessful bands.[36]
Logos
Labels
MCA Records recording artists
External links
References
- Decca Records Profile Discogs, retrieved November 22, 2008^
- Billboard google.com, August 28, 1954^
- After the Octopus Time, July 20, 1962, retrieved November 22, 2008^