Polydor

Polydor Records is a record label once headquartered in Germany. It was originally an independent branch of Deutsche Grammophon. In the 1970s, Polydor merged with giant Phillips owned Phonogram to create PolyGram. The Polydor label continued run as its own label under the new company.

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In the early 1960s orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert signed unknowns Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers to Polydor. The Beat Brothers, of course, were actually The Beatles, and less than two years later, with a new drummer and new haircuts and now signed to Parlophone, became the one of the biggest and most influential groups the world has ever seen. According to the film The Filth and the Fury, Polydor was also one of the companies that took interest in the Sex Pistols in 1976, but lost to EMI.

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Artists signed to Polydor include James Brown, the Bee Gees, ABBA, Cole Porter, Pl?cido Domingo, The Who, Gloria Gaynor, Cream, Petula Clark, Toots Thielemans, Bill Deal, Shocking Blue, The Allman Brothers Band, Gwen Guthrie, Bananarama, Double, Powderfinger, Paul Anka, Peaches & Herb, Jean-Michel Jarre, Eric Clapton, The Cure, Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison, The Fat Boys, Lutricia McNeal, Vangelis, Lighthouse Family, The Fat Bag Band and Julio Iglesias.

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Throughout the 1980s, Polydor continued to do respectable business, in spite of becoming increasingly overshadowed by its PolyGram sister label Mercury Records. A&R manager Frank Neilson was able to scored a major top ten hit in March 1981 for the label with "Do The Hucklebuck" by Coast To Coast as well as signing Ian Dury, Billy Fury and The Comsat Angels to the company.

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By the early 1990s, Polydor began to underperform, forcing PolyGram to gut most of its staff and shift it under their newly constructed PLG (PolyGram Label Group), a cost effective outfit designed to guide its lesser performing labels (like Island Records, London Records, Atlas Records, Verve Records) to continue operating without PolyGram wasting/losing more money.

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In 1994, as Island Records recovered from its sales slump, PolyGram dissolved most of PLG into it. Meanwhile, Polydor Records and Atlas Records merged into one company (Polydor/Atlas) and was shifted over to operate under another PolyGram subsidiary, A&M Records. In 1995, Polydor/Atlas became simply Polydor Records again.

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Over the next few years, Polydor tried to keep itself afloat with new artist signings, new releases, and reissues, but ultimately continued to become more and more dormant. In 1998, Universal Music Group bought PolyGram. During the consolidation of these two music giants, Polydor's US operations were dismantled, while its overseas branch remained in tact with its records continuing to be distributed domestically through A&M and its new partner Interscope Records.

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Today, the Polydor Records name and logo is mostly used on reissues of older material from its 1960s and 1970s heyday.

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Record label: A record label is a brand created by companies that specialize in manufacturing, distributing and promoting audio and video recordings, on various formats including compact discs, LPs, DVD-Audio, SACDs, and cassettes. The name derives from the paper label at the center of a gramophone record (what i...

Deutsche Grammophon: Deutsche Grammophon is a German record company. The company has long been known for its high standards of audio fidelity....

Phillips: Phillips can mean:...