The World's Best Labels and Studios

The Virgin brand is now a global one, it operates in one form or another in many Western countries but these days we know it as an airline first and foremost.  It also operates dozens of diverse businesses around the world from motorbike taxis (Virgin Limobike) to space travel (Virgin Galactic).

What we’re are of course interested in though is the record label, the one small business that set Richard Branson on his road to commercial success.  It was started way back in 1972 by Branson and friends Simon Draper and Nik Powell at a small premises on Notting Hill Gate in London.  Their speciality to begin with was a strange imported German sound known as krautrock. The success of this venture resulted in the move to set up the Virgin record label and their first release, the now legendary Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield was a successful 1973 production.

This was followed by a number of krautrock album releases before the signing in 1977 of none other than The Sex Pistols.  Other well-known bands signed in the late 1970s include Culture Club, Human League and Simple Minds.  During this period the company now settled on the final design of the now iconic Virgin logo.

The Virgin record label expanded remarkably quickly, and in a fashion that you would not expect to be able to do today.  It started or acquired several other labels, Caroline Records, Front Line Records, Charisma Records and Dindisc to name a few.  It also expanded into the United States and Canada under various different names.  Notable artists recording under these labels included Ziggy Marley, Paula Abdul and Steve Winwood.

Richard Branson remained involved with Virgin Records for twenty years until, in 1992, the label was sold to Thorn EMI.  By this time Branson had already embarked on other enterprises and his various court cases pitting Virgin Airways against British Airways needed money to sustain.  The $1 billion sale price helped him on his way to a libel win over British Airways, netting him another million dollars or so in the process.

After Thorn EMI brought the label, it remained operating under the Virgin name, leading to a succession of major signings and successes but for our purposes, that’s where the story ends.

The Hacienda

Hacienda Interior

In 1981 Factory Records made the decision to open a nightclub.  The reasoning behind it was to showcase the bands the label had signed and recorded and to use one to back up the other.  For a time it was one of the most famous nightclubs in the UK.  It was something of a mark of honour to have visited the club, especially in the early 1980′s and during the early years of the house music revolution.  Unfortunately it lost huge amounts of money, to begin with because of it’s cheap alcohol but later on as the patrons preferred Ecstasy to anything they could buy in the club.  The huge amount of drugs involved also led to involvement in the Manchester underworld and the club was the scene of gunshots on more than one occasion.  The Hacienda, struggling under the weight of losing some £10,000 per month, eventually closed in 1997.

Unfortunately the record label did not even make it this far.  The two biggest selling artists, already mentioned in Part One, were New Order and Happy Mondays.  In the early 1990′s both bands had started to record new albums, Happy Mondays’ “Yes Please” and New Order’s “Republic”.  Both incurred enormous costs, especially the Mondays who went to Barbados to record theirs.  This put the label under immense financial strain and the owners turned to London Records, a much bigger label with a takeover proposal.

Negotiations were going well until it became clear that Factory Records had a policy of allowing the bands to own their own back catalogue and dispensing with proper contracts.  Effectively this meant there was no value in Factory Records.  In 1992 Factory Communications Ltd declared bankruptcy.

Tony Wilson continued to be involved in the record industry for some time, continuing to

Tony Wilson

push the Factory name with London records and starting new ventures, Factory Once and Factory Two, but ended work prematurely when he was diagnosed with cancer and died of a related heart attack in 2007.

If you’ve watched the 2002 movie 24 Hour Party People, you’ll already have a good idea of the chaotic rise and tumult surrounding this famous Manchester record label.

Factory Records

Started in 1978 by Anthony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, Factory Records eventually came to be a driving force behind what became known as the Manchester sound of the early 1990′s.  The name Factory Records grew from the club of the same name where Wilson had been compering.  The club showcased local, upcoming bands, a couple of the most famous to emerge from that period being Joy Division and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

Wilson began to explore the possibilities of recording the more successful bands and hooked up with friends he already knew at Manchester based label Rabid Records.  Joy Divisions’s Love Will Tear Us Apart was Factory Record’s breakthrough single, making it into the UK top twenty.  Tragedy struck in 1980 when lead singer Ian Curtis comitted suicide and not long after, Joy Division became New Order.  They would become one of th most successful British bands of that era.

In 1981 the decision was made to open  a nightclub backed up by the record label and this was the famous Hacienda.   You can read further details about The Hacienda in Part Two.

While the Hacienda was undoubtedly popular, it also cost an extraordinary amount to run and consistently made losses.  Fortunately the record label was still successful and subsidising the club to some extent.  In 1983 New Order had a global hit with Blue Monday and two years later The Happy Mondays entered the scene.  They had been taking part at a Battle of the Bands competition at the Hacienda and were spotted by Tony Wilson.  In 1987 they recorded their first album – Squirrel & G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) before moving on to bigger labels and studios for subsequent albums.  Factory records had now become the driving force behind the “Madchester” music scene of the late 1980′s.

The Happy Mondays – Step On

Part Two follows…..

The 1990s brought vast numbers of artists to the famous studios.  It’s an incredible roll

Manic Street Preachers

call of the creative talent of that decade and features artists such as the Manic Street Preachers (This Is My Truth, You Tell Me Yours) and Radiohead (The Bends).

Many more film scores were also recorded there after the success of the earlier efforts and these included Chocolat, Interview With A Vampire, The Fisher King and dozens of others.  The scores were directed by luminaries such as Ennio Morricone, Michael Nyman and Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Towards the end of the decade the three newer Star Wars films were edited at Abbey Road.

There also emerged a fashion for adding string sections to pop music recordings and Abbey Road was ideally suited for this.  Take That recorded there, along with Chris Rea, The Lightning Seeds and any number of bands taking advantage of orchestral sounds.

With the emergence of personal computers, the studio also looked toward the technology required to record in different formats and invested to make sure they were prepared for whatever the next decade had in store.

In fact the ‘noughties’  did not catch Abbey Road unprepared, their investments had left them well placed to branch out into other areas such as DVD authoring, interactive design and web development.  The biggest bands continued to record there and this

Oasis at Abbey Road

decade saw the likes of The Red Hot Chilli Pepper, Oasis and Massive Attack. In 2006 the studio celebrated it’s 75th anniversary.  Film projects during this period included The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series.

Bad news emerged in 2010 when EMI, faced with mounting debts, decided to put the studio up for sale.  This was instantly met with criticism although there were some interested parties, including property developers.  Many artists who recorded there have voiced their complaints and there has been talk of setting up a fund to purchase the studio privately.

By the beginning of the 1960′s Abbey Road had begun to achieve a global reputation. Cliff Richard had recorded his single “Move It” with The Drifters in 1958, regarded by some as the first genuine pop music record released in Europe.

Production of pop music records became the studio’s main focus as artists such as Helen

The Beatles

Shapiro and Shirley Bassey recorded there in the early 1960′s but it was the arrival of four lads from Liverpool who would forever be most closely associated with Abbey Road. Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon arrived in 1962. Following a commercial test earlier in the year George Martin signed up The Beatles and subsequently released “Love Me Do”, the band’s first commercial success.

Martin continued to work with The Beatles despite leaving Abbey Road in 1965 and the studio rolled on as successfully as ever with artists such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Hollies, Pink Floyd and many others recording there. The 1960′s also saw a progression from four track to twenty four track recording technology.

The 1970′s saw the continuation of the Pink Floyd phenomenon as a host of new artists

Pink Floyd's iconic Dark Side of the Moon album cover

arrived to record. These included Roy Wood, Simple Minds, Jeff Beck and The Alan Parsons Project among others. The 1970′s also witnessed the return of Paul McCartney with his new band Wings. Technology of course also progressed and the first non-EMI console was installed in Studio 3 – a 36 track Neve desk.

The 1980′s saw something of a change of direction for the studio. It began hosting orchestras playing film scores and to accommodate this extra work, a new studio (the Penthouse Studio) was added to the building. Soundtracks recorded here include Raiders of the Lost Ark, Brazil and all the Star Wars soundtracks.

The pop music didn’t stop however and new faces during this period included Kate Bush, Adam and the Ants and Duran Duran.

It’s an obvious choice and one that most people would not disagree with. Abbey Road studios, where The Beatles famously recorded is the most famous studio in the UK and possibly the world.

Incredibly, the Abbey Road studio was started way back in 1929 at a suburban address in

The Famous Crossing Shot

St. John’s Wood in London, 3 Abbey Road. It was the world’s first custom built recording studio and its creator was EMI (Electric & Musical Industries Ltd).

Although we now associate the studio with the more recent decades of popular music, the studio began with the production of music of it’s time and featured classical artists such as Yehudi Menuin and others such as Noel Coward. In fact Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in Studio One in the production of land of Hope and Glory.

Glenn Miller

Into the 1940′s and the Second World War the studio continued to operate, recording wartime ballads from, among others, Gracie Fields and George Formby. Glenn Miller recorded his last songs there in September 1944 before his disappearance over the English Channel.

Equipment at Abbey road was updated shortly after the war after German magnetic recording technology was discovered in Berlin and brought back to London.

In the 1950′s the first link with The Beatles arrived at Abbey Road – George Martin – the producer responsible for all but one of The Beatles albums. During the 1950′s he oversaw recordings by comedians Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers as well the Queen’s Christmas message broadcasts. The royal coronation was also recorded there in 1953 via direct communication form Westminster Abbey where the ceremony was taking place.

Towards the end of the 1950′s popular music began to take a foothold and some of the

Adam Faith

first artists to record at Abbey Road included Ruby Murray, Cliff Richard and the Shadows (then called The Drifters) and Adam Faith.

Part Two: the 1960′s – 1980′s……..