Everything about Geffen Records totally explained
Geffen Records is an
American record label, owned by
Universal Music Group, and operated as one third of UMG's
Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.
Company history
Beginnings
Geffen Records was founded in
1980 by music industry businessman
David Geffen who, in the early
1970s, had founded
Asylum Records. Geffen stepped down from Asylum after being diagnosed with a cancerous cyst, but following confirmation that the growth was benign, he returned to work and struck a deal with
Warner Bros. Records to create Geffen Records. Warner provided 100 percent of the funding for the label's operations, while Geffen retained 50 percent of the profits, and distributed its records.
(International distribution outside the US and Canada, meanwhile, moved from WEA in 1982 to CBS until 1990.)
Geffen Records' first signee was
disco superstar
Donna Summer, whose
gold-selling album
The Wanderer became the label's first release in 1980. The label followed it up with
Double Fantasy by
John Lennon and
Yoko Ono. It was Lennon's first album of all-new material in several years. Two days after it entered the charts, Lennon was assassinated in New York City. Subsequently, the album went on to sell millions and gave Geffen its first number-one album and single (the rights to the album are now owned by
EMI).
Geffen Records also had early success with several
big 80s acts including:
Quarterflash,
Oxo,
Asia,
Wang Chung,
Kylie Minogue, and a pre-Van Halen
Sammy Hagar.
As the 1980s progressed, Geffen Records continued to sign a handful of established music icons, including
Elton John,
Cher,
Don Henley,
Joni Mitchell,
Neil Young,
Peter Gabriel, and
Jennifer Holliday. Toward the end of the decade, the company also began making a name for itself as an emerging
rock label, thanks to the success of
Whitesnake (US only),
Guns N' Roses,
Tesla and the mainstream comeback of '70s era rockers
Aerosmith. This prompted Geffen to create a subsidiary label, named
DGC Records in 1990, which focused on more progressive sounds and would later embrace the emergence of
alternative rock. Geffen also distributed the first incarnation of
Def American Recordings through Warner Bros. from 1988 to 1990.
Acquisition by MCA
After a decade of operating through Warner, when its contract with the company expired, the label was sold to
MCA Music Entertainment (later renamed
Universal Music Group) in 1990. The deal ultimately earned David Geffen an estimated US$800 million in stock (until
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.'s cash acquistion of MCA in 1991, made Geffen a billionaire) and an employment contract that ran until 1995. Following the sale, Geffen Records operated as one of MCA's leading independently managed labels. Geffen stepped down as head of the label in 1995 and collaborated with
Jeffrey Katzenberg and
Steven Spielberg to form
DreamWorks SKG, an ambitious multimedia empire dealing in film, television, books, and music. Geffen Records would distribute releases on the new operation's
DreamWorks Records subsidiary.
Universal Music Group acquired
PolyGram in 1998, resulting in a corporate reorganization of labels. Geffen Records, along with
A&M Records, was subsequently merged into
Interscope Records. Although Geffen continued to exist as its own imprint, it was now reduced in size and stature to fit into the greater expansion of Interscope.
By
2000, despite Geffen Records no longer being independently operated within UMG and taking a more submissive position behind Interscope, it continued to do steady business—so much so that in
2003, UMG folded
MCA Records into Geffen. Though Geffen had been substantially a pop-rock label, its absorption of MCA (and its back catalogues) led to a more diverse roster; with former MCA artists such as
Mary J. Blige,
The Roots,
Blink-182, and
Common now featured on the label. Meanwhile, DreamWorks Records also folded, with artists such as
Nelly Furtado and
Rufus Wainwright being absorbed by Geffen as well. DGC Records was folded in 2003 and now only functions to reissue
Nirvana’s recordings.
Geffen’s absorption of the MCA and DreamWorks labels, along with its continuing to sign new acts such as
Ashlee Simpson,
Bethany Hamilton,
Angels & Airwaves,
Snoop Dogg, and
The Game, have boosted the company to the extent that it's now gaining equal footing with the main Interscope label, leading some industry insiders to predict that it could revert to operating as a dominant imprint at UMG again. At the end of 2007, however, Geffen Records was absorbed further into Interscope, laying off 60 employees.
Labels under Geffen
Further Information
Get more info on 'Geffen Records'.
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