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Apple Records
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Apple Records

Parent company Apple Corps
Founded 1968
Founder(s) The Beatles
Distributing label Capitol Records
EMI Music Group
Genre(s) Rock
Pop
Experimental
Indian
Classical
Country of origin United Kingdom

“Zapple” redirects here. For a computer monitor of the same name, see Zapple Monitor.

Apple Records is a record label founded in 1968 as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. by the Beatles. EMI and Capitol Records agreed to distribute Apple Records until 1975; Apple owned the rights to records by artists they signed, while EMI retained ownership of the Beatles' records.

Besides releasing the 1968-onwards work of the Beatles and the individual members (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr), Apple signed an eclectic roster of artists

History

Apple Records was founded in 1968 as part of the Beatles' Apple Corps project. At this time, the Beatles were contracted to Parlophone in the United Kingdom and Capitol Records in the United States. In a new recording deal, EMI and Capitol agreed to distribute Apple Records until 1975. Apple owned the rights to records by artists they signed, while EMI retained ownership of the Beatles' records, issuing them on the Apple label but with Parlophone R-prefixed catalogue numbers. Apple Records owns the rights to all of the Beatles' videos and movie clips.

Standard Apple album and single labels displayed a bright green Granny Smith apple (with the exception of the original US version of the Beatles' Let It Be, which used a red apple because the album was a movie soundtrack distributed by United Artists instead of Capitol/EMI), distinctively marked their affiliation with the Beatles.

Apple signed an eclectic roster of artists: those who went on to have some considerable success include Badfinger, Mary Hopkin and Billy Preston. James Taylor's debut album was released on Apple. McGough and McGear's eponymously titled album was due to be released on Apple, but legal problems meant that it was released on Parlophone Records, to which The Scaffold (of whom both members were a part) were signed.

Peter Asher, A&R director of newly formed Apple Records, was ordered by George Harrison in 1969 to look up the American band, Raven (U.S. band) Reference: The Longest Cocktail Party - page 119) and offer them a recording contract. Asher did so in the kitchen of the popular New York nightclub, Steve Paul's Scene. [1]

Outside of the mainstream pop-rock sphere, the various Beatles also signed or sponsored releases by several diverse artists highly noted in their repected fields. These included the famous English brass band The Black Dyke Mills Band; Respected jazz ensemble The Modern Jazz Quartet; Avant-garde artist (and Lennon's partner) Yoko Ono; Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar; and leading English classical composer John Tavener.

During the 1974 proceedings dissolving the Beatles as an entity, a court ruling decreed that eighty percent of all profits from Beatles albums (as a group) would accrue to Apple Records, and five percent would go to each of the four members. The label consistently made a profit through 1984, mostly through continued issues of old Beatles records, then lost money for several years.[citation needed]

The familiar Apple label with its bright green apple made a high profile reappearance in the late 1980s, when used on all Beatles CDs. This was followed in the 1990s by The Beatles Anthology. In 2006 the label was again newsworthy, as the long-running dispute between Apple Records' parent company and Apple Computer went to the High Court (see Apple Corps v Apple Computer). In 2007, the company settled a dispute with EMI over royalties, and announced that long term chief executive Neil Aspinall had retired and been replaced by American music industry executive Jeff Jones.[2] These changes lead to speculation that the Apple Records catalogue - and most importantly The Beatles discography - would soon appear on Apple Computer's iTunes online music store,[3] and that a remastering and reissue program of The Beatles' CDs might be forthcoming (Jones having worked on reissues at Sony).[2]