Apple Corps

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3 Savile Row , former Apple Corps headquarters in London
Former “Apple Boutique” on London's Baker Street

Apple Corps Ltd. is a company founded in January 1968 by British rock band The Beatles , which owned their former company Beatles Ltd. dissolved and transferred to a corporate conglomerate .

At first the company was very diverse. The main department, the record label Apple Records , opened that same year. Other departments dealing with electronics, film, media, publishing and retail: Apple Electronics , Apple Films , that of Brian Epstein in Baker Street , founded and directed by Terry Doran small publishing Apple Publishing (including the music publisher Apple Music ) and Apple Retail , whose most famous project was the unsuccessful Apple boutique in London . The Apple Boutique presented hippie fashion, among other things , but was closed again after just eight months. Except for the record label, all departments proved to be unprofitable .

At a press conference in New York in April 1968 , John Lennon and Paul McCartney presented their new company to the world. At the press conference for the creation of Apple , John Lennon said, among other things:

"We want to setup a system whereby people who just want to make a film about anything don't have to go on their knees in somebody's office [probably yours]."

"We want to build a system in which people who just want to make a film about something don't have to fall on their knees in any office [possibly in yours]."

- John Lennon, 1968

In the late 1960s, the company was based at 3 Savile Row in London, where the Apple Studio was located, where recordings for the album Let It Be and the film of the same name took place in January 1969 . The executive manager was the former road manager of the Beatles and trained accountant Neil Aspinall , head of the electronics department of the Greek Magic Alex .

The company's name and logo can be traced back to a painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte . Paul McCartney became aware of the works in the mid-1960s and commissioned the art dealer Robert Fraser to get him a work by Magritte. Fraser brought him the picture Le Jeu de Mourre from 1966, on which an apple with the inscription "Au revoir" is depicted. This apple later inspired the naming and logo design by Gene Mahon, to whom the Beatles showed Magritte's apple.

When the Beatles disbanded as a group, Apple Corps was also being considered. However, it was decided to leave the company in place, but to close all departments. Today, the Apple Corps brand primarily serves as an agent for licenses in connection with The Beatles brand , overseeing the republication of recordings from Apple Records and related media.

Because the name is identical with Apple Inc , several lawsuits were carried out with the computer company, some of which led to payments in the millions to Apple Corps .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brian Roylance, Nicky Page, Derek Taylor (Eds.): The Beatles Anthology. Chronicle Books, San Francisco 2000; as a translation from English: Ullstein, Munich 2000. ISBN 3-550-07132-9 , p. 270.
  2. ↑ quoted from: The Beatles Anthology , p. 287
  3. ↑ Beatles Blog
  4. ^ The Beatles Anthology. P. 270.