Mute (music label)

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Mute Records
Logo of the label
Logo of the label
Parent company BMG Rights Management (since 2012)
Universal (2012), EMI Music (2002–2012)
Active years since 1978
founder Daniel Miller
Seat London
Website http://www.mute.com
Label code LC 05834
Sub-label Blast First
novamute
Future Groove
Genre (s) Electronic pop music
Mute artists
Logo of the label
Logo of the label
Active years since 2010
founder Daniel Miller
Seat London
Website http://www.mute.com
Label code LC 27959
Genre (s) Electronic pop music

Mute Records is a British music label and was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller in London . The label was taken over by the EMI Group in 2002 and has been part of Bertelsmann's BMG Rights Management since it was broken up in 2012 . Mute Records licenses the Mute brand to Mute Artists , an independent label that focuses on the production and distribution of electronically influenced pop music and was founded by Miller in 2010.

history

The foundation goes back to Daniel Miller's decision to sell his own musical work with the blossoming genre of electronic instruments ( synthesizers ) through self-distribution. The resulting single Warm Leatherette by The Normal became a club hit and is still part of the repertoire of DJs who specialized in electronic and new wave music from the early 1980s. Miller came out very early on as a fan of German Krautrocks and earlier electronic avant-garde like Kraftwerk , Neu! , Can or the New Yorkers Suicide . The label's first release was consequently the second album by the German electronic provocateurs German American Friendship (DAF), Die Kleine und die Böse from 1980, a milestone in German electropunk and a pioneer of electronic body music .

The artists that Mute signed later included commercially extremely successful bands such as Depeche Mode , Erasure , Moby , Nick Cave , Einstürzende Neubauten , Kraftwerk , Laibach and Goldfrapp .

Mute still has two offices today: in England and the USA. The branches in what was then Czechoslovakia ("Mute Czechoslovakia") and in Germany ("Mute Tonträger") no longer exist as independent departments. The German department was closed in 2008 by the then mother EMI Music.

In May 2002 Daniel Miller sold Mute Records to the British major label EMI Music, which Mute lost its independent status. In September 2010, Miller and EMI agreed to found an independent label under Miller's leadership and named Mute Artists Ltd. The Mute brand as well as the rights to recordings and the contracts with artists such as Depeche Mode, Goldfrapp or Kraftwerk remained with Mute Records / EMI. Since then, Mute Records has licensed the brand and recordings that had previously been released by Mute to the new Mute Artists.

After Universal Music took over EMI Music in 2012, it had to resell Mute Records due to conditions imposed by the European Commission. In the course of the bidding competition, Daniel Miller tried to buy back his former record company, but was defeated by the Berlin BMG Rights Management.

BMG licenses the Mute Records catalog to INgrooves in the USA and Canada and to PIAS in the rest of the world .

Alignment of mute

In addition to the main label Mute, there are also a few sub-labels, which are mostly dedicated to a certain style of music. For very experimental music there is Blast First , for techno / electronica that is more danceable there is the sub-label novamute , which has been and still can celebrate considerable success (especially among DJs). The artist roster belongs (s) e.g. B. Luke Slater , Plastikman , Juno Reactor or Steve Stoll . In the beginning, novamute licensed Tresor Records for the international market quite often and thus made them available to a wide audience.

But there is not only the techno label at Mute, but another one that illuminates other electronic sides of today's music scene - house and trance . This style was released on the Future Groove sub-label and had names as well as Jamez , the Trancesetters (a project by Jamez and Dobre), Desert and others under contract.

Artist

  • Erasure left Mute Records and have been under contract with Mute Artists since 2011. The rights to old recordings remain with Mute Records.
  • Goldfrapp have left Mute Records and are now under contract with Mute Artists.
  • Depeche Mode left Mute Records and have been under contract with Columbia Records / Sony Music since 2012 . The rights to old recordings remained with Mute Records (distributed by Sony Music) until 2015 and then fell to the band, which has since licensed the catalog to Sony Music.
  • In 2015 New Order released their album Music Complete on Mute Artists.
  • Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds left Mute Records and have been under contract with Kobalt Label Services since 2013 .
  • Apparat signed with Mute Artists in 2011.
  • Yann Tiersen signed with Mute Artists in 2010.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.bmg.com/category/press-releases/?n=intl-bmg-has-reached-an-agreement-to-acquire-the-mute-records-catalogue
  2. ↑ http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/sony-to-handle-bmg-depeche-mode-catalogue-universal-gets-black-sabbath/055164
  3. ↑ http://www.electronicbeats.net/2013/03/12/through-that-darkness-youll-find-the-light-aj-samuels-interviews-depeche-modes-dave-gahan/