Box Set Oddities (picked up from old forum)

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Tim Neely

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To those just coming in, the discussion started with why some Polygram box sets of the mid-1990s were on A&M when the artists themselves never recorded for or were even associated with A&M.

I was away all weekend (world's largest trivia contest) so I didn't get a chance to pick up where I left off. So here goes.

>>What is the actual "roots" of Atco? All these years, I thought it was part of the Atlantic family, and that Atco was actually for ATlantic/COtillion. <<

Atco was founded in 1955 or so, and it was a subsidiary of Atlantic. It stands for ATlantic COrporation. The first big hit on the label was "Searchin'" by the Coasters in 1957. I've heard several stories as to why a separate label was set up, including what Mac wrote. But it wouldn't surprise me if another motivating factor was the same reason that Columbia created Epic: Mentally, it appears to be two different labels, though all are coming from the same place. And there was a general belief that radio stations wouldn't play more than X (unknown high number) records from the same label at the same time. Cotillion was set up much later, around 1968.

>>BMG bought the rights to Buddah- bubble gum masters,logo and all- from a shady company called Essex Music-promptly changed the spelling to Buddha,created a cartoony politically incorrect image of the god and have had very limited success with their reissue catalog. As a result of that failure,the guy who ran all of that has been promoted and the reissue program has the loftier title of BMG Heritage. <<

The short-lived Buddha imprint had some really good reissues; I'd almost put it up there with Sony Legacy as a major-label reissue label. My favorite one was the Lovin' Spoonful set that has by far the best sound of any Lovin' Spoonful CD; the songs were taken from the master tapes for the first time.

For the start of the thread, from where it changed its name, follow this link:
http://www.amcorner.com/forums/am/archive.cgi?read=35563
 
Tim,the Columbia/Epic argument certainly sounds plausible. Besides the mental aspect,financially spreading successes and sins(payola) around might keep investigators from looking too deeply at one company. As for BMG,with the arrival of BMG Heritage,the Buddha part of things may not be completely gone,just absorbed a little deeper into the BMG sponge. The Country Legends series continues( e.g.-Pam Tillis,now that she no longer records for RCA,is now a Country Legend) A reason why I could not compare Buddha on the same level as Legacy:1- Sony's catalog holdings are much more diversified and important to the total picture of recorded music.2-Legacy encompassses the entire vault,RCA still has seperate people working jazz and classics. When you promote a Miles Davis reissue or a Bernstein reissue with the same excitement as remastering Simon and Garfunkel,you aim at a larger audience and that is where Legacy has excellled,possibly beyond Rhino's feats.Mac
 
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