Columbia Records

Being a longtime tastemaker in anything, let alone a scene that fluctuates as much as the music industry, is difficult. But music label Columbia Records has survived and thrived since the late 1800s, working with artists from Bert Williams to Frank Sinatra to Adele along the way. Columbia, which is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, markets itself as “the oldest surviving brand name in prerecorded sound.”

The intro: early years

Columbia Records has had a complicated evolution, dating to the beginnings of the American Graphophone Company (AGC) in 1887—only a decade after the invention of the first sound recording device by Thomas Edison. The Columbia Phonograph Company (CPC), another player in the sound space that would soon become important to AGC, was incorporated in 1889 by court reporter Edward Easton as a subsidiary of the North American Phonograph Company. The company quickly emerged as a local triumph in Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, gaining exclusive marketing rights for phonographs in the area. The success came despite a slew of difficulties within the greater North American company, including major debts during the economic depression of the 1890s, after which Edison—also known as the Wizard of Menlo Park for his ever-evolving and seemingly magical inventions—bought back his patents.

By 1890 Columbia had released its first one-page listing of selections from the United States Marine Band. The company aggressively promoted its recordings and marketed artists as individuals to grow their star power, which wasn’t the norm at the time.

AGC acquired Columbia in 1895, which has led to some disagreement as to when the modern-day entity known as Columbia Records was created: with the start of the AGC in 1887 or the birth of the CPC in 1889.

During the 1890s the budding music industry continued to experience growing pains. Eventually, arguments in court over patents between Columbia and the National Phonograph Company, Edison’s new company, led to a cross-licensing of each of the individual patents in late 1896. But consumers benefited from decreased prices as the arms race for a monopoly in the industry continued, with Columbia absorbing competitors including the Chicago Talking Machine Company and the Northern Talking Machine Company in 1897.

In this era cylinder recordings were often low quality and could hold songs only about two minutes long. As companies moved to the disc format, though, the quality of sound recording greatly improved. For Columbia this involved a slow but steady transition from cylinders to discs throughout the early 1900s, coinciding with the company’s expansion overseas into Paris and London. The move served to increase both its profit and its fame, which was especially important as Edison remained one of the most notable names at the time for his world-changing inventions. With this globalization also came an increased focus on building a brand name: The Columbia Record magazine, created in 1904, included new releases and helped establish predictable schedules for upcoming records as a key feature of the industry.

In 1908 Columbia announced the release of double-sided discs, which sent shock waves through the industry by doubling the recording capacity of records. Columbia also kept prices nearly the same as for its previous single-sided records. The result was what some experts have since called an initial “golden age” of Columbia, in which the company ruled the market and left its main competitor, the Victor Talking Machine Company, far behind.

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Changing tunes and changing times

The Columbia Phonograph Company was renamed the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1913 to reflect the change in its primary product, which was essentially considered an improved version of Edison’s phonograph. With this upgrade record sales continued to grow, from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

But when a massive recession hit the United States in 1920, the company’s sales dropped from $47 million to $19 million. After lowering its prices, selling assets, and reorganizing the company, Columbia once again found its way back to normalcy—for the time being.

In 1925 Columbia began electrical recording regularly, which gave a fuller and more resonant-sounding record, similar to that heard on the radio. In 1926 the company staked its claim in jazz and blues after purchasing OKeh Records, adding household names such as Louis Armstrong to its growing lineup. At the time many in the recording industry referred to these genres as “race records,” a term believed to have been coined by an employee of OKeh to describe music made by and for Black Americans. These recordings were often marketed in a manner that reflected the era’s racial segregation practices, and many Black recording artists received comparatively lower pay.

In 1928 orchestra leader Paul Whiteman, known as the “King of Jazz,” defected from Victor in favor of Columbia, and Columbia also helped pioneer the “hillbilly” genre in the South, rich with fiddles and banjos. “Hillbilly” had already been established by OKeh as profitable, paving the way for Columbia to expand that market. Still, several experts believe that the marketing of the genre perpetuated harmful representations of rural Southerners. Both “race records” and the “hillbilly” genre have been understood by some historians as an attempt to market “marginal music” to populations often separated by race or class from popular American culture (which was predominantly white and middle class). Thus, these styles allegedly allowed companies to profit from stereotypes and segregation.

Still, financial tribulations were not over for Columbia. When the Great Depression hit, it nearly caused a disintegration of the recording industry as a whole. In an attempt to right the ship, in March 1931 part of Columbia merged with the London-based Gramophone Company, which had been named for Emile Berliner’s invention that relied on flat discs rather than cylinders. This led to the formation of Electrical and Musical Industries. Another division of Columbia was sold to Grigsby-Grunow, a company known for a best-selling radio set, “the Majestic.”

As the industry struggled to recover financially in the wake of the Great Depression, Columbia once again worked to build its brand with the release of the royal blue records, which featured discs with a blue wax surface. In 1934, Columbia once again switched hands: Grigsby-Grunow went under and sold the company to American Record Corporation.

Columbia finally achieved a measure of stability when, in 1938, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) acquired the American Record Corporation for $700,000. Within a decade, CBS gave the company the name it still has today: Columbia Records.

The CBS era and Columbia’s renaissance

CBS helped shape Columbia into a household name. After CBS granted Columbia access to substantial financial and other resources, the company flourished. Throughout the 1940s, the label worked with such renowned artists as Frank Sinatra, Kate Smith, and Bing Crosby.

In 1948 Columbia developed the first long-playing record (LP), which transformed the music industry. As a 1950 piece from The Observer marveled, “The convenience of long-playing records for symphonic and chamber music, and for opera, can hardly be exaggerated.”

Columbia took advantage of that convenience with the release of a New York Philharmonic orchestra LP. Meanwhile, competitors also caught on to the innovation, with Victor and another competitor, Decca Records, moving to the LP format.

Columbia continued to grow and became the leading non-rock record company in the 1950s. Both that success and the company’s lack of involvement in the rock scene can be attributed in part to Mitch Miller, an accomplished producer and orchestral musician, who became the head of artists and repertoire at Columbia. Miller called the rock genre “pimple music,” according to a 1999 piece in the New York Daily News, and was adamant that Columbia not sign a rock-and-roll artist.

But Miller could hold out for only so long. In 1958 Columbia signed two rockabilly legends: Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. Also in the 1950s Columbia rebranded itself with a “walking eye” logo and continued its collection of top artists as it moved further into jazz and blues with the recordings by artists such as Duke Ellington.

In 1958 Columbia officially began to manufacture stereo LPs, which use two sound channels instead of one to create a more immersive sound. The company’s innovation didn’t stop at technology: At the advent of the 1960s the revolutionary folk artist Bob Dylan came on the scene, lifted up by Columbia. Dylan ushered in the age of folk rock as he rose to the top of the music industry, bringing with him the acts Peter, Paul and Mary and the Byrds, among others.

In the same decade came the British Invasion, with rock and pop artists coming to America from overseas to pursue musical success, as well as the ascension of Simon and Garfunkel under the wing of Columbia Records.

The company gained a new president in Clive Davis in 1967. Davis helped Columbia begin a four-channel recording system called quadraphonics, the basis for surround sound. In quick succession, Walter Yetnikoff became president in 1975, the same year that the Jackson 5 signed with the company and just two years after the company had signed Neil Diamond. Both acts had already reached superstardom, which helped expand Columbia’s control over the industry.

In 1988, under the supervision of Yetnikoff, Sony acquired Columbia Records and the broader CBS Records organization, the name by which Columbia was marketed as internationally. This followed more than a year of negotiations and was nearly two decades after their first collaboration. The CBS Records group was renamed Columbia Records in 1991. Throughout that decade Columbia found success with new stars such as Mariah Carey and Céline Dion soaring on the charts, as well as the resurgence of Aerosmith.

A modern hitmaker

Columbia Records has remained a mainstay in the modern music industry, building its brand along with the advent of digital distribution and streaming platforms. Below are some of the company’s most popular artists from the early 2000s through the 2020s:

• AC/DC
• Addison Rae
• Adele
• Arcade Fire
• Baby Keem
• Barbra Streisand
• Billy Joel
• Blink-182
• Bob Dylan
• Bruce Springsteen
• Céline Dion
• Central Cee
• Chlöe x Halle
• Daft Punk
• David Bowie
• Destiny’s Child
• Diplo
• Dominic Fike
• George Ezra
• girl in red
• Haim
• Harry Styles
• Hozier
• Jennie
• Joey Bada$$
• Lil Nas X
• Lil Peep
• Maren Morris
• Megan Moroney
• Miley Cyrus
• Nelly
• One Direction
• Peach Pit
• Pharrell Williams
• Pink Floyd
• Rosalía
• Solange
• Train
• Tyler, the Creator
• Vampire Weekend
• XXXTENTACION

Columbia’s controversies

In 1973 Davis, then Columbia’s president, was fired amid allegations of misuse of company funds and drug distribution to artists. He later pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion while president of a different music company, Arista Records.

Decades later, in February 2024, an executive assistant for Columbia Records, Patria Paulino, filed a lawsuit against the company alleging that it used hiring practices that discriminated against white candidates. The lawsuit was settled out of court later the same year, though executives for Columbia had stated that the allegations were “contradictory and false.”

Just about a year later Columbia and its artist Chlöe Bailey were caught in a $15 million copyright-infringement lawsuit. Melvin Moore, the plaintiff, alleged that he had contributed “original lyrics, melodies, and creative direction” to Bailey’s tracks and that his work had been used without his permission or proper compensation. The lawsuit was expected to proceed in federal court.