Arista Records

Arista Records is an American record label that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony BMG, and operates under the RCA Records Group

History

The company was founded as the successor label to Bell Records in 1974 by Clive Davis, and named after his secondary school honour society. The following year, the name was changed to Arista. It was later acquired by Ariola Records, and finally BMG at the end of the 1970s (though new US releases didn't mention BMG until 1987).

Into the 1980s, Arista continued its rocket ride of success. Over the years it acquired Northwestside Records, Deconstruction Records, First Avenue Records and Dedicated Records in the UK. In 1989, Arista entered into a joint-venture with Antonio "L.A." Reid and Babyface in the creation of LaFace Records. In 1993, Arista also entered into a joint-venture with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs to form Bad Boy Records. It distributed Heavenly Records and fully acquired LaFace Records in 1999.

Milli Vanilli scandal

In 1989, Arista signed the (West) German based duo Milli Vanilli (Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan) in the U.S. and Canada, and released their wildly successful multi-platinum debut album, Girl You Know It's True. In 1990, the duo won two American Music Awards and the 'Best New Artist' Grammy. Later in the year, Milli Vanilli's svengali producer and manager, Frank Farian, publicly revealed that the two hadn't performed a single note on the album.

This revelation caused a firestorm in the music industry, as recording artists (particularly slickly produced pop artists) were now under siege and subsequently forced to cut back on lip-synching to show that they were authentic. Milli Vanilli's Grammy, meanwhile, was subsequently revoked. Davis promptly dropped the duo from Arista and deleted their album and its masters from their catalogue, making Girl You Know It's True the largest-selling album to ever be taken out of print. A court ruling in the US allowed anyone who had bought the album to get a refund.

In response to the scandal, Arista's position was that the company was completely unaware of the fact that Rob and Fab hadn't themselves sung on their album, but the label still found itself scoffed at by industry setsiders, as the controversy left a lasting stain on the company for many years to come.

Reconstructing Arista

At the end of 2000, following its 25th anniversary, BMG pushed Davis out as label head and promoted L.A. Reid as its new President and CEO. Under Reid, the label continued to thrive — his extravagant spending, however, caused the company to lose money. After the corporate reconstruction of BMG in 2004, Reid was terminated. Arista, always an independently operated company at BMG, was subsequently demoted to operate under the newly formed RCA Records Group (where Davis was now, ironically, the CEO — and thus was now in control of Arista again). In August 2005 Arista's operations were merged with that of J Records. For the time being, the Arista imprint will continue to be used for new releases.

Notable Arista performers

this is a partial listing

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History

Milli Vanilli scandal

Reconstructing Arista

Notable Arista performers

See also