History
Warner Bros. Records opened for business on March 19, 1958, above the film studio's machine shop at 3701 Warner Boulevard in Burbank, California. Prompting the label's creation was when Warner Bros. Pictures contract actor Tab Hunter scored a #1 hit in 1957 with "Young Love" for Dot Records. To Warners' chagrin, reporters were primarily asking about the hit record, instead of Hunter's latest Warner movie. The company quickly signed Hunter to the newly formed record division, and while his subsequent recordings for the label failed to duplicate the success that he had with Dot, the fledgling Warner Bros. Records was nonetheless successful.
In 1960, the company signed the Everly Brothers (which were previously on Cadence Records) with the first ever million-dollar contract in history. The same year, they also released two albums by Bob Newhart, which both won Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year. In 1963, Warner Bros. Records purchased Frank Sinatra's label, Reprise Records—the acquisition proved very lucrative, as Reprise remains in the WBR fold to this day. In 1964, the label negotiated with Disques Vogue for the right to distribute Petula Clark's recordings in the US, beginning with "Downtown." Eight years later, in 1972, Dionne Warwick was brought to the label after leaving Scepter Records in a deal that was the biggest contract at the time for a female artist. Warwick's five years at Warners would greatly pale in comparison to her tenure at Scepter, both personally and professionally.
In 1967, Warner Bros. (including WBR) was sold for $85 million to Seven Arts Productions and renamed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. Two years later, the company was sold to Kinney National Company (later renamed Warner Communications.) In 1971, Warner Communications established WEA; the pooling together of Warner Bros. Records, Elektra and Atlantic, to form a larger umbrella for its music entities under which they could operate. In 1990, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner. In 1991, WEA was renamed Warner Music. In 2000, Time Warner merged with AOL creating AOL Time Warner. Finally, in March 2004, a group of private investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. bought the Warner Music Group from Time Warner. Today Warner Bros. Records remains one of Warner Music Group's most dominant labels, having exactly 121 artists on the label. WMG enjoys a royalty-free license from Time Warner for the use of Warner Bros. trademarks; this could be revoked if WMG becomes under control of a major motion picture studio.
American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi was appointed to vice president of A&R in 2008.
Warner Brothers Record Labels is a very popular label it promotes bands and artists such as: Adam Sandler
Alanis Morissette
Arctic monkeys
Amour for sleep
Avenged Sevenfold
Craig David
Damian Rice
Daniel Powter
Eric Clapton
Enya
Goo Goo dolls
Green day
HIM
Madonna
Meg and Dia
Metallica
Muse
Mute Math
My chemical romance
Oasis
R.E.M
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Stevie Nicks
Taking Back Sunday
The Raconteurs
The subways
The Used
The Veronica
The White Stripes
For each artist it has a main page that directs the audience to the artists/ bands actual website, it also directs them to a myspace, facebook or Twitter page, so the audience can feel that they are in touch with their favourite famous people. The label boasts many famous bands old and new which appeals to the older and younger artist.
The record label website itself has a Blog, Video bank, Live Feed, Street network, Store and a Mobile link. These are all things that appeal to a modern audience thats used to comunicating using wireless technology. This means that they can keep in touch with band news and keep up to date with the latest updates surrounding the band. As Warner brothers is a well known brand it makes it easier to promote bands for different audiences. It also means that as its a gollomate company they have lots of money to spend on promotion, they are a very big company. But they best known for their films, big films such as Harry Potter amang others which means they also own the rights to comercial space surrounding their films making it easier to monopalise the music market.
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