Legacy Recordings | |
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Parent company | Sony Music |
Founded | 1990 |
Genre | Various |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Location | New York City |
Official website | www |
Legacy Recordings is an American record label that is a division of Sony Music. Formed in 1990 after Sony's acquiring of CBS Records, Legacy handles the archives of Sony Music-owned labels Columbia Records, Epic Records, RCA Records, RCA Records Nashville, J Records, Windham Hill Records, Arista, LaFace, Jive, Buddah Records, and Philadelphia International Records. It also handles the catalog of recordings produced by Phil Spector.
This is not to be confused with the defunct British independent label Legacy Records.
The Essential series are one-to-two disc compilations of an artist's extensive catalog. On occasion, albums in this series would have a limited edition third disc (Labeled Essential 3.0), or revised to include an artist's newer work (for example The Essential Bob Dylan). As of 2015, several volumes in the Essential series are also available on Vinyl LP.
Launched in 2009, Playlist is a series of single disc compilation albums based on artists' best studio work during their time on one of the Sony labels (for example, the Van Morrison Playlist only contains tracks from the BANG Records sessions), serving as a successor to the previous Super Hits series and a cheaper alternative to the Essential series. A spinoff series, Setlist, features compilations of artists' live performances.
The first several albums come in a special Eco-packet and to save paper, a PDF file is included on the disc, containing photographs, credits, and liner notes. This was met with criticism as the discs were easily scratched. Thus, in recent years, Playlist albums came packaged in standard, white-colored jewel cases.