EarMUSIC

Edel AG

Type	Private
Industry	Music, entertainment, publishing
Genre	Pop music, rock, classical, entertainment for children
Founded	1986; 31 years ago (1986)
Founder	Michael Haentjes
Headquarters	Hamburg, Germany
Area served	Worldwide
Products	CD, DVD, books
Revenue	€ 129.8 millions (2010)
Number of employees	1000
Divisions	Edel Edition Optimal Media Production GmbH Kontor Records Kontor New Media earBOOKS earMUSIC
Website	www.edel.com/en/home/

Edel AG is a German independent record label. The company was founded in 1986 by Michael Haentjes and started as a record label, publishing, often through sub-labels, many music genres. It later branched out, developing new media an publishing divisions. Its headquarters are in Hamburg.

Edel Music was founded in 1986 by Michael Haentjes in Germany as a mail order record company selling mostly soundtracks. With artists such as Scooter, SASH!, Holly Johnson and many others, it became a very successful pop music label. Edel was listed in the in 1998. In October 1998, Edel produced a video series based on the EM.TV marketed cartoon series Sailor Moon as part of Edel's licensing contract with EM.TV, which gave Edel the right to produce German and European cassettes, CDs, and videos for the series through 2001. Over the years, Edel purchased the music labels Eagle Rock Records, Face Down Records (not Facedown Records), Gang Go Music, Club Tools, Control Records and Belgian Play It Again Sam.

Edel's main office is based in Hamburg, but the Edel network extends the label presence all over Europe with affiliates offices and labels and in the rest of the world with a strong network of distributors, Edel is in fact still present in Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and France.