Ariola Records | |
---|---|
Parent company | Sony Music Entertainment |
Founded | 1958 |
Distributor(s) | Self-distributed (1958-1987) BMG (1987-2002) Sony BMG (2002-2008) Sony Music Entertainment (2008-present) |
Genre | Various |
Country of origin | Germany |
Ariola Records (also known as Ariola, Ariola-Eurodisc and BMG Ariola) is a German record label. In the late 1980s, it was a subsidiary label of BMG, which in turn has become a part of the international media conglomerate SME.
Ariola was founded in 1958 as a music outlet of Bertelsmann. It set up several foreign subsidiaries. Ariola America was founded in 1975 in Los Angeles, and achieved Billboard magazine number one singles with Mary MacGregor's "Torn Between Two Lovers" (1976) and Amii Stewart's "Knock on Wood" (1979). Other artists on the Ariola America roster during the late 1970s included Gene Cotton, The Three Degrees, Chanson, and the Canadian band Prism among others. After its pop success dried up, Ariola America found success in the Spanish language market including Rocio Durcal from the late 1980s onward and Mexican artist Marisela starting in the 1990s. Other subsidiaries include Ariola-Athena to release spoken word records; Ariola Benelux was founded in 1970 to cover the Benelux market; Ariola Eurodisc was a Spanish division of Ariola, founded in 1970; Ariola UK the UK based subsidiary of Ariola was founded in 1977; Baccarola; Türküola for the Turkish market; Eurodisc to release disco records in France - most successfully with Amanda Lear, Giorgio Moroder (house producer of Ariola) and Jupiter Records for German schlager music and disco like for instance group Dschinghis Khan.