MGM Records
| MGM Records | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Parent company |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1946-1972) PolyGram (1972-1982) |
| Founded | 1946 |
| Status | Defunct (fate: absorbed into Polydor Records in 1976) |
| Distributor(s) | Self-distributed |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | United States |
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. It soon transitioned to a pop music label which continued into the 1970s. The company also released soundtrack albums of the music for some of their non-musical films as well, and on rare occasions, cast albums of off-Broadway musicals such as The Fantasticks and the 1954 revival of The Threepenny Opera. In one instance, it even released the highly successful soundtrack album of a film made by a rival studio, Columbia Pictures's Born Free (1966).
Their first soundtrack was of Till the Clouds Roll By, a 1946 film based on the life of composer Jerome Kern. It was the first soundtrack album of a live-action film. The album was originally issued as a set of four 10-inch 78-rpm records. As in many early MGM soundtrack albums, only eight selections from the film were included on the original version of the album. In order to fit the songs onto the record sides the musical material needed editing and manipulation. This was before tape existed, so the record producer needed to copy segments from the playback discs used on set, then copy and re-copy them from one disc to another, adding transitions and cross-fades until the final master was created. Needless to say, it was several generations removed from the original and the sound quality suffered for it. Also, the playback recordings were purposely recorded very "dry" (without reverberation) otherwise it would come across as too hollow sounding in large movie theatres. This made these albums sound flat and boxy.
MGM Records called these "original cast albums" in the style of Decca's Broadway show cast albums. They also coined the phrase "recorded directly from the soundtrack". Over the years the term "soundtrack" began to be commonly applied to any recording from a film, whether taken from the actual film soundtrack or re-recorded in studio. The phrase is also sometimes incorrectly used for Broadway cast recordings. While it is correct to call a "soundtrack" a "cast recording" (since it represents the film cast) it is never correct to call a "cast recording" a "soundtrack".
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Wikipedia