Artists hurt by a label change

Although maybe a coincidence, Carole King and America both switched to Capitol in the late 70's and pretty much headed into commercial oblivion afterwards.

 

Squeeze released all of one album (Play) under their Warner Brothers contract, then they were dropped. IMO, Play is one of their best efforts (in their top 3 for sure). Its sad that Warner didn't give it the promotional push it deserved.

 

I remember hearing songs from Play constantly on the alternative rock station in Columbus in 1990 or 91, but it wasn't enough, I guess.

 

You must have a different Planet Waves to me!!!

 

Not very lucky with record labels were Motorhead........

 

H&O's last RCA album was "Live at the Apollo". Hall's solo album was also RCA but "OY" was Arista.

As for their peak, I'd argue that hit that in 1982. Leftover tracks from "Private Eyes" kept them soaring in the first part of the year and then "H2O" left them atop the chart later in the year.

1983 was also good, as the rest of the "H2O" singles and then "Rock 'n' Soul" and its 2 new songs kept them popular.

"BBB" did well but it felt like a bit of a decline - to me, at least. It "only" had 2 top 10 singles after the prior 2 albums had 2 apiece, and it just seemed like some of the air had been let out of the balloon.

Still a big success, but I wouldn't view 1984-85 as their peak...

 

They were still with RCA. The move to Arista was past peak by any measure. That's what this thread is about, no?

 

Getting dropped by MGM had drastic impact on the Velvet Underground. By the time they got picked up by Atlantic, the stresses of touring and recording Loaded led to Lou Reed just abandoning the band.

 

Wasn’t Planet Waves his first US number one album? BTF was also on Asylum (Island in Europe) and that did quite well, too.

It did feel somehow ‘wrong’ seeing Dylan on a label other than CBS/Columbia, though.

 

Leaving Motown probably worked better for songwriters than non songwriters. If you didn't write your own material, suddenly being cut off from Motown's in house hit making machine was going to be hard to overcome.

 

David Geffen probably hyped it to the max, plus there was the tour with the Band.

 

Queen in USA, after Hot Space flop, left Elektra and went to Capitol, very bad idea, 3 studio albums, and 3 failed albums in america (with also the IWTBF video ban), so in 91, they went to Hollywood Records, and in 92 started the comeback of the band in America.

 

I was only exposed to pop music in the summer during the late 1980s. We didn't have cable at college, I hated the local pop station, KISS FM, and pretty much everyone I knew only listened to rock (not the same stuff, but not top 40, either).

During the summers, I worked with a lot of African American women who would play top 40 stations.

I'm not certain, but I don't think H&O played anything from their Arista days when I saw them a few weeks ago.

 

In[1977]the Temptations left Motown for Atlantic ,after three years and NO hits they scampered back to Motown and never left again.

 

Pat Travers. I think he would have gone on to become a big name guitarist, but after being dumped from Polydor he disappeared for a while. By the time he came back no-one knew who he was. The recent death of Peter "Mars" Cowling was a shame.

 

I wonder how much hype waas really needed? Dylan had not released a ‘proper’ new album since 1970 and he’d effectively lbeen off the road since 1966. The tour with the Band created huge momentum and the album (which is good, but not great) capitalised on that perfectly.

 

Dionne Warwick(e) going to Warner Bros from Scepter in 1971.

With Scepter she had 38 Hot 100 entries in 9 years, more than half of which went Top 40 and 8 of which went Top 10. (But no #1s).

In her 8 years at Warners she had only two singles hit the Hot 100 and just barely at that (#84 & #79). She did finally get a #1 guesting on "Then Came You" by Spinners, on Atlantic.

She went to Arista in 1979, and promptly started having big hits again.

 

While on Warners she signed Bacharach and David to produce her. They split up after the failure of Lost Horizon and she had to sue them for breach of contract.

 

A few B-sides? Are you kidding? Nonetheless they never recovered. Personal internal wrangles of course but also 4AD supporters were/are fiercely loyal to the label.

 

What a trainwreck that all was! The 5th Dimension managed to get a Top 40 hit from the soundtrack but then their career promptly nosedived.

 

Roy Orbison’s move to MGM coincided with him disappearing from the pop charts, although those MGM records are great IMO.

 

Regarding The Everlys, the dispute was with their manager-publisher, Wesley Rose, during their second year at Warner Brothers in 1961. They mended fences around 1963/64, but the damage was already done. Not having access to the songs of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant hurt them quite a bit.

 

Another reason Queen suffered commercially in America after leaving Elektra was because of Capitol being investigated as part of a "payola" scandal in the mid '80s, which saw promotion for recent album The Works dropped not long after several outlets decided against playing the I Want To Break Free single - from what I can tell, this wasn't actually banned, though its video was evidently controversial enough that it had a negative impact on the band's reputation. The group might have broken down boundaries by becoming one of the first major rock acts to play in South America then later Budapest, but its decision to visit Sun City led to huge fines and even a temporary blacklisting from the UN, despite insisting the crowds were not racially segregated. Also, the band's members quite visibly donated to local causes, yet the damage was done elsewhere, and I don't think Queen ever truly recovered. On top of all this, you had Freddie Mercury's personal assistant, Paul Prenter, burning bridges through rudely turning down interview opportunities with various radio DJs on the behalf of his client. As if these lapses in judgement weren't enough, Freddie himself then thought it would be a good idea to walk on stage at the first of two nights for the Rock In Rio festival in '85 wearing similar clothes to those from the aforementioned I Want To Break Free promo clip. Considering this song had been adopted by the people of Brazil as an anthem for their oppression, it wasn't surprising that he received a large amount of hostility from the audience for such a move, quickly discarding the offending items. Despite all this, I personally never lost faith in Queen, even if their music did admittedly weaken quite a bit during the so-called synthesiser years, or at least until Freddie's AIDS diagnosis forced a period of more concentrated studio output with greater emphasis on quality again...

 

Totally agree, except for the Kinks. Love almost all the Arista stuff.

 

I didn't want a Treasure x5 or HOLVx3. I don't think leaving 4ad had anything to do with their output being any different. Yes, internal relationships were disintegrating but we probably wouldn't of had Twinlights/Otherness and the Faye Wong collaborations either. Fontana gave them a bigger budget to work with and with Ivo's 4ad on a downhill slide it may have been a good thing.
And yes, quite a few b-sides The original album version of Circling Girl can be found on the Volume 15 comp
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