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. Later it became a pop label,
lasting into the 1970s.
A sucessor company,
MGM
Music, was established in 2008 under MGM.
Soundtrack albums
Their first soundtrack was of
Till the Clouds Roll By, based
on the life of composer
Jerome Kern. 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 are included. 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, the
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 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."
Among their most notable MGM soundtrack albums were those of the
films
Good News (the 1947
version),
Easter
Parade ,
Annie
Get Your Gun,
Singin' in the Rain,
Show Boat,
The Band Wagon,
Seven Brides for Seven
Brothers, and
Gigi. When the film
The Wizard of Oz was first
shown on television in 1956, the label issued a soundtrack album of
songs and dialogue excerpts recorded directly from the film.
MGM Records also issued albums of film scores, including
Ben-Hur,
King of Kings, and
How the West Was
Won. The
Ben-Hur and
King of Kings
albums were studio recreations of the scores; the
How the West
Was Won album was the genuine soundtrack. The label also
offered a modest catalogue of classical recordings; among the
latter was E3711, an account of two sonatas by
Franz Schubert, billed as the first in a
complete cycle, recorded by
pianist Beveridge Webster.
Beginning in the 1990's, authentic soundtrack albums of the musical
scores to
Ben-Hur and
King of Kings have become
available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Records
There was also a short-lived Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Records of 1928,
which produced recordings of music featured in MGM movies, not sold
to the general public but made to be played in movie theater
lobbies. These Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer records were manufactured under
contract with the studio by
Columbia
Records.
As a pop label
In the
early 1950s, MGM Records was considered one of the "major" record
companies (besides Columbia,
RCA, Decca,
Capitol
, Mercury and Coral). Subsidiary
Cub Records was launched in the late 1950s and
Verve Records was acquired from
Norman Granz in 1961. Other MGM
subsidiaries and distributed labels included: Kama Sutra (from 1965
until Kama Sutra's sister label
Buddah
Records took over distribution in 1969), Ava, Heritage, Metro
(for budget albums), Hickory, MGM South, L&R, and Lionel.
MGM also distributed
Cameo-Parkway
Records briefly in 1967. Four albums and two singles were
released under this arrangement before
Allen
Klein bought the Cameo-Parkway catalog and renamed the label
ABKCO.
Another label distributed by MGM was American International
Records, the record label division of
American International
Pictures - whose film library is now owned by MGM.
MGM Records was sold to
PolyGram in 1972.
In 1975 PolyGram began to deemphasize the label; before long the
MGM release schedule was reduced to a slow trickle of soundtrack
albums and reissues, which stopped altogether in 1982. Artists
under contract to MGM were moved to the
Polydor Records roster by 1976.
The MGM Records catalogue is now split. The pop music catalogue is
still managed by
Polydor Records.
The country music catalogue is managed by
Mercury
Nashville Records. The MGM soundtracks catalogue is managed by
Rhino Records for
Turner Classic Movies Music.
MGM Records artists
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