Capitol Records



Capitol Records is a major United States-based record label, owned by EMI. Capitol/EMI was Duran Duran's record label from 1980 to 1999.

The Capitol Records company was founded in 1942, and was the first West Coast label. By 1946, Capitol had sold 42 million records and was established as one of the Big Six record labels. In 1949, the Canadian branch was established and Capitol purchased the KHJ Studios on Melrose Avenue. By the mid-1950s, Capitol had become a huge company, concentrating on popular music.

In 1955, the English record company EMI acquired 96% of Capitol Records stock, for $8.5 million. Soon afterward, EMI built a new studio and office building at Hollywood and Vine to match its state-of-the-art Abbey Road Studios in London. In the 1960s, Capitol obtained US release rights to the Beatles, who were under contract to EMI in England.

In 2007, EMI announced a merger of Virgin Records and Capitol Records into the Capitol Music Group. They have sold the Capitol Tower in Hollywood, and closed Capitol's operations in Los Angeles to concentrate its work force in New York City.

Capitol and Duran Duran

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Duran Duran became part of the Capitol lineup when they signed with EMI in December 1980.

The poor sound quality of Duran Duran's May 1982 release Rio (on Capitol subsidiary Harvest), contributed to the lag in initial sales. Rio was remixed for the American market by David Kershenbaum and reissued to much greater success in November 1982.

Capitol was also home to Duran Duran side projects Arcadia and Power Station.

Duran Duran left the label in 1999 after the poor performance of the album Medazzaland.