Founding and early history In 1944, when their mother and sister returned to Turkey after the death of their father
Munir Ertegun, Turkey's first ambassador to the U.S., brothers
Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun remained in the United States. The brothers were fans of jazz and rhythm & blues, amassing a collection of over 15,000 78 rpm records. Ahmet stayed in Washington to undertake post-graduate music studies at
Georgetown University, and immersed himself in the Washington music scene. He entered the record business, which was enjoying a resurgence after wartime restrictions on the shellac used in manufacture had been lifted. He convinced the family dentist, Vahdi Sabit, to invest $10,000 and hired
Herb Abramson, a dentistry student. Herb had worked as a part-time A&R manager/producer for
Al Green at the jazz label
National Records, signing
Big Joe Turner and
Billy Eckstine. He founded
Jubilee in 1946 but had no interest in its most successful musicians. In September 1947, he sold his share in Jubilee to his partner,
Jerry Blaine, and invested $2,500 in Atlantic. Atlantic was incorporated in October 1947 and was run by Herb (president) and Ertegun (vice-president in charge of A&R, production, and promotion). Herb's wife
Miriam Abramson ran the label's publishing company, Progressive Music. She did most office duties until 1949, when Atlantic hired its first employee, bookkeeper Francine Wakschal, who remained with the label for the next 49 years. Miriam gained a reputation for toughness. Staff engineer
Tom Dowd recalled, "Tokyo Rose was the kindest name some people had for her" and
Doc Pomus described her as "an extraordinarily vitriolic woman". When interviewed in 2009, she attributed her reputation to the company's chronic cash-flow shortage: "... most of the problems we had with artists were that they wanted advances, and that was very difficult for us ... we were undercapitalized for a long time". In the early fifties, Atlantic moved from the Hotel Jefferson to offices at 301 West 54th St and then to 356 West 56th St. Atlantic's first recordings were issued in late January 1948 and included "That Old Black Magic" by
Tiny Grimes and "The Spider" by Joe Morris. In its early years, Atlantic concentrated on modern jazz, although it released some
country and western and
spoken word recordings. Herb also produced "Magic Records", children's records with four grooves on each side. Each groove contained a different story, so the story played would be determined by the groove in which the stylus happened to land. In late 1947,
James Petrillo, head of the
American Federation of Musicians, announced an indefinite ban on all recording activities by union musicians. This came into effect on January 1, 1948. The union action forced Atlantic to use almost all its capital to cut and stockpile enough recordings to last through the ban, which was expected to continue for at least a year. Early releases included music by
Sidney Bechet,
Barney Bigard,
The Cardinals,
The Clovers,
Frank Culley,
The Delta Rhythm Boys,
Erroll Garner,
Dizzy Gillespie,
Tiny Grimes,
Al Hibbler,
Earl Hines,
Johnny Hodges,
Jackie & Roy,
Lead Belly,
Meade Lux Lewis,
Professor Longhair,
Shelly Manne,
Howard McGhee,
Mabel Mercer,
James Moody,
Joe Morris,
Art Pepper,
Django Reinhardt,
Pete Rugolo,
Pee Wee Russell,
Bobby Short,
Sylvia Syms,
Billy Taylor,
Sonny Terry,
Big Joe Turner,
Jimmy Yancey,
Sarah Vaughan,
Mal Waldron, and
Mary Lou Williams. Atlantic recorded 187 songs in 1949, more than three times the amount from the previous two years, and received overtures for a manufacturing and distribution deal with
Columbia, which would pay Atlantic a 3% royalty on every copy sold. Ertegun asked about artists' royalties, which he paid. This surprised Columbia executives, who did not, and the deal was scuttled. On the recommendation of broadcaster
Willis Conover, Ertegun and Herb visited
Ruth Brown at the Crystal Caverns club in Washington and invited her to audition for Atlantic. She was injured in a car accident en route to New York City, but Atlantic supported her for nine months and then signed her. "So Long", her first record for the label, was recorded with
Eddie Condon's band on May 25, 1949. The song reached No. 6 on the R&B chart. Brown recorded more than eighty songs for Atlantic, becoming its bestselling, most prolific musician of the period. Brown's success was so significant to Atlantic that the label became known colloquially as "The House That Ruth Built".
Joe Morris, one of the label's earliest signings, scored a hit with his October 1950 song "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere". It was the first Atlantic record issued in
45rpm format, which the company began pressing in January 1951. The Clovers' "Don't You Know I Love You" (composed by Ertegun) became the label's first R&B No. 1 in September 1951. A few weeks later, Brown's "Teardrops from My Eyes" became its first million-selling record. She hit No. 1 again in March–April 1952 with "
5-10-15 Hours". Their records created some controversy: the suggestive "
Such A Night" was banned by radio station WXYZ in
Detroit, Michigan, and "Honey Love" was banned in
Memphis, Tennessee but both reached No. 1 on the
Billboard R&B chart. Atlantic was one of the first independent labels to make recordings in stereo: Dowd used a portable stereo recorder which ran simultaneously with the studio's existing mono recorder. In 1953 (according to
Billboard) Atlantic was the first label to issue commercial LPs recorded in the experimental stereo system called
binaural recording. In this system, recordings were made using two microphones, spaced at approximately the distance between the human ears. Thd left and right channels were recorded as two separate, parallel grooves. Playing them back required a turntable with a special tone-arm fitted with dual needles; it was not until around 1958 that the single stylus microgroove system (in which the two stereo channels were cut into either side of a single groove) became the industry standard. By the late 1950s stereo LPs and turntables were being introduced. Atlantic's early stereo recordings included "Lover's Question" by Clyde McPhatter, "
What Am I Living For" by
Chuck Willis, "I Cried a Tear" by LaVern Baker, "Splish Splash" by Bobby Darin, "Yakety Yak" by the Coasters and "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles. Although these were primarily 45 rpm mono singles for much of the 1950s, Dowd stockpiled his "parallel" stereo takes for future release. In 1968 the label issued
History of Rhythm and Blues, Volume 4 in stereo. Stereo versions of Ray Charles "What'd I Say" and "Night Time is the Right Time" were included on the Atlantic anthology
The Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic Rhythm & Blues Recordings, 1952–1959. Atlantic entered the LP market early: its first was
This Is My Beloved (March 1949), a 10-inch album of poetry by
Walter Benton that was narrated by
John Dall with music by
Vernon Duke. In 1951, Atlantic was one of the first independent labels to
press records in the 45 rpm single format. By 1956 the 45 had surpassed the 78 in sales for singles. In April of that year, Miriam (Abramson) Bienstock reported to
Billboard that Atlantic was selling 75% of its singles as 45s. During the previous year, 78s had outsold 45s by a ratio of two to one. He moved to Germany, where he served in the Army Dental Corps, although he retained his post as president of Atlantic on full pay. He was appointed vice-president and purchased 13% of the company's stock.
LaVern Baker had a No. 4 R&B hit with "
Tweedlee Dee", but a rival version by
Georgia Gibbs went to No. 2 on the pop chart. Big Joe Turner's April 1954 song "
Shake, Rattle and Roll" was a No. 1 R&B hit, but it only reached No. 22 on the pop chart.
Bill Haley & His Comets's version reached No. 7, selling over one million copies and becoming the bestselling song of the year for Decca. In July 1954, Wexler and Ertegun wrote a prescient article for
Cash Box devoted to what they called "cat music"; the same month, Atlantic had its first major "crossover" hit on the
Billboard pop chart when the "
Sh-Boom" by The Chords reached No. 5 But they were outbid by
RCA's offer of $45,000. In 1990 Ertegun remarked, "The president of RCA at the time had been extensively quoted in
Variety damning R&B music as immoral. He soon stopped when RCA signed Elvis Presley". Nesuhi became head of artists and repertoire (
A&R), By 1958 Atlantic was America's second-largest independent jazz label.
Herb Abramson departs When Herb returned from military service in 1955, he realized that he had been replaced by Wexler as Ahmet's partner. Herb did not get along with either Wexler or Nesuhi Ertegun, and he had returned from military service with a German girlfriend, which precipitated his divorce from Miriam, a minor stockholder and Atlantic's business and publishing manager. By 1958, relations between Herb and his partners had broken down. In December 1958 a $300,000 buy-out was arranged. His stock was split between Nesuhi Ertegun and Herb's ex-wife Miriam, who had in the meantime remarried to music publisher
Freddy Bienstock (later the owner of the
Carlin Music /
Chappell Music publishing empire). Herb's departure opened the way for Ahmet Ertegun to take over as president of the label. The roles of the other executives with Herb's departure were Wexler as executive vice-president and general manager, Nesuhi Ertegun as executive vice-president in charge of the LP department and Miriam Bienstock as vice-president and also president of Atlantic's music publishing arm Progressive Music. Wexler was also executive vice-president of Progressive, and the Ertegun brothers were vice-presidents.
Expansion Atlantic played a major role in popularizing the genre that Jerry Wexler dubbed rhythm & blues, and it profited handsomely. The market for these records exploded during late 1953 and early 1954 as R&B hits crossed over to the mainstream (i.e. white) audience. In its tenth anniversary feature on Atlantic,
Billboard noted, "... a very big R&B record might achieve 250,000 sales, but from this point on (1953–54), the industry began to see million sellers, one after the other, in the R&B field". Miriam recalled, "I would deal with people there who were not really comfortable with women in business, so...we would do business very quickly and get it over with". A subsidiary label,
Atco, was established in 1955 to keep Herb involved. After a slow start, Atco had considerable success with
Bobby Darin. His early releases were unsuccessful, and Herb planned to drop him. But when Ertegun offered him another chance, the result was "
Splish Splash", which Darin had written in 12 minutes. The song sold 100,000 copies in the first month and became a million-seller. "
Queen of the Hop" made the Top 10 on both the US pop and R&B charts and charted in the UK. "
Dream Lover" reached No. 2 in the US and No. 1 in the UK and became a multi-million seller. "
Mack the Knife" (1959) went to No. 1 in both the US and the UK, sold over 2 million copies, and won the 1960
Grammy Award for Record of the Year. "
Beyond the Sea" became Darin's fourth consecutive Top 10 hit in the US and UK. He signed with
Capitol and moved for Hollywood to attempt a movie career, but hits such as "
You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" and "
Things" continued to benefit Atco through 1962. Darin returned to Atlantic in 1965. In 1965, Atlantic formed a budget label called Clarion Records. 21 albums were released simultaneously in 1965, all of them shown on the back cover of their releases. No further albums were issued as the label lasted less than a year.
Leiber and Stoller Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote "Smokey Joe's Cafe", which became a hit for The Robins. Their label Spark was bought by Atlantic, and they were hired as America's first independent record producers, free to produce for other labels. Two members of The Robins formed
The Coasters and recorded hits for Atlantic, such as "
Down in Mexico" and "
Young Blood". "
Yakety Yak" became Atlantic's first No. 1 pop hit. Leiber and Stoller also wrote the hit "
Ruby Baby" for
The Drifters. Record producer
Phil Spector moved to New York to work with Leiber and Stoller. He learned his trade at Trey Records, a label in California owned by
Lester Sill and
Lee Hazlewood and distributed by Atlantic. Sill recommended Spector to Leiber and Stoller, who assigned him to produce "
Corrine, Corrina" by
Ray Peterson and "
Pretty Little Angel Eyes" by Curtis Lee. Both became hits, and Atlantic hired him as a staff producer. Ahmet Ertegun liked him, but Leiber said, "He wasn't likable. He was funny, he was amusing—but he wasn't nice". Wexler disliked him. Miriam Bienstock called him "a pain in the neck". When Spector criticized Bobby Darin's songwriting, Darin had him thrown out of the house. Atlantic tolerated Spector, but with diminishing returns. He produced "
Twist and Shout" for The Top Notes, and it flopped. Songwriter Bert Berns hated Spector's arrangement and thought it ruined the song, so Berns re-recorded it with
The Isley Brothers and it became a hit. During his short time at Atlantic, Spector produced music for LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown,
Jean DuShon, and Billy Storm. In 1961, he left the label, returned to Los Angeles, and founded
Philles Records with Lester Sill. Spector became one of the most successful record producers of the 1960s. Leiber and Stoller worked briefly for
United Artists, then started
Red Bird with
George Goldner. They had hits with "
Chapel of Love" by
The Dixie Cups and "
Leader of the Pack" by
The Shangri-Las, but Red Bird's finances were precarious. In 1964 they approached Jerry Wexler and proposed a merger with Atlantic. When interviewed in 1990 for Ertegun's biography, Wexler declined to discuss the matter, but Ertegun claimed these negotiations were a plan to buy him out. In September 1964, the Ertegun brothers and Wexler were in the process of buying out the company's other two shareholders, Sabit and Bienstock, and it was proposed that Leiber and Stoller buy Sabit's shares. Leiber, Stoller, Goldner, and Wexler suggested their plan to Ertegun at a lunch meeting at the
Plaza Hotel in New York. Leiber and Stoller told Ertegun they had no intention of buying him out, but Ertegun was aggravated by Goldner's attitude and was convinced Wexler was conspiring with them. Wexler told Ertegun if he refused, the deal would be done without him. But the Ertegun brothers held the majority of stock while Wexler controlled about 20 percent. Ertegun started lifelong grudges against Leiber and Stoller, and his relationship with Wexler was damaged.
Stax Atlantic was doing so well in early 1959 that some scheduled releases were held back. The company enjoyed two successive months of gross sales of over $1 million that summer, thanks to hits by The Coasters, The Drifters, LaVern Baker, Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, and Clyde McPhatter. Months later the company was reeling from the successive loss of its two biggest artists, Bobby Darin and Ray Charles, who together accounted for one-third of sales. Darin moved to Los Angeles and signed with Capitol. Charles signed a contract with
ABC-Paramount that included higher royalties, a production deal, profit-sharing, and eventual ownership of his master tapes. "I thought we were going to die", Wexler recalled. In 1990 he and Ertegun disputed the content of Charles's contract, which caused a rift. Ertegun remained friendly with Bobby Darin, who returned to Atlantic in 1966. Ray Charles returned to Atlantic in 1977. In 1960, Atlantic's Memphis distributor Buster Williams contacted Wexler and told him he was pressing large quantities of "Cause I Love You", a duet between
Carla Thomas and her father
Rufus which was released by the small label Satellite. Wexler contacted the co-owner of Satellite,
Jim Stewart, who agreed to lease the record to Atlantic for $1000 plus a small royalty—the first money the label had ever made. The deal included a $5000 payment against a five-year option on all other records. Satellite was renamed
Stax after the owners, Stewart and Axton. The deal marked the start of a successful eight-year association between the two labels, giving Stax access to Atlantic's promotions and distribution. Wexler recalled, "We didn't pay for the masters...Jim paid for the masters and then he would send us a finished tape and we would put it out. Our costs began at the production level—the pressing, and distribution, and promotion, and advertising". The deal to distribute Satellite's "
Last Night" by
The Mar-Keys on the Satellite label marked the first time Atlantic began marketing outside tracks on a non-Atlantic label. Atlantic began pressing and distributing Stax records. Wexler sent Tom Dowd to upgrade Stax's recording equipment and facilities. Wexler was impressed by the cooperative atmosphere at the Stax studios and by its racially integrated house band, which he called "an unthinkably great band". He brought Atlantic musicians to Memphis to record. The mid-1960s
British Invasion led Atlantic to change its British distributor. Decca had refused access to its British acts, who usually appeared in the US on the
London subsidiary. In 1966, Atlantic signed a licensing deal with
Polydor which included the band
Cream, whose debut album was released by Atco in 1966. In 1967, the group traveled to Atlantic's studio in New York City to record
Disraeli Gears with Tom Dowd; it became a Top 5 LP in both the US and the UK, with the single "
Sunshine of Your Love" reaching No. 5 on the
Billboard Hot 100. Wexler dismissed developments in pop music, dubbing the musicians "the rockoids". However, Atlantic profited from moving into rock music in the 1970s when it signed
Bad Company,
Led Zeppelin, and
Yes.
Acquisition by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Despite the huge success Atlantic was enjoying with its own artists and through its deal with Stax, by 1967, Jerry Wexler was seriously concerned about the disintegration of the old order of independent record companies; fearing for the label's future, he began agitating for it to be sold to a larger company. Label President Ahmet Ertegun still had no desire to sell, but the balance of power had changed since the abortive takeover attempt of 1962; Atlantic's original investor Dr Vahdi Sabit and minority stockholder Miriam Bienstock had both been bought out in September 1964 The sale of Atlantic Records activated a clause in the distribution agreement with Stax Records calling for renegotiation of the distribution deal and at this point, the Stax partners discovered that the deal gave Atlantic ownership of all the Stax recordings Atlantic distributed. The new Warner owners refused to relinquish ownership of the Stax masters, so the distribution deal ended in May 1968. Atlantic continues to hold the rights to Stax recordings it distributed in the 1960s. In the wake of the takeover, Jerry Wexler's influence in the company rapidly diminished; by his own admission, he and Ertegun had run Atlantic as "utmost despots" but in the new corporate structure, he found himself unwilling to accept the delegation of responsibility that his executive role dictated. He was also alienated from the "rockoid" white acts that were quickly becoming the label's most profitable commodities and dispirited by the rapidly waning fortunes of the black acts he had championed, such as Ben E. King and Solomon Burke. Wexler ultimately decided to leave New York and move to Florida. Following his departure, Ertegun—who had previously taken little interest in Atlantic's business affairs—took decisive control of the label and quickly became a major force in the expanding Warner music group. During 1968, Atlantic established a new subsidiary label,
Cotillion Records. The label was originally formed as an outlet for blues and deep Southern soul. Its first single,
Otis Clay's version of "She's About A Mover", was an R&B hit. Cotillion's catalog quickly expanded to include progressive rock, folk-rock, gospel, jazz and comedy. In 1976, the label started focusing on disco and R&B. Among its acts were the post-Curtis Mayfield
Impressions,
Slave,
Brook Benton,
Jean Knight,
Mass Production,
Sister Sledge,
The Velvet Underground,
Stacy Lattisaw,
Lou Donaldson,
Mylon LeFevre,
Stevie Woods,
Johnny Gill,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer,
Garland Green,
The Dynamics,
The Fabulous Counts, and
The Fatback Band. Cotillion was also responsible for launching the career of
Luther Vandross, who recorded for the label as part of the trio Luther. Cotillion also released the triple-albums soundtrack of the
Woodstock festival film in 1970. From 1970 it also distributed
Embryo Records, founded by jazz flautist
Herbie Mann after his earlier Atlantic contract had expired. In addition to establishing Cotillion, Atlantic began expanding its own roster to include rock, soul/rock, progressive rock, British bands and singer songwriters. Two female artists were personally signed by Wexler, with album releases in 1969,
Dusty Springfield (
Dusty in Memphis) and
Lotti Golden (
Motor-Cycle), although Golden also had a close working relationship with Ertegun, who was instrumental in her signing with the label. By 1969, the Atlantic 8000 series (1968–72) consisted of R&B, rock, soul/rock and psychedelic acts. Other releases that year include albums by
Aretha Franklin (''
Soul '69), Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin), Don Covay (House of Blue Lights), Boz Scaggs (Boz Scaggs), Roberta Flack (First Take), Wilson Pickett (Hey Jude), Mott the Hoople (Mott the Hoople), and Black Pearl (Black Pearl''). With Ertegun's power at Warners now secure, Atlantic was able to maintain autonomy through the parent company reorganizations and continue to do their own marketing, while WEA handled distribution.
Rock era Some acts on the Atlantic roster in this period were British (including Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Yes, Bad Company and Phil Collins) and this was largely due to Ertegun. According to Greenberg, Ertegun had long seen the UK as a source of untapped talent. At his urging, Greenberg visited the UK six or seven times every year in search of acts to sign to the label. For much of its early history, Jerry Wexler had been manager of the label, while Ertegun had concentrated on A&R and had less interest in the business side. That changed after the sale to Warner. Although Ertegun had been forced into accepting the sale, he turned the situation to his advantage. He gained executive control of the label and influenced the Warner group. By contrast, Wexler was disenchanted by Atlantic's move into rock; he left in 1975. Wexler's protégé
Jerry L. Greenberg replaced him and played a role in Atlantic's success during the 1970s. In seven years, Greenberg went from personal assistant to president of the label. Wexler had hired Greenberg and acted as his mentor, teaching him the daily operations of the record business. He learned how to treat musicians from Ertegun. Zeppelin recorded for Atlantic from 1968 to 1973. After the contract expired, they founded their label
Swan Song and signed a distribution deal with Atlantic after being turned down by other labels. In 1969, Stephen Stills was still signed to Atlantic under the contract dating from his time with Buffalo Springfield. His agent
David Geffen went to Wexler to ask for Stills to be released from his Atlantic contract because Geffen wanted Stills' new group to sign with Columbia. Wexler lost his temper and threw Geffen out of his office, but Geffen called Ahmet Ertegun the next day, and Ertegun persuaded Geffen to convince
Clive Davis at Columbia to let Atlantic sign
Crosby, Stills & Nash. they ultimately signed with Atlantic, who gave them virtually complete freedom to record their first album. The signing was complicated by the fact that Nash was still under contract to
Epic Records (The Hollies' US distributor), but Ertegun used his diplomatic prowess to overcome this by arranging a 'swap' – he released former Buffalo Springfield member
Richie Furay from his Atlantic contract, allowing Furay's new group
Poco to sign to Epic, and in exchange Columbia Records (the parent company of Epic) allowed Nash to sign to Atlantic. In the event, Ertegun and Atlantic were the clear winners. Poco achieved moderate success for Epic, but Crosby, Stills & Nash's self-titled
debut album (released in May 1969) became a huge and enduring hit, reaching #6 on the
Billboard album chart, spawning two US Top 40 singles, becoming a multi-platinum seller and eventually earning a place in the
Rolling Stone list of
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Hot on the heels of the huge success of CSNY and Led Zeppelin, British band
Yes rapidly established themselves as one of the leading groups in the burgeoning
progressive rock genre. Their success played a significant part in establishing the primacy of the long-playing album as the major sales format for rock music in the 1970s. After several lineup changes during 1969–70, the band settled into its "classic" incarnation, with guitarist
Steve Howe and keyboard player
Rick Wakeman, who both joined during 1971. Although the extended length of much of their material made it somewhat difficult to promote the band with single releases, their live prowess gained them an avid following and their albums were hugely successful – their third LP
The Yes Album (1971), which featured the debut of new guitarist
Steve Howe, became their first big hit, reaching #4 in the UK and just scraping onto the chart in the US at #40. Beginning with their fourth album
Fragile, each of the eleven albums they released between 1971 and 1991 (including the lavishly packaged live triple-album
Yessongs) made the Top 20 in the US and the UK, and the double-LP
Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973) and
Going For The One (1977) both reached #1 in the UK. Much of Atlantic's renewed success as a rock label in the late 1970s can be attributed to the efforts of renowned A&R manager
John Kalodner. In 1974, the former photographer, record store manager and music critic joined Atlantic's New York publicity department. In 1975, Kalodner moved to the A&R department, rose rapidly through the ranks, and in 1976 he was promoted to become Atlantic's first West Coast director of A&R. Over the next four years he was instrumental in signing a string of major acts including
Foreigner,
AC/DC,
Peter Gabriel and
Phil Collins. Kalodner built his reputation by signing acts that other labels had turned down, and perhaps the most significant example of his achievements in this area was his championing of the Anglo-American band
Foreigner. The group was the brainchild of expatriate British musicians
Mick Jones (ex
Spooky Tooth) and
Ian McDonald, one of the founding members of
King Crimson. The demo tapes of the songs that eventually became their debut album (including the song "Feels Like The First Time") were famously rejected by almost every major label, including Atlantic – although their tenacious manager Bud Prager later revealed that, in retaliation for a previous bad deal, he deliberately did not approach CBS ("They had screwed me out of a lot of money, so I figured I would screw them out of Foreigner. The band was never even offered to them.") Prager persisted with Atlantic, even though their A&R department and label President Jerry Greenberg repeatedly rejected Foreigner. Kalodner's belief in the group (and a live audition) finally convinced Greenberg to allow Kalodner to sign them and take them on as his personal project. Even then, Kalodner was turned down by twenty-six producers before he found someone willing to take on the project. Despite all the resistance, Foreigner was a success. Their 1976 debut single "Feels Like The First Time" reached #4 on the Billboard singles chart, their self-titled debut album sold more than 4 million copies, and the subsequent singles from the album kept the group in the US charts continuously for more than a year. In the years that followed, Foreigner became one of Atlantic's biggest successes, and one of the biggest-selling groups in history, scoring a string of international hits and selling more than 80 million albums worldwide, including 37.5 million albums in the US alone. In 1978, Atlantic finally broke the leading UK progressive group
Genesis as a major act in the US. Ahmet Ertegun had first seen them perform in the Midwest on one of their early American tours, and it was on this occasion that he also became an ardent fan of their drummer/vocalist, Phil Collins. Jerry Greenberg signed the group to Atlantic in the US in 1973 on Ertegun's advice, but although they were very successful in Europe, Genesis remained at best a "cult" act in America for most of the Seventies. In the meantime, original lead singer
Peter Gabriel had left the group in 1975, followed in 1977 by lead guitarist
Steve Hackett, reducing the group to a three-piece. Ertegun was directly involved in the recording of the band's 1978 album
...And Then There Were Three..., personally remixing the album's projected first single "
Follow You, Follow Me". Although the group did not use this version, it guided them in their subsequent production. Collins later commented, "We didn't use his version, but we knew what he was getting at. He saw something more in there that wasn't coming out before". The released version of "Follow You, Follow Me" gave Genesis their first hit single in the US, the album became their first American gold record, and the experience resulted in Ertegun and Collins becoming close friends. By 1979, Genesis drummer and singer
Phil Collins was considering branching out into a solo career. Reacting to the breakup of his first marriage, he had begun writing and recording new songs at home, which were considerably different from the material he had been recording with Genesis. Although many in the industry reportedly discouraged him from going solo, Collins was strongly supported by Ertegun, who encouraged him to record an album after hearing the R&B-flavoured demo tapes Collins had recorded in his garage. Ertegun also insisted on changes to the song that became Collins' debut single. After hearing the song's sparsely arranged opening section, Ertegun said: "Where's the backbeat, man? The kids won't know where it is – you've got to put extra drums on it". Collins replied "The drums come later," to which Ertegun retorted "By that time the kids will have switched over to another radio station". Acceding to Ertegun's demand, Collins took the unusual step of overdubbing extra drums on the finished master tape, and he later commented, "He (Ertegun) was quite right". By early 1980, when Collins was recording his solo album, the record industry was suffering greatly from the impact of the worldwide economic recession, and many labels were beginning to cull their rosters and drop acts that were not providing major returns. At this same time, Genesis' contract with Atlantic was up for renewal, and Collins was yet to sign as a solo artist. As part of the negotiations, Collins and his bandmates wanted their own 'vanity' label, Duke Records, but according to Kalodner, and despite Ertegun's personal interest, the group's demands, and their relatively modest performance in the US made Atlantic executives ambivalent about the deal. Kalodner was overseeing the recording of Collins' solo album while Atlantic were vacillating about signing the band and Collins, but it was at this point that Kalodner was abruptly dismissed from Atlantic, although he was almost immediately recruited to head the A&R division at the newly formed
Geffen Records. Angered by his unceremonious ejection from Atlantic, he alerted Geffen to Collins' availability, but to his chagrin, neither Geffen nor any other US label showed interest. He then alerted
Virgin Records boss
Richard Branson, who immediately contacted Collins' manager
Tony Stratton Smith and signed Collins to Virgin in the UK as a solo act. Although Ertegun subsequently disputed Kalodner's account of the Genesis/Collins contract saga, he agreed that the loss of Gabriel was a big mistake, and his regret about his handling of the matter was only compounded by Gabriel's subsequent success with Geffen. Much of this was due to Kalodner, who later admitted that, as soon as Gabriel was dropped from Atlantic, he realized he had made a mistake. In order to make amends to Gabriel, he alerted both CBS and Geffen to the fact that Gabriel was available, and after a bidding war, Gabriel signed with Geffen. They released his fourth solo album (a.k.a. "Security") in 1982 to wide acclaim, and Gabriel scored a minor US hit with the single "Shock The Monkey". Gabriel achieved huge international success with his fifth album
So (1986), which reached #1 in the UK and #2 in the US and sold more than 5 million copies in the US. He then scored a US #1 hit with the R&B-influenced single "
Sledgehammer", which featured the legendary
Memphis Horns, and which Gabriel later described as "my chance to sing like
Otis Redding".
Long Branch warehouse fire A fire destroyed most of Atlantic's tape archive in the early morning of February 8, 1978. It had been stored in a non-air-conditioned warehouse in
Long Branch, New Jersey. The four-story warehouse, located at 199 Broadway, was the former location of Vogel's Department Store, before it closed down in March 1975. The building was purchased less than a week earlier and had been scheduled to reopen as a Nadler's Furniture Center, in an effort to revitalize the downtown area. The building was owned by the family of Sheldon Vogel, the chief financial officer of Atlantic at the time. He had recommended moving the company's multitracks and unreleased recordings to the building after Ertegun had complained about the aforementioned tapes taking up too much space in the company's Manhattan offices in New York. Although master tapes of the material in Atlantic's released back catalog survived due to being stored in New York, the fire destroyed or damaged an estimated 5,000–6,000 reels of tape, including virtually all of the company's unreleased master tapes, alternative takes, rehearsal tapes and session multi-tracks recorded between 1948 and 1969. Atlantic was one of the first labels to record in stereo; many of the tapes that were lost were stereo 'alternates' recorded in the late 1940s and 1950s (which Atlantic routinely taped simultaneously with the mono versions until the 1960s) as well as almost all of the 8-track multitrack masters recorded by Tom Dowd in the 1950s and 1960s. According to
Billboard journalist Bill Holland, news of the fire was kept quiet, and one Atlantic staffer who spoke to Holland reported that he did not find out about it until a year later. Reissue producers and archivists subsequently located some tapes that were at first presumed 'lost', but which had survived because they had evidently been removed from the New Jersey archive years earlier and not returned. During the compilation of the Rhino-Atlantic
John Coltrane boxed set, producer
Joel Dorn located supposedly destroyed outtakes from Coltrane's seminal 1959 album
Giant Steps, plus other tapes including
Bobby Darin's original Atco demo of "
Dream Lover" (with
Fred Neil playing guitar). Atlantic archivists have since rediscovered other 'lost' material including unreleased masters, alternative takes and rehearsal tapes by Ray Charles,
Vann "Piano Man" Walls,
Ornette Coleman,
Lennie Tristano and
Lee Konitz.
40th Anniversary concert In May 1988, the label held a
40th Anniversary concert, broadcast on
HBO. This concert, which was almost 13 hours in length, featured performances by a large number of their artists and included reunions of some rock legends like Led Zeppelin and Crosby, Stills, and Nash (being David Crosby's first full band performance since being released from prison).
2000s A country music division, which was founded in the 1980s, was closed in 2001. Time Warner sold Warner Music Group to a group of investors for $2.6 billion in late 2003. The deal closed in early 2004, consolidating
Elektra Records and Atlantic into one label operated in the eastern United States. Although Yankovic could have made the parody anyway, claiming
fair use, his record label,
Volcano Entertainment, thought it best not to "go to war" with Atlantic. The parody was released online for free on June 7. He later recorded two more parodies, "
White & Nerdy", and "Do I Creep You Out", both released September 26 to replace it. He wore T-shirts reading "Atlantic Records sucks" while performing live and, in the
music video for "White & Nerdy", he defaces Atlantic's article on
Wikipedia, replacing the page with "YOU SUCK!" in large type, which resulted in many repeat vandals. In 2007, the label celebrated its 60th anniversary with the May 2 PBS broadcast of the
American Masters documentary
Atlantic Records: The House that Ahmet Built and the simultaneous Starbucks CD release of
Atlantic 60th Anniversary: R&B Classics Chosen By Ahmet Ertegun. That year also saw Atlantic reach a milestone for major record labels. According to the
International Herald Tribune, "More than half of its music sales in the United States are now from digital products like downloads on iTunes and ring tones for cellphones", doing so "without seeing as steep of a decline in compact disc sales as the rest of the industry".
2020s In the early 2020s, Atlantic Records adopted new strategies to adapt to the changing media landscape. With new avenues for talent discovery, such as platforms like
TikTok, the record company expanded its consideration for new talents to newly emerging artists on social media. Musical acts such as
Flyana Boss, Efflo and
Flawed Mangoes have subsequently been signed by the label as a result. In 2024, Atlantic Records signed New Zealand and South Korean singer
Rosé, a member of the girl group
Blackpink, for her solo career. In September 2025, it was announced
Hilary Duff had signed with the label, with plans to release her first album in a decade, as well as a docu-series chronicling her return to music. ==Notable sublabels==