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Swan Song Records |
| Swan Song Records | |
|---|---|
| Parent company | Warner Bros. |
| Founded | May 10, 1974 |
| Founder | Led Zeppelin |
| Status | Defunct - October 1983 |
| Distributing label | Atlantic |
| Genre | Rock |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Location | London, England New York City, New York |
Swan Song Records was a record label launched by English rock group Led Zeppelin on May 10, 1974. It was managed by Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant and was a vehicle for the band to promote its own products as well as sign artists who found it difficult to win contracts with other major labels. The decision to launch the label came after Led Zeppelin's five year contract with Atlantic Records expired at the end of 1973. Atlantic Records ultimately distributed the label's product.
Artists that released material on the Swan Song label during its existence included Led Zeppelin itself (including later solo releases by band members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant); Bad Company; The Pretty Things; Dave Edmunds; Mirabai; Maggie Bell (and the short-lived band she fronted, Midnight Flyer); Detective; Sad Café; and Wildlife. In addition to these artists, two other noted recording acts (though not signed to the label) were credited artists on Swan Song singles, both of which were UK hits in 1981: B. A. Robertson duetted on with Maggie Bell on the single "Hold On", and The Stray Cats backed Dave Edmunds on his 1981 single "The Race Is On".
Swan Song ceased active operations in 1983, and now exists only to reissue previously released material.
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A lavish media party was held at Chislehurst Caves in Kent, England on October 31, 1974, to celebrate the label’s first UK release by the Pretty Things, Silk Torpedo (the first US release for Swan Song was the self-titled debut album from Bad Company in June 1974). The company logo was based on Evening or the Fall of Day (1869) by painter William Rimmer, featuring a picture of the Greek god Apollo.1
By March 1975, Swan Song had four albums (Bad Company, Silk Torpedo, Physical Graffiti, and Suicide Sal) in the Billboard Top 200 chart. The recording label also partly funded film projects such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 1975. In an interview he gave in January of that year, Page offered his perspective on the label:
| “ | We've got some good things lined up. I think the Pretty Things LP is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. We're [record] executives and all that crap, but I'll tell you one thing the label was never right from the top Led Zeppelin records. It's designed to bring in other groups and promote acts that have had raw deals in the past. It's a vehicle for them and not for us to just make a few extra pennies over the top.2 | ” |
Two years later, he elaborated on Led Zeppelin's intention to found the label:
| “ | We'd been thinking about it for a while and we knew if we formed a label there wouldn't be the kind of fuss and bother we'd been going through over album covers and things like that. Having gone through, ourselves, what appeared to be an interference, or at least an aggravation, on the artistic side by record companies, we wanted to form a label where the artists would be able to fulfill themselves without all of that hassle. Consequently the people we were looking for for the label would be people who knew where they were going themselves. We didn't really want to get bogged down in having to develop artists, we wanted people who were together enough to handle that type of thing themselves, like the Pretty Things. Even though they didn't happen, the records they made were very, very good.3 | ” |
Artists who signed with the label but did not produce any releases included Metropolis (which featured members from the Pretty Things), The Message (which featured future Bon Jovi members Alec John Such and Richie Sambora), and Itchy Brother (which featured future members of The Kentucky Headhunters.) Artists that Swan Song Records wanted to sign but bowed out to other labels were Roy Harper and blues guitarist Bobby Parker. When Swan Song's offices were cleared out in 1983, early demos from Iron Maiden and Paul Young's band Q-Tips were among those found, unplayed and ignored, on the shelves.citation needed
Swan Song ceased operations in October 1983 due to the break-up of Led Zeppelin and Peter Grant’s health problems. A rescue attempt to save the label by Atlantic Records executive Phil Carson proved fruitless. Robert Plant started his own label, Es Paranza Records, in the wake of the closure of Swan Song, while Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones returned to Atlantic Records. Bad Company moved over to Atco Records when they resumed in the late 1980s. Today, the label is strictly used for reissues of all the albums that were released by the label when it was active.
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