The Hollywood Reporter recently confirmed that RCA will discontinue releasing records via their Arista, J and Jive imprints, with artists signed to those labels now set to released records via the main RCA label.
Arista, J and Jive were all legendary labels spanning years of music releases from artists representing a wide variety of genres. The 1974-founded Arista label released seminal albums from the likes of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Patti Smith in its early days, later going on to put out music from Outkast, Run-DMC, Gil Scott-Heron and the Notorious B.I.G.
Founded in 1977, Jive was similarly gargantuan, releasing hit albums from KRS-One, R. Kelly, A Tribe Called Quest and Aaliyah. That label also served as the home to teen pop sensations like both Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, and Britney Spears.
J served as a platform for the release of albums by artists ranging from Rod Stewart to Alicia Keys. That label started in 2000.
And as far as why RCA is shutting those labels down? They were lacking in freshness, at least according to RCA COO Tom Corson.
“The path we’ve taken is to refresh RCA, so we’re going to retire those brands. There may be a reason down the line to bring them back, but it’s a clean slate here,” he said in the HR interview.
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