Parlophone
“Signing to Parlophone was a great sensation for us... Paul had worked as a seeing eye dog in his teens, so anything we could do to highlight dogs with disabilities was great. Also, we're bigger than Jesus.”
“I'd had a few too many Pimms and thought I was meeting some bint called Persephone, turns out I'd signed a record deal, and I've never looked back since.”
“We were thinking of launching our first album as a duo via Parlophone but were convinced not to when we watched some performances of Chris Martin from Coldplay. He seemed to constantly dance around the stage, waving his arms around like he had an inflatable hot rod with an array of razor blades up his arse whilst, at the same time, putting us in mind of someone incredibly desperate for a piss after a four hour coach drive through the Algarve. We eventually signed to Sony/BMG and, frankly, we're glad we did because two months after that bastard Scarecrow signed to Parlophone and began recording his Beat-Boxing album with The Wicked Witch Of The West. What a knobber!!”
“Signing a contract for Parlophone was a great choice. The only problem is that it said we could only make five albums under the Parlophone label. It'll be tough finding a new label after Mylo Xyloto. Also, every teardrop is a waterfall.”
Parlophone is a British record label, whose main target market is now hard-of-hearing dogs. Until 1983 this demographic was the sole domain of HMV, but Parlophone's increasing dominance within the market, coupled with their understanding of the needs of canines with hearing difficulties, has made them market leaders.
History[edit]
Parlophone (French for 'talk-o-sound') was founded in 12222 by the re-animated John Lennon, who somehow remained unaware of his past self, possibly due to all the #-ish and other such hallucinogenish substances. It somehow fell back through time and landed in the People's Socialist Democratacular Republic of Deutschland in the year 652 AC, where it was a resounding unsuccess.
Fortunately, a series of coincidences led to its reappearance in Britain in the early 20th century, where thanks to its bizarre name it was a popular distributor of recordings of men with strange voices talking over white noise and piano-factory accidents.
Paranormal composer Frank "the Invisible" Wilson found this hilarious and promptly forced the deeply confused, reincarnated Lennon (at gunpoint) to record his new "Metamorphositions (for Several Violists) III: Return of the Minor 9ve". It was a great success, popular with pretentious and deaf people alike, and led to a great profit.
Its success made Parlophone the preferred record label for numerous other experimentally ill composers and musicians, right up until the 1950s, when they all murdered each other in the dramatic November 38th Massacre. It then returned to a state of complete normality, even releasing several pop songs several years earlier than intended.
Fortunately they were all recaptured.
Brand Controversy[edit]
In May 2001 Parlophone famously took the Bank of England to court over alleged copyright theft. Parlophone claimed that the Bank of England was willingly utilising the Parlophone logo on their "one pound coin" product. After six months of deliberations the Judge ruled in favour of Parlophone, awarding them substantial damages. The Bank has since changed the symbol on all their products to a Euro.
The Kylie Minogue unreleased album Twinkle Toes & Panty Hoes has become the stuff of legend amongst fans who seem to be willing to do anything to obtain a copy. In May 2007 an in-house CD-R of demos from the album appeared on eBay and after a nine-day listing fetched an astounding £1.2 Million from a private buyer in Bulgaria. Shortly after the sale on eBay demos from the CD set began to appear on the internet which forced Kylie's record label Parlophone to send a crack-squad of EMI's top-security team and the Police, who'd been paid off privately, round to the house of the Bulgarian fan where they proceeded to retrieve their Kylie collection in a bid to find out where the demos leaked from. This included questioning and bribing the fan in a series of unorthodox interviews where they threatened to play extended remixes of Sinitta tracks if they didn't get the information they were looking for. After 40 hours they let the fan go and after twelve months sent back their Kylie collection, accidently including all the demos they had initially hoped to remove all trace of. Four weeks later a copy of the demos sold on eBay for £22 Million and the head of Kylie's A & R at Parlophone, Liles Meonard hanged himself.
Bands on the Label[edit]
Since the early 1960s, and the capture of Liverpool pop group The Beatles Parlophone has targeted little known domestic groups for release, providing an almost "underground" feel to their back catalogue.
Artistes signed to the label include: