Surprise Surprise (album)
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Surprise Surprise (album)
''Surprise Surprise'' is the 1982 studio album of Mezzoforte (band), Mezzoforte on Sena (record company), Steinar. Their fourth album originally released in Iceland as ''4'' with a different cover made the band famous worldwide when, after the international release, the single "Garden Party" hit the charts.liner notes Background Earlier in 1982, the second keyboard player, Bjorn Thorarensen who's been with them for their previous two albums, left Mezzoforte. The saxophone player Kristinn Svavarsson became a full member after playing as a guest on the band's first two albums. ''Surprise Surprise'' was recorded at PRT Studios, London in July–August 1982 and mixed at Red Bus Studios in September. It was the second time the band worked with producer Geoff Calver in London after the recording of their second album Í Hakanum/Octopus, Í Hakanum released internationally as Mezzoforte and re-released as Octopus in 1996 in 1980. Despite gaining some popularity and playing concerts in the ...
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Mezzoforte (band)
Mezzoforte is an instrumental jazz-funk fusion band from Iceland, formed in 1977.Larkin, Colin (1997) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Eighties Music'', Virgin Books, , p. 321 They signed a record deal with Icelandic label Steinar. Their biggest hit single was "Garden Party" (1983), taken from their fourth album (second international release) Surprise Surprise. It peaked at number 17 in the UK Singles Chart. The solo that takes place two minutes into "Garden Party", was created and played on the flugelhorn by English trumpeter, Stephen Dawson. "Garden Party" was later covered by Herb Alpert, at a slower speed than the original, apparently as he had learned the track from the single played at the wrong speed. Another single, "Rockall" spent one week at number 75 in the same listing in June that year, and was used as a signature tune by several European radio chart shows. The band was named after the traditional musical term ''mezzo forte'', an instruction to play literally "moderately ...
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Ultratop
Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium. Ultratop is a non-profit organization, created on the initiative of the Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA), the Belgian member organization of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Two parallel sets of charts are concurrently produced and published, one on behalf of Belgium's mainly Dutch-speaking Flanders region, and the other catering to the nation's mainly French-speaking region of Wallonia. Ultratop charts The music charts produced by Ultratop organization are separated along regional-language boundaries, an unusual division that is justified by the cultural differences in Belgium. So it is that the mainly Dutch-speaking Flanders region has one set of charts of record activity there, while the mainly French-speaking Wallonia region has another set to measure popularity in those provinces. The charts are broadcast on several Belgian radio statio ...
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ZYX Music
ZYX Music GmbH & Co. KG is a German record label that was founded in 1971 by Bernhard Mikulski. It is one of the most successful German record labels of the 1980s and 1990s. Until 1992, the label's name was Pop-Import Bernhard Mikulski. The label specialized in disco, early house music and 1990s techno. Founder Bernhard Mikulski is credited with coining the term "Italo disco" in the 1980s. After the death of Bernhard, his wife Christa Mikulski took over in 1997. ZYX Music is headquartered in Merenberg, Germany and has offices in the US and several European countries. ZYX releases records in a number of different genres, including techno, hip hop, funk, rock and pop. Noteworthy is that ZYX nowadays holds many rights from some German Krautrock labels like Ohr, Pilz and Kosmische Kuriere, and is also responsible for reissuing many albums from the free jazz/avant-garde label ESP-Disk. Formerly, it held the manufacturing license for Fantasy Records in Europe, an arrangement which c ...
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CNR Music
CNR is a Dutch audio and video label. It was founded in 1937 as CNR Records by Cornelis Nicolaas Rood, who made his fortune as a producer of lampshades and other lighting materials. Rood regarded his record label merely as a hobby, but things changed for the better in the early 1950s when CNR bought distribution and marketing rights for several foreign pop and classical record companies. He also signed up several local artists. One of CNR's first major successes was Dutch singer Gert Timmerman, who became one of the Dutch top selling male artists from the end of the 1950s. In the 1960s, CNR enjoyed major successes with artists like Trio Hellenique, Gert Timmerman (who was also part of a duo, Gert & Hermien) and Heintje, a Dutch teenage singer who sold millions of singles and albums in Europe between 1966 and the early 1970s. By this time, CNR had grown into one of the Dutch major independent record labels. It mainly focussed on local talent such as André van Duin, Benny Neyman ...
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BMG Rights Management
BMG Rights Management GmbH (also known simply as BMG) is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label. BMG was founded in October 2008 after Bertelsmann sold its stake in Sony BMG. From 2009 to 2013, the investment firm KKR held 51% of the company, which became one of the world's largest music publishers during that time. BMG is 100% owned by Bertelsmann and one of the group's eight business divisions. The portfolio includes rights in songs and recordings by artists such as Kylie Minogue, Craig David, Avril Lavigne, The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, The Cranberries, David Bowie, Roger Waters, Iggy Pop, Quincy Jones, Lenny Kravitz Morrissey, 5 Seconds of Summer, KSI, Eraserheads, Rivermaya. and Peter Frampton. History Music at Bertelsmann In the 1950s, Bertelsmann entered the music business when it added music to its book club. Ariola, a record label, was launched and Sonopress, a pressing ...
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RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Arista Records, and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. Its name is derived from the initials of its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA Records was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1987, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment after the 2004 merger of BMG and Sony; it was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony/BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. RCA Records is the corporate successor of the Victor Talking Machine Company, founded in 1901, making it the second-oldest record label in American his ...
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CBS Records International
CBS Records International was the international arm of the Columbia Records unit of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (CBS) formed in 1961 and launched in 1962. Previously, Columbia Records had licensed other record companies to manufacture and distribute Columbia recordings outside North America (excluding Canada by 1976), such as Philips Records and its subsidiary Fontana (now part of the Universal Music Group) in Europe. Formation and history In 1960, CBS acquired its Australian distributor since 1956, the Australian Record Company, and with it its flagship label Coronet Records. American Columbia material continued to be issued on the CBS Coronet Records label in Australia. The CBS label was launched in Australia in 1963. Also in 1960, CBS began negotiations with its European distributor Philips Records with the goal of the establishment of a CBS Records label in Europe. Philips' acquisition of Mercury Records paved the way for the formation of the CBS label in 1961 wi ...
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Compagnia Generale Del Disco
Compagnia Generale del Disco (CGD) was an Italian record label. History CGD was founded in 1948 by singer Teddy Reno. At that time it was established in Milan in Via Passarella 4. As artistic director Reno called fellow musician Lelio Luttazzi, who replaced David Matalon as Head of International Production in 1956. By collaborating with some publishers such as Suvini-Zerboni and Messaggerie Musicali, CGD was able to hire many artists who roused much success as Giorgio Consolini, Betty Curtis and Johnny Dorelli. Under the Sugar Helm In 1959, Teddy Reno sold CGD to Ladislao Sugar, a publisher of Hungarian origin and future entrepreneurial owner of the Sugar Group, which was founded by Carlo Alberto Rossi's Casa Editrice Ariston, and then abandoned to buy Musical Messengers (Messaggerie Musicali). It was on this occasion that he came into contact with Teddy Reno. In 1961, CGD moved to Galleria del Corso, where many other record labels and music publishing were located. In 1968, Lad ...
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Red Book (CD Standard)
The Rainbow Books are a collection of CD format specifications. ''Red Book'' (1980) *CD-DA (''Digital Audio'') – standardized as IEC 60908 **CD-Text—a 1996 extension to CD-DA ** CD-MIDI—part of the original red-book standard **CD+G (''plus Graphics'') – karaoke *** CD+EG / CD+XG (''plus Extended Graphics'') – an extension of CD+G ''Yellow Book'' (1983) *CD-ROM (''Read-Only Memory'') – standardized as ISO/IEC 10149 in 1988 and ECMA-130 in 1989 **CD-ROM XA (''eXtended Architecture'') – a 1991 extension of CD-ROM ''Green Book'' (1986) *CD-i (''Interactive'') ''Orange Book'' (1990) Orange is a reference to the fact that red and yellow mix to orange. This correlates with the fact that CD-R and CD-RW are capable of audio ("Red") and data ("Yellow"); although other colors (other CD standards) that do not mix are capable of being burned onto the physical medium. ''Orange Book'' also introduced the standard for multisession writing. *CD-MO (''Magneto-Optical'') ...
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Polydor Records
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. In turn, Polydor distributes Interscope releases in the United Kingdom. Polydor Records Ltd. was established in London in 1954 as a British subsidiary of German company Deutsche Grammophon/Schallplatte Grammophon GmbH. It was renamed Polydor Ltd. in 1972. Notable current and past artists signed to the label include ABBA, Cream, The Moody Blues, The Who, Ringo Starr, Bee Gees, The Jam, Bing Crosby, The Shadows, James Brown, Level 42, Ellie Goulding, Juice WRLD, Piri & Tommy, James Last, Eric Clapton, Marie Osmond, Keith O'Conner Murphy, Yngwie Malmsteen, Lana Del Rey, Haim, and Buckingham Nicks. Label history Beginnings Polydor Records was founded on 2 April 1913 by German Polyphon-Musikwerke AG in Leipzig and registered on 25 July 19 ...
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Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips in 1963, Compact Cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a prerecorded cassette (''Musicassette''), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms have two sides and are reversible by the user. Although other tape cassette formats have also existed - for example the Microcassette - the generic term ''cassette tape'' is normally always used to refer to the Compact Cassette because of its ubiquity. Its uses have ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for early microcomputers; the Compact Cassette technology was originally designed for dictation machines, but improvements in fidelity led to it supplanting the stereo 8-track cartridge and reel ...
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LP Record
The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of  rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a vinyl (a copolymer of vinyl chloride acetate) composition disk. Introduced by Columbia in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry. Apart from a few relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound, it remained the standard format for record albums (during a period in popular music known as the album era) until its gradual replacement from the 1980s to the early 2000s, first by cassettes, then by compact discs, and finally by digital music distribution. Beginning in the late 2000s, the LP has experienced a resurgence in popularity. Format advantages At the time the LP was introduced, nearly all phonograph records for home use were made of an abrasive shellac compound ...
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