Passenger Records was a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

-based boutique

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

that released music by

adult album alternative Adult album alternative (also triple-A, AAA, or adult alternative) is a radio format. See pages 9 and 10Mills, Joshua. "A New Radio Music Format: Rock for Prosperous Adults" New York Times, Feb 28 1994, p. 2. ProQuest. Web. Accessed September 4, 2 ...

(or Triple-A) artists. A subsidiary of

Caroline Records Caroline Records is a record label originally founded in 1973. Initially founded in the United Kingdom to showcase British progressive rock groups, the label ceased releasing titles in 1976, and then re-emerged in the United States in 1986. ...

, it was owned by

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

. Its albums were distributed by

Caroline Distribution Virgin Music Label & Artist Services is a music distributor of independent artists and record labels, owned by Universal Music Group. The subsidiary focuses on the distribution of new or emerging partners. Started by Virgin Records as Carolin ...

in the US and Virgin or a variety of smaller labels throughout Europe, Australia, Japan and other markets. Passenger most notably represented

Ben Folds Five Ben Folds Five is an American alternative rock trio formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The group comprises Ben Folds (lead vocals, piano), Robert Sledge (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Darren Jessee (drums, backing vocals). The gro ...

for Caroline, releasing the band's 1995 self-titled debut album.Caroline Records Original ''Ben Folds Five'' Album Website
Other artists represented by the label include the defunct

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

band The Low Road. In a 1997 interview, after his band had signed with Sony's

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label and released their second album ''

Whatever and Ever Amen ''Whatever and Ever Amen'' is the second album by Ben Folds Five, released in 1997. Three singles were released from the album, including the lead single, "Battle of Who Could Care Less", which received significant airplay on alternative radio a ...

'',

Ben Folds Benjamin Scott Folds (born September 12, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and composer, who is the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., since May 2017. Folds was th ...

spoke about both Passenger and The Low Road: The Passenger Records label was dissolved in the mid-to-late 1990s. Artists either continued their contracts on with Caroline Records or signed with other labels.

References

American record labels EMI 1994 establishments in New York (state) 1990s disestablishments in New York (state) Record labels established in 1994 Companies disestablished in the 1990s {{US-record-label-stub