Play Records is an independently owned
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
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 ...
operating in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, Ontario, Canada.
The company includes Play Deep Studios, a recording studio in the UK, Play Digital, for digital music and Play Records Publishing, a publishing company which provides licensing materials for commercial, film and television productions, including licensing deals for compilations.
History
Play Records was founded by singer and former
Care Bears
Care Bears are multi-colored bears, originally painted in 1981 by artist Elena Kucharik to be used on greeting cards from American Greetings. In 1983, the characters were turned into plush teddy bears.
The characters headlined their own televis ...
voice actress
Melleny Melody
Melleny Melody (born Melleny Brown; 12 May 1969), also known as Melleefresh, is a Canadian actress and singer.
Biography
Melleny Brown was born in Toronto, Ontario. Originally known for her vocal work in cartoons, she played Cheer Bear and Baby ...
and DJ Spydabrown in 1996.
In 2005, the company signed on electronic musician
deadmau5
Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), known professionally as Deadmau5 (stylized as deadmau5; pronounced "dead-mouse"), is a Canadian electronic music producer and DJ. He mainly produces progressive house music, though he also produces ...
. The company head Melleefresh discovered the artist when the two collaborated on some releases under the Play Records duo Freshmau5.
In 2008, two of the tracks in the company's catalog, "Afterhours" by Melleefresh and deadmau5 and "R My Dreams (All U Ever Want)" by deadmau5 and
Billy Newton-Davis
Billy Newton-Davis (born April 26, 1951, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States) is an American-Canadian Contemporary R&B, R&B, jazz and gospel music, gospel singer and songwriter.
Biography
Newton-Davis grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of C ...
were nominated for a
Juno Award
The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...
under the category of
Dance Recording of the Year, with the latter winning the award that year. That same year, Play Records parted ways with deadmau5 and the company gained ownership of the catalog of tracks deadmau5 produced during his time with Play Records as part of the agreement. In the following years, Play Records released five full albums of unreleased and/or remixed music by deadmau5. This was done without his direct involvement, with the most recent appearing in 2015.
In October 2015, Play Records was sued by deadmau5 in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over a breach of contract for the tracks he had previously transferred ownership to.
The company reached agreement with deadmau5 in May 2016 which allowed Play Records to retain the rights to the tracks but prohibits the label from producing any new remixes derived from the original tracks. The first of these tracks to be re-released by Play Records was "Desynchonized", which appeared on Spotify on June 20, 2016. Neither deadmau5 nor mau5trap, his record label, publicised this release.
References
External links
Official website
{{Authority control
Record labels established in 1996
Canadian independent record labels