RED Music, stylized RED MUSIC, formerly RED Distribution, LLC (Relativity Entertainment Distribution) was a

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

-owned sales and marketing division that merged under The Orchard in 2017. RED previously handled releases for more than sixty independent record labels.

History

Founded in 1979 as mainly a hard rock

music distributor The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ...

called Important Record Distributors, which originally distributed

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

's first two LPs in the US, it became RED Distribution in the 1990s. In October 1999,

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

sold 80% of RED Distribution to Edel SE & Co. KGaA. In March 2016, Sony announced the acquisition of Essential Music and Marketing. As part of this deal, a new company was launched, Red Essential, which is based at the

Cooking Vinyl Cooking Vinyl is a British independent record label, based in Acton, London, England, founded in 1986 by former manager and booking agent Martin Goldschmidt and business partner Pete Lawrence. Goldschmidt remains the current owner and chairman ...

Group’s West London offices. The company is now located in Farringdon. This division had very little correlation to RED in the United States besides its name.

Acquisition

On June 1, 2017, Sony Music announced that it would merge RED's British affiliate,

Red Essential RED Music, stylized RED MUSIC, formerly RED Distribution, LLC (Relativity Entertainment Distribution) was a Sony-owned sales and marketing division that merged under The Orchard in 2017. RED previously handled releases for more than sixty i ...

, into The Orchard.Sony Merges The Orchard and Red Essential Into Single Artist/Label Services Division
Richard Smirke billboard.com June 1, 2017, Retrieved on June 1, 2017 On June 5, Sony also included the American RED Distribution in its merger with The Orchard. The "RED" name will remain active as a new entity named RED MUSIC, which will provide marketing, label services, and joint ventures between Sony's labels and independent labels.Sony Merges RED Into The Orchard: What the Music Giant's Latest Consolidation Means for Indie Labels Ed Christman billboard.com June 5, 2017, Retrieved on June 27, 201
Sony Merges RED Into The Orchard: What the Music Giant's Latest Consolidation Means for Indie Labels
Ed Christman billboard.com June 5, 2017, Retrieved on June 27, 2017 As of September 2019, RED MUSIC was completely shuttered and consolidated into The Orchard.

References

{{Authority control Record label distributors Sony Music Musical theatre record labels Entertainment companies of the United States