Albert Music
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Albert Music, formerly J Albert and Son, is an Australian company with an estimated worth in 2009 of more than A$209 million. The company has major interests in
music publishing A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers started to play a role in the management of the intellect ...
and
production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...
and it earns significant
royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
through its subsidiary,
Albert Productions Albert Productions, a division of music publishing and recording company Albert Music, is one of Australia's longest established independent record labels to specialise in rock and roll music. The label was founded in 1963 by Ted Albert, whose ...
which manages the music catalogue of the Australian rock band
AC/DC AC/DC (stylised as ACϟDC) are an Australian Rock music, rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm Young, Malcolm and Angus Young. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and Heavy metal ...
. Alberts was acquired by
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 ...
in July 2016.


History

Swiss-born
horologist Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix ''-logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic clo ...
Jacques Albert (1 January 1850–9 July 1914) migrated to
Rockhampton Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. The population of Rockhampton in June 2021 was 79,967, Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. making it the fourth-largest city in the state outside of the ...
and then Sydney in December 1884 with his wife Sophie (d. 1890) and their two children.Albert J. (2009) 'House of Hits ', Hardie Grant Albert established a
clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...
,
watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...
and occasional
violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
repair business in Newtown, Sydney in the following year. From 1890 Jacques began importing and selling a wider range of
musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
s, which included a Boomerang
mouth organ A mouth organ is any free reed aerophone with one or more air chambers fitted with a free reed. Though it spans many traditions, it is played universally the same way by the musician placing their lips over a chamber or holes in the instrument, an ...
. He established J Albert and Son in 1894 with his Russian-born son Michel François "Frank" Albert (26 March 1874–19 January 1962), who took over the company in 1896. The company trademarked the word "boomerang" and stamped it on German-manufactured mouth organs. The distinctive instruments sold at a rate of 800 a week by 1897. By 1902 J. Albert & Son diversified into music retail and publishing, opening a shop front in King Street, Sydney. Later the company struck deals with American and British music publishers, purchasing the
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
for
songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...
s:
Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russi ...
and
George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...
. In 1926 J. Albert & Son co-founded the
Australasian Performing Right Association APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwr ...
(APRA). Frank was also a founding member and director of the
Australian Broadcasting Company The Australian Broadcasting Company Pty. Ltd. was a company founded in Melbourne in 1924 with a capital of £A 100,000 by a consortium of entertainment interests, notably Farmer & Company, J. C. Williamson Limited and J. & N. Tait to fou ...
, which ran the
Commonwealth Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...
's eight national
radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
s. When the government resumed the licence three years later, Alberts used the proceeds to purchase an established radio station
2UW KIIS 1065 (call sign: 2WFM) is a commercial broadcasting, commercial FM radio station in Sydney, Australia, on a frequency of 106.5 MHz. KIIS 1065 is one of the flagship stations on Australian Radio Network, ARN's KIIS Network. The station's ...
. Frank's son Alexis François "Lex" Albert (15 October 1904–10 October 1996) assumed the role of Managing Director of J. Albert & Son in 1931. Over the next 50 years the company acquired interests in a network of eight stations. The stations included 4BC in
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
, 3TT in Melbourne and 2CC in
Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
. In the mid-1950s it became a major shareholder in television's ATV Channel Seven. In 1963 J Albert and Son's Edward "Ted" Frank Albert (28 November 1936–11 November 1990) founded
Albert Productions Albert Productions, a division of music publishing and recording company Albert Music, is one of Australia's longest established independent record labels to specialise in rock and roll music. The label was founded in 1963 by Ted Albert, whose ...
, as a wholly owned subsidiary record label. It is one of Australia's first independent labels and was devoted exclusively to signing and recording Australian pop artists.
The Easybeats The Easybeats were an Australian rock band that formed in Sydney in late 1964. They enjoyed a level of success that in Australia rivalled The Beatles. They became the first Australian rock act to score an international hit, with the 1966 sing ...
were an early successful group signed to the label. It expanded during the 1970s when its stable of artists, in particular,
AC/DC AC/DC (stylised as ACϟDC) are an Australian Rock music, rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm Young, Malcolm and Angus Young. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and Heavy metal ...
brought Australia to international prominence in popular music. In 2007 Albert Music acquired the Origin Network Company which manage the copyrighted work and music catalogues of the Australian recording artists
Lee Kernaghan Lee Kernaghan OAM (born 15 April 1964) is an Australian country music singer, songwriter and guitarist. Kernaghan has won four ARIA Awards and three APRA Awards, and has sold over two million albums, and as of 2021, has won 38 Golden Guitars at ...
, Richard Clapton,
Rogue Traders Rogue Traders is an Australian electronic rock band formed in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria in 2002 by mainstay James Ash on keyboards. In 1989, Ash met fellow original member Steve Davis in London while both were working as DJs. B ...
, Mike Brady,
Paul Grabowsky Paul Atherstone Grabowsky (born 27 September 1958) is an Australian pianist and composer. Biography Born in Lae, Papua New Guinea, Grabowsky is a pianist and composer of music for film, theatre and opera. His father Alistair had lived in Papu ...
,
Joe Dolce Joseph Dolce (born October 13, 1947) (, originally ) is an American-Italian singer/songwriter, poet and essayist. Dolce achieved international recognition with his multi-million-selling song, "Shaddap You Face", released worldwide under the n ...
,
Chris Neal Christopher Michael Neal (born 23 October 1985) is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club AFC Fylde. He began his career at Preston North End, making his English Football League debut in February 2005, having p ...
and
Cezary Skubiszewski Cezary Skubiszewski is a Polish-born Australian film and television composer. Among others, he has composed film scores for '' Red Dog'', '' Two Hands'', '' The Sapphires'', and TV series '' Picnic at Hanging Rock''. Career Skubiszewski first m ...
. On 5 July 2016 BMG agreed to acquire J Albert & Son from the Albert family. Alberts formed part of BMG Australia, the Sydney-based operation of BMG launched in earlieer in that year. Except for AC/DC and the Easybeats (which remained with the Albert family), ownership of most of the Alberts music publishing and recordings catalogue transferred to BMG. The Albert family retained the rights to AC/DC and The Easybeats, and has allowed BMG to administer those catalogues worldwide. Alberts formed an alliance with Stuart & Sons to manufacture hand-crafted
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
s. Alberts has long-standing community partnerships in the form of the McDonald’s Performing Arts Challenge; working with disadvantaged youth through
Mission Australia Mission Australia is a national Christian charity that provides a range of community services throughout Australia. It has its roots in the Brisbane Town and Country Mission (1859) and Sydney City Mission (1862), but was only officially establish ...
; and research and treatment through Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Australia.


References

{{Authority control Music publishing companies of Australia Australian record labels Record labels established in 1964 Pop record labels Record labels based in Sydney