The Shanghai Pathé Record Company () was one of the first major record companies in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, and later relocated to colonial

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was under British Empire, British rule from 1841 to 1997, except for a Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II from 1941 to 1945. It was a crown colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 ...

following the establishment of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. The company was an Asia-Pacific subsidiary of the

Pathé Records Pathé Records was an international record company and label and producer of phonographs, based in France, and active from the 1890s through the 1930s. Early years The Pathé record business was founded by brothers Charles and Émile Pathé, ...

based in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, and later of

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

Group, which was broken up in 2012.

History

Around the beginning of the 20th century, a young Frenchman named Labansat set up an outdoor stall on Tibet Road in

and played

gramophone records A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English) or a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, ...

to Chinese citizens who were curious. The

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

was purchased from Moutrie and Company, and he charged anyone 10 cents to listen to a novelty record called "Laughing Foreigners" (洋人大笑).Jones. Andrew F. 001(2001). Yellow Music - CL: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Duke University Press. Anyone capable of resisting any laughs or chuckles got their money back. Phonographs were becoming popular in the city in 1906.Xinhuanet.
Xinhuanet
." ''Baak Doi and the Old Records.'' Retrieved on 2007-04-21. By 1908, he received help from a French engineer and an assistant from

Ningbo Ningbo is a sub-provincial city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises six urban districts, two satellite county-level cities, and two rural counties, including several islands in Hangzhou Bay and the Eas ...

and established "Pathé Orient" (東方百代), also known as "Pathé Asia," though other sources point to the renaming in 1921. Originally specialising only in

Peking Opera Peking opera, or Beijing opera (), is the most dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines instrumental music, vocal performance, mime, martial arts, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became ...

, the company later expanded into Chinese pop music. Mandarin popular songs became hits, and they were sold at stores like Wing On in Shanghai. In 1930, Pathé's factory was taken over by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

in Shanghai and was used to press Odeon and Beka with the manufacturing portion named "China Record Co. Ltd," and the distributor continued as Pathé Orient.Vernon, Paul. Haupl, Benno.

995 Year 995 (Roman numerals, CMXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Japan * 17 May - Fujiwara no Michitaka (imperial regent) dies. * 3 June: Fujiwara no Michikane gains power and becomes Rege ...

(1995). Ethnic and Vernacular Music, 1898-1960: A Resource and Guide to Recordings. Greenwood Press. In the same decade, Pathé went under British

, which was originally seeking to make a profit on

The Bund The Bund is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the wester ...

selling

gramophone record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English) or a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The g ...

s. Ren Guang became Pathé-EMI’s new director and began getting involved with

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

music devoted to the

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philo ...

cause. In 1937 Ren was fired from the company when the leftist music was cut off by the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

military officials. Any Japanese plants were also taken back to the Nipponophone Company (日本蓄音器株式会社). From the late 1930s to the 1940s, the company held the

rights Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...

to 90% of the

mandopop Mandopop or Mandapop refers to Mandarin popular music. The genre has its origin in the jazz-influenced popular music of 1930s Shanghai known as Shidaiqu; later influences came from Japanese enka, Hong Kong's Cantopop, Taiwan's Hokkien pop ...

songs.Shoesmith, Brian. Rossiter, Ned.

004 004, 0O4, O04, OO4 may refer to: * 004, fictional British 00 Agent * 0O4, Corning Municipal Airport (California) * O04, the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation * Abdul Haq Wasiq, Guantanamo detainee 004 * Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engine * La ...

(2004). Refashioning Pop Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan flows, political tempos and aesthetic Industries. Routeledge Publishing. On October 1, 1949, the

was established by the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

(CCP). In 1952, the CCP accused Pathé's factory in Shanghai of promoting pornography. Under

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

, popular music produced and performed before 1952 was denounced as '' Yellow Music'', and the color

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

was therefore banned and made illegal. As a result of the accusation, Pathé was immediately forced to stop cutting records, close down its factory and cease operations. Pathé subsequently moved its main office from communist

to colonial

and started to cut records in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

(which there were made in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

before moving its production to

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

in 1950), thus restoring the glory of Shanghainese pop music in the British colony of the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

of the Asia-Pacific region. In the same year, Pathé Records entered a public-private joint venture with the state-run China Record Corporation (formerly People's Records and the China Record Company from 1954) in

as one of its commercial wings to continue to sell all of Pathé Shanghai's records made in

into communist

Mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

under its Shanghai Pathé Record Company (上海百代公司唱片) name. Pathé Hong Kong faced fierce competition in the 1960s with the rise of Diamond Records and eventually ceased Shanghainese pop production and cut

Cantopop Cantopop (a contraction of "Cantonese pop music") is a genre of pop music sung in Cantonese. Cantopop is also used to refer to the cultural context of its production and consumption. The genre began in the 1970s and became associated with Hon ...

instead, which gained popularity in the

Chinese mainland "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addition to the g ...

the early 1970s. Pathé Hong Kong later changed its English name to EMI Hong Kong but retained its original Chinese name. In 2012 the entire

Group was broken up and sold to various companies. Pathé Hong Kong was absorbed into

Universal Music Hong Kong Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, ...

, a division of Universal Music Asia-Pacific.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pathe Records Mass media companies of China Hong Kong record labels Chinese record labels Taiwanese record labels Mass media companies of Hong Kong Mass media companies of Taiwan Mass media in Beijing Mass media in Shanghai Mass media in Taipei Chinese companies established in 1908 Record labels established in 1908 Labels distributed by Universal Music Group

History

See also

References