As we all know, the last part of the century-old shop EMI EMI Records has been quite bumpy.
EMI's historical recordings are unmatched by almost any company, and they include almost all the great works and top works of celebrities, such as Annie Fischer's Bach's "Average Rhythm Piano Song Collection", Pablo Casals' Bach Cello Suite, Wanda Landowska's Harpsichord playing Bach's "Gothenburg Variations" on the harpsichord, Wilhelm Furtwängler Complete Beethoven Symphonies, Artur Schnabel's Complete Piano Sonatas, Paul Weingartner's Brahms Symphonies, Dinu Lipatti's Chopin Piano Pieces, Walter Gieseking's Debussy and Mozart Piano Pieces, Fritz Kreisler playing his own works, Pietro Mascagni) directed his own Country Knight and Furtwängler's complete set of Wagner's Rings of the Nibelungen, among others.
Today's music fans want to enjoy classical history recordings, and EMI, founded in 1897, remains the biggest treasure trove. EMI was formerly known as gramophone company and Columbia Phonograph, and in 1931 the two record labels merged to form Electric and Musical Industries, or EMI, one of the oldest record labels in the world. In 1955, EMI acquired Capitol Records in the United States, and in 1957, EMI Records Ltd. was officially established in the United Kingdom, headquartered in London, with branches in 146 countries and regions around the world. In 1991, the British Thorn-EMI Group incorporated the independent brand Viking Records into its own group for billions of dollars, forming a leading company with Captiol, Apple, Virigin, Parlophone and other record brands.
Even if you have no idea about the record industry, as long as you have a little interest in rock and roll, you will not be unfamiliar with the name Abbey Road. In 1969, Beatles' 11th official album was released, and photos of four people strolling on the Abbey Road crosswalk became famous all over the world along with the record, and became one of the most famous attractions in the United Kingdom
In China, EMI also has a glorious history. In the 1920s, EMI acquired the French Pathe-Marconi Records to establish a branch office in Shanghai, China, EMI in China called "EMI" is the transliteration of the French company Pathe, and today the Shanghai company located on Hengshan Road in Shanghai, its predecessor is emi's branch. At that time, such as Zhou Xuan, Hu Die, Nie Er, Xian Xinghai and other former superstars and progressive musicians gathered at EMI. From 1979 to 1993, Rowan, a singer of the late generation, has been working for EMI, and the first record label signed by Andy Lau in the music industry was also EMI. In the Chinese music scene, since the 90s, EMI has been known for its musical quality, including Chen Baiqiang, Zhang Yu, Wu Qixian, Peng Ling and other singers. In 1996, EMI successfully acquired taiwan's famous dianjiang records, and the addition of Cai Qin, Wu Sikai, Zhang Qingfang, and Ucommune Li Lin strengthened the strength of EMI records. In 1997, she signed a contract with Faye Wong, who came back from childbirth, and made every effort to build the mainland Diva Na Ying, plus Virgin Viking Music became the most important sub-brand of EMI, bringing singers such as Lin Yilian, Xiao Yaxuan, Tao Zhe, Shunzi, Xu Ruyun, Rene Liu, Qi Yu and so on, making EMI's position in the Chinese music scene growing.
Whether classical or popular, EMI has always pointed to the artistic tip with its specialized musical route, and in terms of the gold content of musical value, it is almost unanimously recognized as good, from the old professors in the academy or the avant-garde rock fans on the street, will give a thumbs up to EMI's records. Perhaps because EMI's music content is so good, the company that first entered the recording industry did not care much about the quality of recording. In their eyes, pure audiophile recording seems to be an opportunistic, sensational business practice, which is very pediatric for great music. In the late 1950s, EMI was the last major record label to accept stereo recordings, and EMI's sluggishness to new technologies reflected the rigor and conservatism of british aristocrats, compared to its bold and innovative American counterparts RCA and Mercury, and its British rival DECCA. In the 1960s, EMI's "golden combination" producer Christopher Bishop and recording engineer Christopher Parker finally brought a little joy to audiophiles, producing records with first-class timbre and excellent balance, but still lacking the infinite depth of the soundstage and the infinite dynamic Hi-Fi effect. Compared to RCA's "Living Stereo", Mercury's "Living Presence" or DECCA's "FFRR" and "FFSS", the records produced by "Double Christopher" are not dominant in numbers, and ultimately cannot form a climate.
Recording at Kingway Hall in 1970, producer Christopher Bishop on the second from the left and Christopher Parker standing on the far right
Pleven's last marriage to the German violinist Mutter also caused a stir
The young conductor Plevin was influenced by hippie culture, which brought many shocks to conservative British society
Faced with rampant piracy and the popularity of online music, EMI's conservative sluggishness soon went wrong. In fact, the beginning of the restructuring of the 21st century record industry is not Sony BMG, but EMI and Warner, which seems to be a shortcut to solve the crisis. In 2006, EMI tried to acquire Warner Music, and Warner Music defended its company. At this time, EMI incurred a huge loss of 260 million pounds, was bought by Terra Firma funds, and announced 1/3 of the layoffs. A large number of singers under the umbrella jumped ship, including Radiohead and Paul McCartney of the former Beatles, and the Rolling Stones also jumped to Universal. At that time, the world's five major record companies divided the world: Warner Music, Universal Records, BMG, Sony and EMI, which originally belonged to the German Bertelsmann Group, and the first to break the silence was the merger of Sony and BMG, making the five major records into four. EMI and Warner have long been seen as finally on the road to merger to pit the larger Universal and Sony, and they expect the new combined company to control about 25 percent of the global record market, surpassing Universal to become the world's second-largest record label.
Contrary to expectations, the US financial giant Citigroup acquired EMI in 2011 due to financial problems and $4 billion in debt, but Citi is a music layman and is eager to throw hot potatoes. At the end of 2011, Citi sold its EMI music division to Vivendi's Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion, and sold its copyright and distribution business to the Sony/ATV consortium for approximately $2.2 billion. Universal Records continued to use the EMI name with reserved entities and founded Virgin EMI Records in the UK, which has survived in name only. The world record label pattern has also become a three-legged situation of Sony, Universal and Warner, of which Sony's number of music rights accounts for the first place in the industry. EMI's branches in the UK, US and Canada have all been broken up to pay off debt, and major headquarters elsewhere are still operational. In order to comply with the EU's antitrust regulations, Universal Music gave up trademark rights to V2, Parlophone, Sanctuary, Chrysalis, Mute, EMI Classics, Virgin Classics and other records (acquired by Warner Music in 2013) and retained only the Beatles (moved to the newly formed Calderstone Productions) and Robbie Williams) record rights (moved to the Island Records trademark), after all, they are still a cash cow. In June 2020, Universal Records renamed Virgin EMI to EMI Records and appointed Rebecca Allen, former president of DECA Records, as EMI's new president.
The demise of EMI, in addition to not paying attention to the most advanced recording technology, is also related to the quality of recording. Veteran enthusiasts all know that the re-edition of the CD released by EMI, the sound effect gap between the regular version and the low-price version is quite large, and some of the recordings of the golden period of the 60s may be mastered and magnetized, and the noise is quite criticized. Some CDs that have been treated with ART noise reduction technology have a clean background, but the dynamics and details are destroyed, and the extension of the frequency response two ends is not very good, so audiophiles are always not very buying of EMI records. Japan's Toshiba EMI CD is relatively stable, a number of 2088 model CD records using 20Bit/88.2kHz technology to reform the analog recording, dynamics and details are higher than ordinary CDs. The weaknesses of the less likable timbre, narrow soundstage, and little tone in most of emi's original EMI recordings have greatly improved in this batch of Japanese 2088 series. In 2001, Toshiba EMI launched the "Remake of the History of the Great Cellists of the 20th Century" series, which once again impressed the world!
In fact, EMI's recordings are not completely unbearable, at least the American capital company has some excellent works. Founded in 1942, Capital Records initially became famous in the pop and jazz fields, and in 1949 they entered the production of classical LPs under the slogan "Full Dimensional Sound", releasing some mono records with good sound effects. In 1955, Capital was acquired by EMI, and their acceptance of stereo recording seemed to be much more positive than EMI, and in 1956 they recorded some stereo recordings in California for Master Conductor Stokowski, who liked to innovate new recording techniques, and the effect was explosive and the reputation was great. Thereafter, the conductor E. Leinsdorf and W. Stenberg Famous artists such as Steinberg, violinists Nathan Milstein and Michael Rabin have put the Capital on display. By 1959, Capital's total assets had skyrocketed to £85 million, cementing their position in the U.S. recording industry. When EMI bought Capital for £3 million that year, President Lock Wood was criticized by the board for losing money, and it seems that thanks to Lock Wood's foresight, EMI was not wiped out on the TAS Fever Disc List.
In fact, if you take a closer look at Capital's recording equipment, you will find that they are almost a copy of the RCA recording studio: Neumann U-47, M-49/50 microphone, Ampex 300 1/2-inch recording dock, each one is the standard equipment for creating beautiful sound recordings in the golden age. However, in terms of recording style, Capital seems to be somewhat similar to Mercury. Their records all have a forward soundstage, the wood pipes are brightly colored, and the dynamic impact of the copper pipes is amazing. However, the string part tends to be warm and thick, and the deeper sound field performance is slightly better than Mercury. EMI dug up Capital's master tape to make a CD, which detailed the microphone set up when Capital was recording. The CD includes the precious disc of Stokowski, who shined on the TAS chart, the orchestral player who "uses music as a means and audio as the purpose", and shows a unique musical view in Capital recordings. Take Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11, for example, which was recorded in 1958 and is based on a pair of Neumann U47 condenser microphones, located 20 feet above the band to pick up the sound of the overall orchestra, supplemented with a separate U47 woodpipe and an RCA 44BX aluminum band microphone to enhance the strings. The RCA OP6\OP7 mixer plus the AMPEX 300's three-track opening recorder presents the characteristics of three-microphone recording, with clear front-row sound and image distribution, good sense of depth, and grand spatial effects.
As for EMI at the UK headquarters, although there was a great music producer Walter Legge, he did not contribute much to the recording industry. In 1947, Riger found two conductors for EMI, Karajan and Furtwängler, who escaped the shadow of World War II with the help of Riger and transitioned to the golden age of recording after eliminating the Nazismization process. He also helped composer and conductor Paul Hindemith, Otto Klemperer( Otto Hindemith) and the composer and conductor paul Hindemith. Klemperer) and wolfgang Sawallisch, a young conductor at the time, who founded the Philharmonic Orchestra in 1964 with far-reaching influence. Until EMI appeared "Double Christopher" and conductor Pleven, who switched from RCA to EMI, the combination of the Three Musketeers finally brought the peak of recording to EMI.
Pleven conducts a lot of records, RCA, Sony, Telarc can be found. In terms of acoustics, it was the most exciting collaboration at EMI in the 60s and 70s with producer Christopher Bishop and recording engineer Christopher Parker.
Producer Christopher Bishop was educated at the London Forest School, read music and English literature at Caius College Cambridge, and joined the Cambridge Madrigal Choir founded by John Milford Rutter, where he was appointed Head of Music at Magdalen College, Oxford, Modlin College is considered one of the most beautiful colleges in Oxford and one of the most visited. In 1964, Walter Rigg left EMI to start the Philharmonic Orchestra, and Bishop joined EMI's International Classical Music Division as a record producer. His first major album was Messiah with conductor Charles Mackerras in 1966. He became lead producer in 1973 and has produced more than 400 records in total, notably with Sir Adrian Scott. Boult), Andre Previn, Carlo Maria· Giulini and several other conductors, such as mezzo-soprano Janet Baker, violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the Cambridge Choir of King's College, are particularly closely related. Bishop's main interest has been in choral music. He founded London Madrigal Singers during EMI and regularly broadcasts on BBC programmes. Ricardo Muti, then principal conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra, invited Bishop as executive director, and he joined the orchestra until 1988, when he became CHIEF Executive Officer of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
As for recording engineer Christopher Parker, who worked as a music teacher in his early years and joined EMI in 1951. Parker has gained a wealth of experience just as it happened to experience the advent of LP, the budding of stereo recording, and the mature recording technology changes of multi-track mixing. Parker's major recording locations include London's Abbey Road Studio, Kingsway Hall, and the Chicago Concert Hall, where it became the creator of many super EMI recordings. Christopher Bishop and Christopher Parker are a wonderful supergroup in EMI's classical records, creating a recording miracle for EMI in the 1960s and 1970s! Even if the dynamics and soundstage scale cannot be compared with the two major factories of RCA and DECA, the capture and balance of the sound are commendable.
Because of Plevin's Hollywood background, most of the repertoire he conducts is the so-called "classical masterpiece", especially Tchaikovsky's three major ballet music, and the various music of the Russian music school, all of which belong to the category of pleasant and pleasant, and there are few music of current composers. Coupled with the help of producer Christopher Bishop and recording engineer Christopher Parker, the sound effects exploded, and it is recommended to collect vinyl records, and emi's CD conversion is difficult to guarantee
Conductor Previn has played three very different roles, from the Hollywood score golden boy to the emerging jazz pianist to the orchestra conductor, but he has always played a leisurely role, because these are all in the service of music. Whether it is the emotional "Overture of 1812" or the "Tender Romeo and Juliet Overture", under his baton, there are more intense musical ups and downs, which makes people admire his excellent control of music. Previn led the London Symphony Orchestra to start the revival of Rachmaninov in his early years at RCA Records, joined EMI and took over as the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1968, he has always been a popular favorite of the media, this long-haired, flared pants and flower shirt of the Young American actually ran to the United Kingdom to do a lot of fun, but also shined in music, and even hosted the "Music Night" program on TV, no wonder the topic continues. Plevin's success at EMI may be due to the poor quality of vinyl records on RCA records in the early 1970s, in contrast, EMI has the best artistic team, and the established company can tolerate the arbitrary play of small hair, so with the "double Christopher", a lot of wonderful records were created.
The Three Musketeers' main recording venue in London is Kingsway Hall. EMI began recording at Kingsway Hall in late 1925 using Seiden WE equipment, and since Seiden had patent rights, EMI paid a royalty for each record. EMI owned its own recording studio in Abbey Road in 1931, and in 1933 switched to a recording device designed by engineer Alan Blumlein, successfully circumventing The West's patents, so they slowly faded out of Kingsway Hall, which became the domain of DECA. Kingsway is mainly used for classical music recording, occasionally recording dance bands, etc. Although it was one of the best recording venues in the world, decca and EMI's venue contract expired on December 31, 1983, the two companies did not want to take over the purchase because the renovation cost was too high. After DG finally recorded Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut here in 1984, the legendary Kingsway Hall officially withdrew from history.
This article focuses on Abbey Road Studio. The studio was formerly a 19th-century townhouse, and Gramophone bought the property in 1929 to begin the studio renovation, which was completed in November 1931. Gramophone merged with Columbia and was renamed EMI, so the studio was originally named EMI Recording Studios. The community of St John's Wood, a suburb of London in the west of England, in 1969, where the Beatles recorded their last album, the conflicting orchestra decided to shoot the cover in a random place nearby, using the street as the record title. On Abbey Road outside the studio, photographer Iaean Macmillan left six brilliant photographs in ten minutes, and the shortest-running set of photos became the album cover of the Beatles' most recognized and imitated album, and EMI Recording Studios was later officially renamed Abbey Road Studios.
The tree-lined two-story building at 3 Abbey Road is hardly conceivable on the surface of multiple recording studios and many post-production studios. It used to have the world's first modern console and was the first to be able to record stereo sound. The first record recorded here was the Symphonic Experiment of Falstaff by the British classical composer Edward Elgar, and the first famous client was the American bass paul Robeson, who first recorded here in December 1931, and the music produced during this period was also dominated by classical and jazz. During the Second World War, it became a political propaganda position and a radio station for the BBC, until 16 September 1944, when Glenn Miller, the king of jazz pop, returned to England to record the last work of his career. Soon after, he disappeared in a bizarre air crash on a plane back to France. Everything was in ruins after the war, and the music industry was slowly recovering. Some time later, in 1954, British singer Eddie Calvert recorded "Oh Mein Papa" here, becoming the studio's first number one single. In 1958, Cliff Richard and the Drifter recorded Move It here, and Abbey Road began to become a stronghold of rock music. All of Sir Richard's albums were also recorded here. In 1962, the Beatles recorded their first single "Love Me Do" here under the introduction of George Martin, and from that day on, the studio began its journey of growing up with Beatles.
From 1962 to 1970, the Beatles were here, recording almost all of their important works using a four-track REDD mixer designed by Peter K. Nurkowitz, and in return they put the abbey Road name on their album cover. After the Launch of "Abbey Road", Abbey Road ushered in the most beautiful moment, countless Beatles fans who came from the south of the sea north walked around the zebra crossing at the main entrance of the studio, took photos, and scribbled messages on the parapet in front of the studio (this wall had to be repainted once every three months). These words written all over the façade are the imprint of the idols left by fanatical music fans, and the historical testimony of the countless glorious moments left by this legendary recording studio. This tribute has endured to this day, and in 2010 the British government included the zebra crossing in the Grade II Listed Status (somewhat similar to our heritage unit).
After many years, the building began to decay and was on the verge of collapse and needed to be rebuilt. In 1987, the Abiro Recording Studio was renovated and rebuilt, and it was finally decided that the Toshima Architectural Acoustic Design Studio, led by Masashi Toshima of Japan, would be in charge, and it took several years to complete. Masashi Toshima graduated from Waseda University in Japan, worked at Victor Sound Design Office in 1964, and is currently a professor at the Faculty of Environmental Informatics at Yokkaichi University in Japan. Toshima Architectural Acoustic Design is the leading company in the acoustic design of professional recording studios today, in addition to Abbey Road Recording Studio, London Sarm West Studio, London Olympic Studio, London Town House Studio, Lucasfilm Coring Studio (known for the Star Wars series of movies known as George Lucas Studio), German EMI Studio and many other famous recording studios, as well as the famous singer Phil Collins, Sting, Enya Enya, George Michael, Tetsuro Oda (Slam Dunk Master Theme Songwriter), Amano Masamichi Recording Studio... The private recording studios of other music superstars and artists are all owned by toshima Architectural Acoustic Design Studio. They also have a lot of business in China, and the architectural acoustic design of the branches in the vicinity of Guangzhou Railway Station, including the Jiangsu Grand Theater Recording Studio (Nanjing Art Theater Recording Studio), the Beijing Women's Twelve Music Studio, the Beijing Oasis Recording Studio, the Beijing Y3D Recording Studio, the Ningbo Zhongqing Film Recording Studio, the Shanghai Radio Recording Studio, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Music Classroom and the Recording Studio, is also undertaken by the Toshima Architectural Acoustics Design Studio.
Abbey Road Studios Studios No. 1
Studio 1 has a practical area of 456 square meters (about 28 meters long, 16 meters wide and more than 12 meters high) and can accommodate a large symphony orchestra composed of 120 people to record here. Countless great recordings have been born here, the magical spatial effect has a unique quality, and the acoustic environment is so excellent that other studios around the world try to emulate it, but the charming effect produced here is irreplaceable. Features a state-of-the-art 72-track, 64-channel NEVE VRP mixer; VSX multichannel cinematic sound system and Flying Fader's computerized multichannel pickup control system. The left, center, right and rear monitors are all B&W's tailor-made Nautilus 801 D3, and the sound splitters for each speaker are externally designed, each driven by a chord Chord professional post-power amplifier. As the times progressed, Studio One was primarily used as a soundtrack workplace, with soundtracks for films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, the Harry Potter series, Star Wars, Alien: Covenant, and others. Conductors can watch the projected movie plot through the large screen hanging from the studio while conducting the orchestra. Such an advanced, vocal and large-scale recording studio is unique in the world.
EMI has fallen, abbey Road Studio has been reborn, and Studio One is the dream mecca of countless musicians
Abbey Road Studios Studios No. 2
With approximately 190 square meters and a capacity of up to 55 musicians to record, Studio 2 is a versatile recording venue that can accommodate small classical chamber music, pop music and smaller film music productions. All the Beatles albums are left here. The acoustic environment is ideal, so when it was renovated in 1996, the structure of the place was basically not changed, but its control room was moved to the 2nd floor, so that the recording engineer could overlook the entire studio from above.
Abbey Road Studio 2, where 90% of the Beatles' songs are recorded
Abbey Road Studios Studios 3
Studio 3, which is mainly aimed at recording popular music, has an area of about 75 square meters and can accommodate up to 15 musicians to record here. Designed by Toshima Architectural Acoustics Design Studio, the use of a special SSL72-track 4000G mixer can not only meet the needs of multi-channel production, but also can use ISDN lines to transmit recording data online and connect with servers of other recording studios around the world. The studio has a separate singer studio, and the acoustic space is cleverly designed as a variable structure, and different reflection effects can be selected according to the needs of the active wall. In addition, it also has a "live recording studio" with a completely mirrored wall, which is designed as an irregular polyhedra to create a very lively live effect required for jazz and rock music.
Studio No. 3, where the acoustic design of Toshima Building in Japan is in charge
Pink Floyd's famous album "The Dark Side of the Moon" was included in Studio Three.
In addition, every recording editing and post-production department has been upgraded to a multi-channel production specification that can fully respond to the increasingly popular surround sound formats of BD and SACD. In the department responsible for mastering, Abbey Road Studios has a complete set of state-of-the-art noise reduction, equalization, and sound-add solutions that can perfectly reformate and repair a variety of early historical recordings through up to 32-bit computer audio workstations. A few years ago, it was said that Tencent Music Entertainment would cooperate with Universal Music to jointly design, develop and build "Abbey Road Studios in China" with the most top recording and production facilities.
Now it seems that the recording studio on Abbey Road is more like a wise man who has endured the vicissitudes of time and silence, and it has witnessed countless passers-by and glory, and the Beatles are just a particularly emotional and dazzling part of the passers-by. Pink Floyd was also a guest of honor in the late 1960s and 1970s, where their EMI albums were largely recorded, including the famous "The Dark Side of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here." Queen has also recorded countless of their important works here. Fame has allowed the studio to have better equipment and professional producers, thus attracting more excellent bands, and these excellent bands have also allowed the studio to grow further. This mutually supportive and mutually beneficial situation has allowed Abbey Road Studio to grow rapidly and revitalize itself.
Since then, more famous bands and musicians have relied on this place. Today, Abbey Road is becoming more and more lively, and the studio has expanded several times to include 6 recording studios with top-of-the-line equipment and a mixing stage. Duran Duran, Kate Bush in the '80s; Radiohead, Oasis, Coldplay in the '90s, Maroon 5, Lady GAGA, Adele, etc. that are now important in the music scene. Even many famous film interludes were recorded here, and the soundtrack works for The Lord of the Rings, Iron Man, and The Avengers were completed here.
Abbey Road Studio later added Gatehouse to meet the needs of new trends
In 2012, EMI sold the studio to Universal Music, nearly destroying it. However, in the face of public calls, it has finally survived. Universal Music has invested a lot of money to make Abbey Road conform to the modern and rapidly developing music and film business, in addition to retaining the classic Studios 1, 2 and 3, adding various types of recording studios, further trying to penetrate into the field of technology, continuously innovating in technology, constantly expanding the boundaries of recording technology, and is committed to providing coaching for emerging startups in the music field. For example, the small studio Gatehouse for mixing, editing, and recording, modern musicians only record vocals and some only record instruments, as well as electronic musicians, etc., do not have to rent expensive large sheds, you can also enjoy abbey Road services and hardware. There's also the very high-end Penthouse Studio for film music production, and the Dolby Atmos system with 44 microphones that can be recorded in Studio 1 and then dubbed here, simulating the presence of cinemas and iMax systems.
Penthouse Studio, designed for film soundtrack mixing
Abbey Road has also developed peripheral businesses around music recording, such as Abbey Road Academy, which provides teachers for young people who want to learn recording technology, and a hotel near the Abbey Road recording studio for long-term recording musicians to stay overnight. They even teamed up with Google to launch a digital virtual tour that gave you a glimpse behind the scenes of this sacred studio, including live recordings by Oasis and Paul McCartney, 360-degree surround films by the London Symphony Orchestra, various guided tours by many sound recordists and producers, and many digital versions of recording and mixing equipment for everyone to practice.
Sound recordist Christopher Parker also left many fever masterpieces at abbey Road Studios
Purely acoustically, a series of recordings produced by Capitol in the United States is the real gem in the EMI music library, in which conductor Stokovsky's records can be seen and received.
In the 1940s and 1950s, there were many East Coast record companies in the United States, a prosperous scene, while there were few large West Coast record companies. Capitol Records was founded and quickly grew into the first West Coast record label to compete with the big East Coast record labels, and in 1955 Capitol Records was acquired by EMI, and EMI built Capitol Studios across the Atlantic to benchmark its then world's most advanced Abbey Road Studios. Capitol Studios was completed in 1956 and the first musician to be welcomed was legendary singer Frank Sinatra. After hosting Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, The Beach Boys and other musicians, the star-studded Capitol Studios has become a Hollywood landmark and considered one of the most advanced recording studios in the world.