Fascination Records
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| Fascination Records | |
|---|---|
| Parent company | Universal Music Group |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Status | active |
| Distributor(s) | Interscope-Geffen-A&M (In the USA) Polydor Records (Outside the USA) |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Official Website | http://www.fascinationrecords.co.uk |
Fascination Records is a UK-based record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operated as an imprint of Polydor Records. The label was launched in spring 2006, and is managed by former TOTP Magazine editor Peter Loraine. It concentrates on a relatively small number of pop acts and will complement the re-activated Fiction rock imprint.
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[edit] Main artists
[edit] Pre-established artists
A five piece girl group, The Saturdays consist of Frankie Sandford and Rochelle Wiseman, formerly of S Club 8, along with Mollie King, Una Healy and Vanessa White. They have supported Girls Aloud on the tour for their Tangled Up album and fellow labelmates Jonas Brothers at one of their recent live dates in London. Their first single, "If This Is Love" was released on 28 July 2008 and peaked at no. 8 in the UK singles chart. The follow-up single, "Up" was released on 13 October 2008 and peaked at no. 5 in the UK singles chart. Up has become their best selling single, shifting over 311,000 copies. The debut album, titled Chasing Lights was released on 27 October 2008 and received very favourable reviews from The Times and The Guardian. The album debuted at no. 9 in the UK. In January 2009, The Saturdays released their third single "Issues". "Issues" peaked at no. 4 in the charts after initially debuting at no. 6. The same month Chasing Lights climbed the album charts to its new peak of no. 9. In January 2009, the group's website announced the release of their fourth single, a cover of the Depeche Mode song "Just Can't Get Enough" as one of the official Comic Relief 2009 singles. It peaked at no. 2 marking this as one of their highest charting single.[1] From here, the band embarked on their own headlining tour - "The Work Tour", which coincided with the release of their 5th single "Work". "Work" peaked at no. 22. The band then released their 6th single "Forever Is Over", which peaked at no. 2, equaling the success of "Just Can't Get Enough". A week later "Wordshaker" was released, peaking at no. 9. They went onto release "Ego" which also peaked at no. 9, however becoming their 2nd best selling single, with over 307,000 sales. The band released their 8th single "Missing You" which charted at Number Three and a mini-album Headlines which became their highest peaking album to date reaching Number Three, beating the success of both début album Chasing Lights and second album Wordshaker. The Saturdays then went on to release their 9th single "Higher" which unofficially peaked at number one in the mid-week charts however slipped back down to number 10. The Saturdays then embarked on their second sell out UK national tour in February 2011 where information of their fourth studio album, tenth single and third tour were announced to fans.
Having become the first all-girl group ever to score 20 consecutive Top 10 hits with their first set of releases (as part of Polydor), taking the record from Destiny's Child who had 11 to their name, Girls Aloud are one of the most successful girls bands in the Uk with all albums being certified platinum and having 4 number one singles. Girls Aloud moved to Fascination for the release of their greatest hits album The Sound of Girls Aloud which went triple platinum and selling over millon copies in the UK, and its preceding singles "Something Kinda Ooooh" (no. 3), "I Think We're Alone Now" (no. 4) and non album/Comic Relief single "Walk This Way" with Sugababes (no. 1). Their 4th studio album, Tangled Up was released on this label on 19 November 2007, and featured their 16th single, "Sexy! No, No, No..." (which reached no. 5), their 17th single, "Call the Shots", (which reached no. 3) and their 18th single, "Can't Speak French", (which reached no. 9). The girls' 5th studio album Out Of Control, and 6th overall, will be released via this label on 10 November 2008, and was preceded by their 19th single "The Promise", which was released on 20 October 2008. It entered at no. 1 on the UK singles charts, making it Girls Aloud's 19th consecutive top 10 hit and 4th no. 1 of their career. The second single from the album, "The Loving Kind" (co-written with the Pet Shop Boys) became their 20th consecutive top 10 hit upon its release in January 2009, and the final single, "Untouchable" was released on 27 April 2009 and became the group's first single to not reach the top ten in the UK, instead peaking at no. 11. They are currently on hiatus.
Later after she confirmed she has collaborated with Aggro Santos on his new single, "Like U Like", she announced that she would also release a solo album under the label of Fascination.
Shooting to fame as the singer of Spiller's "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)", Sophie went on to score a string of Top 10 singles. Her multi-platinum album Read My Lips peaked straightly to the UK Top and was a success throughout many European Countries and Australia. After the release of her second album, Shoot from the Hip, Sophie took a break from music to have a baby and to marry Richard Jones from The Feeling. She finished her third solo album in 2007 with the Fascination team, which was released on 21 May 2007. It is entitled Trip the Light Fantastic with the first single from it being "Catch You", released on 19 February 2007, becoming her 7th Top 10 Hit. Also, she released "Me and My Imagination", the second single from her 3rd album, reaching the UK Top 40 again. Her third single released by Fascination was considered a flop, however. The album debuted inside the Top 10 in the first week of its release in the United Kingdom, and was certified as Gold a year later.[2] Her collaboration with dance producers Freemasons on the track Heartbreak (Make Me A Dancer) returned her to the UK top 20 in July 2009, and in May 2010, Bittersweet, the first single from Sophie's fourth album Make A Scene was released and gave her another top 30 hit, peaking at #26. She also embarked on her first UK tour in nearly 8 years during December of that year.
After scoring three UK top 20 hits in 2008 from their debut UK top 10 album Alphabeat, the Danish outfit signed a new UK record deal with Fascination in 2009 for the release of their second album. The Spell, retitled The Beat Is... for UK release, produced two UK top 30 hits: "The Spell", which reached #20 in October 2009, and "Hole in My Heart", which reached #29 in February 2010. The third single from the album, "DJ", however, failed to chart at all. Under Fascination, Alphabeat also completed two UK tours in 2009/2010.
Bananarama have signed a deal for a new album titled Viva. Viva is the tenth studio album recorded by the British vocal duo Bananarama. It was released by Fascination Records on 14 September 2009 in the UK. It contains the singles "Love Comes", "Love Don't Live Here" and other new tracks co-written by Dallin and Woodward, as well as 3 cover versions – "Rapture" (originally by iiO), "The Runner" (originally a 1979 hit for The Three Degrees) and "S-S-S-Single Bed"" (originally by Fox).
[edit] Imports
Fascination handles the UK releases of several acts who are signed to USA label Hollywood Records
Fascination are releasing the UK singles and albums for the three piece American pop rock group. Their debut UK single, "SOS" was released in June 2008 and peaked inside the UK top 20 at no. 14. Their self titled debut UK album was also released in this month and reached the UK top 10 album chart at no. 9. Their second UK single release is the double-a-side "Burnin' Up"/"When You Look Me in the Eyes". The single was released on 22 September 2008 and peaked at no. 30, followed a week later on 29 September 2008 by their new album A Little Bit Longer which peaked at UK no. 19 in the album chart.
The Hannah Montana star released her debut album Breakout in the UK with Fascination in 2008. On the 9th November 2009 she released her new album The Time of Our Lives, with the lead single being "Party in the USA".
The Camp Rock star is releasing her music in the UK with Fascination. Her first UK release was "La La Land" from Don't Forget, it peaked at 36 on the UK Top 40. She released her second album on the 5th October 2009 called Here We Go Again.
The multi-talented star's band released their hit single "Naturally" on April 12, 2010 and their album Kiss & Tell the following week , the single debuted and peaked at 7 on the UK Top 40 and the album at no. 12.
[edit] Television Tie-ins
The winner of the BBC1 show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? released her debut album Favourite Things on Fascination on October 9, 2006. Her debut album peaked no. 14 on the UK Albums Chart.
As with Connie, Lee, the winner of BBC1's Any Dream Will Do has been signed to this label. His debut single of the same name entered on downloads at no. 18 before peaking at no. 2 the following week behind "Umbrella" by Rihanna feat. Jay Z. Fascination also released his self titled debut album in November 2007, which peaked inside the Top 20 of the UK Albums Chart, and his two download only singles "Gonna Make You A Star" and "You and Me".
- Dirty Diegos
Fascination announced on their website on 8 October 2008 that they have recently signed the fictional band who feature in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. Their official MySpace was launched on 23 October 2008 and has a 60 second preview of their debut single, "Play", which will be released digitally on 23 November 2008 in the UK.
[edit] Soundtracks and compilations
The soundtrack to the film version of the Abba musical was released through Fascination in July 2008. The cast's cover of "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" was released digitally as a single in July 2008.
Fascination in collaboration with Globe (the TV production arm of Universal Music Group) and ITV1 released the soundtrack to this new Fame-style TV series, that went to air in the UK on 26 October 2008. The first single and theme tune to the series, "Start of Something", which has been written by Take That star Gary Barlow is available to download for free from the official programme website.
- Skins
The soundtrack to the Channel 4 drama series was released on this label in September 2007.
The soundtrack to this film (which featured the label's own Girls Aloud singing the theme from the film) was released through Fascination in December 2007. Fascination also released the soundtrack for its 2009 sequel, St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold, which featured contributions from Fascination artists such as The Saturdays and Girls Aloud's Sarah Harding and five new songs produced by Xenomania from The "Banned" of St. Trinian's - who released their debut and only single, Up & Away for digital download on 30 November 2009.
- Popjustice
The Popjustice compilation album, Popjustice: 100% Solid Pop Music, has also been released on this label.
[edit] Former artists
The German punk pop band released their debut UK single "Ready, Set, Go!" under the label on 27 August 2007 but could only reach no. 77, and were dropped from their label in April 2008.
- Paul Steel
Singer songwriter Paul Steel was touted by the Sunday Times as one to watch. He released a debut, 10 track EP entitled April And I in March 2007 and released debut single "Your Loss" on 3 September, which failed to chart. Debut album 'Moon Rock' and the follow-up single 'I Will Make You Disappear' were cancelled for release and he was dropped in April 2008.
Girls Can't Catch are the newest artists to join Fascination Records. They have released a song, "Keep Your Head Up", on August 3, 2009, and peaked at no. 26 on the UK Singles Chart, their second single "Echo" peaked in the top 20.[3] It was reported on 12 July 2010 that the band had been dropped by their record label.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ BBC Radio 1 Singles Chart
- ^ Gold status for Sophie's 3rd album
- ^ UK Singles Chart everyhit.co.uk
- ^ Brooks, Laura. "Sad news everyone. Girls Can't Catch have been dropped". teentoday.co.uk. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
