Maverick Records

Maverick Records
Maverick Records
Parent company	Warner Music Group
Founded	1992
Founder	Frederick DeMann; Madonna; Ronnie Dashev
Status	Defunct 2009 (folded into Warner Bros. Records
Distributor(s)	Warner Bros. Records; Rhino Entertainment; (re-issues)
Genre	Various
Country of origin	US

Maverick Recording Company was an American record label owned and operated by Warner Music Group, and distributed through Warner Bros. Records. The label was founded in 1992 by Madonna, Frederick DeMann and Veronica "Ronnie" Dashev. Active from the early 1990s through the middle 2000s, the label scored its more notable success with such acts as Alanis Morissette, Michelle Branch, The Prodigy, Deftones and Candlebox. Since 2008, however, the label has been in hibernation, with its retained acts now recording for Warner Bros. directly.

Company history [edit]

Beginnings [edit]

Maverick Records was launched in April 1992 as unit of the Maverick entertainment company; a joint venture between Madonna, Frederick DeMann, Veronica "Ronnie" Dashev and Time Warner.^[1] The name is combined from the names of the main founders Madonna Veronica and Frederick. At the time of its launch, the company was bi-coastal; having offices in both New York City and Los Angeles. The record company division of Maverick also consisted of sub-label, Maverick Musica (a Miami, Florida-based satellite label focusing on Latin-American music) and Maverick Music Publishing.

The first album to feature the Maverick Records name and logo was Madonna's fifth studio album, Erotica, released in 1992.

Commercial Success [edit]

Maverick's first commercial success was with the self-titled debut album by Seattle-based grunge rock band Candlebox; released in 1993, the album would go on to be RIAA certified quadruple platinum in the United States. The following year, the label signed Canadian musician Alanis Morissette, whose third album (and Maverick debut) Jagged Little Pill was released in 1995, and would be eventually certified 16x platinum in the U.S. (with international sales of thirty-three million)–making it the best selling album in the labels history, and of the 1990s.

Throughout the 1990s to the middle 2000s, Maverick would also release albums by Michelle Branch, Meshell Ndegeocello, U.N.V., Dana Dane, N-Phase, The Prodigy, Cleopatra, Tyler Hilton, Deftones, No Authority and William Orbit.

Litigation and Decline [edit]

By the early 2000s, Maverick saw its commercial fortunes decline and business operations financially unravel. In March 2004, the label filed suit against Warner Music Group (and its former parent company, Time Warner); claiming that mismanagement of resources and poor bookkeeping had cost the company millions of dollars. Warner filed a countersuit, alleging that Maverick had lost tens of millions of dollars on its own.^[2]^[3] On June 14, 2004, the dispute was resolved when Maverick shares owned by Madonna and Dashev were purchased — which effectively exiled the two of them from the company, as it then became a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Music Group. Then Maverick CEO Guy Oseary, meanwhile, would retain his position until WMG purchased his label shares in 2006. The same year, the band Lillix, which at the time was signed to the label, claimed that the Maverick no longer existed and that all the artists were now handled by Warner Bros. directly. In the years to follow, Maverick would release few albums, until it ultimately went into hibernation.

As of 2012, Maverick Records two most successful artists Alanis Morissette and Michelle Branch are no longer affiliated the label. Morissette left in 2009 after the release of Flavors of Entanglement, while Branch left in 2007 after disbanding The Wreckers.

Maverick Records brought young file-sharer Whitney Harper to court and won the case. Harper was ordered to pay $750 per song for the three dozen uploaded on the Internet.^[4]