Ensign Records was a

record label "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...

started in 1976 by London-born Nigel Grainge, elder brother of UMG Chairman Sir

Lucian Grainge Sir Lucian Charles Grainge (born 29 February 1960) is a British record executive who has served as chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Universal Music Group since 2010. Beginning as an A&R staffer in the late 1970s, Grainge has work ...

History

Nigel Grainge began his career in the record business as a sales office assistant at Phonogram UK in 1970. After a promotion to US-affiliated labels manager, he was responsible for the marketing and chart success of many hits by acts such as Faron Young,

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(switching " Maggie May" from an original 'B' side), and eventually became the company's head of A&R from 1974 to 1976. He directly signed

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, and a worldwide license for the successful All Platinum label (hits by Shirley & Co, the Moments, etc.), among others, before deciding to leave and set up his own independent label, funded by Phonogram Inc., which distributed it. Ensign had early success with

The Boomtown Rats The Boomtown Rats are an Irish rock/ new wave band originally formed in Dublin in 1975. Between 1977 and 1985, they had a series of Irish and UK hits including " Like Clockwork", " Rat Trap", " I Don't Like Mondays" and " Banana Republic". T ...

in 1977, who went on to have 13 UK Top 20 entries including two at number 1 – " Rat Trap" and "

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". Ensign also had a constant stream of UK and European hits with

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, Light of the World, and Phil Fearon & Galaxy. Grainge's cohort throughout the life of the label was London DJ Chris Hill. Grainge sold the company to

Chrysalis Records Chrysalis Records () is a British independent record label that was founded in 1968. The name is both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders' names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis. It started as the Ell ...

in 1984 and continued to run it from their offices in Notting Hill until the mid-1990s. The roster had reached its most credible peak with

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, World Party, and the Blue Aeroplanes. The Waterboys' contract with Ensign expired in 1991. By 1990, millions of records had been sold by O'Connor, the biggest success being " Nothing Compares 2 U" which hit number one in over 30 countries. After

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 ...

acquired Chrysalis Records in 1991, Grainge felt stifled by the corporate changes and requested to leave the company, and the label was folded into its parent. With the acquisition of the EMI group by Universal in 2012, the ownership of the Ensign catalogue of artists was transferred to

Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 1923 as the Parloph ...

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...

, and in 2016 Ensign and Chrysalis were acquired by

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. Chris Hill continues to DJ in the London area, and Grainge relocated to

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in 2002, where he co-founded cultural search-engine TunesMap, owned by G. Marq Roswell, and worked as a special advisor on the HBO series ''

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''. He died, at age 70, on 11 June 2017.

History

References

See also