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

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northea ...

, and later relocated to colonial British Hong Kong 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. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, sli ...

. The company was an

Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the part of the world near the western Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific region varies in area depending on context, but it generally includes East Asia, Russian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Pacific Isla ...

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 Path� ...

based in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, and later of EMI 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 simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

to Chinese citizens who were curious. The phonograph 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 (; Ningbonese: ''gnin² poq⁷'' , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly romanized as Ningpo, is a major sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises 6 urban districts, 2 sate ...

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

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

, the company 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 record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

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(1995). Ethnic and Vernacular Music, 1898-1960: A Resource and Guide to Recordings. Greenwood Press. In the same decade, Pathé went under British EMI, which was originally seeking to make a profit on

The Bund The Bund or Waitan (, Shanghainese romanization: ''Nga3thae1'', , ) 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 Sh ...

selling

gramophone record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

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. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soc ...

music devoted to the

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. 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 1940s, the company held the

rights Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical th ...

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; with later influences coming from Japanese enka, Hong Kong's Cantopop, Taiwan's Hokkien p ...

songs.Shoesmith, Brian. Rossiter, Ned. 004(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 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

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

pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,

. Under Chairman

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also Romanization of Chinese, romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the List of national founde ...

, popular music produced and performed up to 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 ...

became associated with pornography and it was 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 British Hong Kong and started to cut records in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

(which there were made in China before moving its production to

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

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

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The te ...

of the

region. In the same year, Pathé Records entered a public-private joint venture with the state-run China Record Company (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" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater Chin ...

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 "Standard Cantonese, Cantonese pop music") or HK-pop (short for "Hong Kong pop music") is a genre of pop music written in standard Chinese and sung in Standard Cantonese, Cantonese. Cantopop is also used to refer to ...

instead, which gained popularity in the

Chinese mainland "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

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 EMI 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 just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

, 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