Polar Music is a Swedish

record company "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and t ...

founded in 1963 by Stig Anderson and his friend Bengt Bernhag.

Background

The first act that Polar Music signed was the

Hootenanny Singers The Hootenanny Singers are a popular Folk music, folk group from Västervik, Sweden, founded in 1961. The group included Björn Ulvaeus, who later became a member of ABBA. Other band members were Johan Karlberg (b. Karl Johan Hilding Karlberg ...

featuring

Björn Ulvaeus Björn Kristian Ulvaeus (; born 25 April 1945) is a Swedish musician, singer, songwriter, and producer best known as a member of the musical group ABBA. He is also the co-composer of the musicals ''Chess (musical), Chess'', ''Kristina från Duve ...

. Polar eventually gained prosperity producing Ulvaeus' next group, international superstars

ABBA ABBA ( ) were a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. They are one of the most popular and successful musical groups of all time, and are one of the List ...

. As a small Scandinavian company based in Sweden, Polar could not afford to set up operations worldwide and was ABBA's record company only in the Scandinavian countries. Therefore, ABBA's recordings were licensed to different record companies in each country, but usually to companies that had international operations, meaning they could effectively compete with each other to acquire the licenses in more countries if they proved successful in their own. The licenses gave the companies a few allowances to issue certain tracks as singles that Polar had not, or to modify single (and occasionally album) artwork. The licenses were for three years at a time, meaning that between 1989 and 1992 they all expired. This enabled PolyGram to release '' Gold: Greatest Hits'' to major success around the world. Polar Music is currently distributed by

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...

whose predecessor company, PolyGram, purchased it in 1989. However, Polar Music International AB legally still exists and ABBA's recordings remain copyrighted to the company. Polar is now ABBA's record label internationally, and the historic Polar vinyl label designs have been used on the group's CD releases since 2004 (usually on deluxe releases of studio albums). The Polar Music Prize, an award for outstanding musical achievement, was created by Stig Anderson, the same year after he sold the label to PolyGram.

Polar Music artists

Artists signed by Polar Music included ABBA, Alive Feat, Jessie Martins, Lena Andersson, Chana, Crosstalk, Dilba, Emilia,

Anni-Frid Lyngstad Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad (born 15 November 1945), also known simply as Frida, is a Swedish singer who is best known as one of the founding members and lead singers of the pop band ABBA. Courtesy titles ''Principality of Reuss-Gera, Princess Re ...

Agnetha Fältskog Agneta Åse "Agnetha" Fältskog (; born 5 April 1950) is a Swedish singer, songwriter, and a former member of the pop group ABBA. She first achieved success in Sweden with the release of her 1968 Agnetha Fältskog (album), self-titled debut alb ...

and Linda Ulvaeus, Ted Gärdestad, Gemini, The Hellacopters, The Infinite Mass, Fredrik Kempe,

Lambretta Lambretta () was a brand of motor scooters, manufactured in Milan, Italy, by Innocenti. The name is derived from the word Lambrate, the suburb of Milan named after the river Lambro which flows through the area, and where the factory was locat ...

, Maarja, Paulo Mendonça, Mr. Vegas Fea Intense, Emma Nilsdotter, Mats Paulson, Pineforest Crunch, Sam (musician), Skintrade, Starr Chukki/infinit, Svenne and Lotta (Sven Hedlund and Charlotte Walker), Joey Tempest, Top-Notch, Harpo (Jan Torsten Svensson), Topaz Sound and Anders Widmark. The last band to be signed to Polar were Beagle whose two albums for the label ''Sound On Sound'' and ''Within'' are considered to be power-pop classics.

References

{{Reflist Swedish record labels Record labels established in 1963 Pop record labels Labels distributed by Universal Music Group Polar Music albums ABBA Companies based in Stockholm 1963 establishments in Sweden

Background

Polar Music artists

See also

References