Victory Records is a Chicago-based record label founded by Tony Brummel. It is a privately held corporation with several imprint labels, as well as a music publishing company called "Another Victory Publishing."
Founder Tony Brummel has received media attention for his criticism of Apple Computer's iTunes music download service, which he believes "makes music disposable. It makes it a faceless impulse item. It steals its soul." Currently, music by bands signed to Victory Records can be purchased on iTunes, showing that Brummel has backtracked on this position; a few Victory albums have also been released on the Australian iTunes.
History
Originally focusing on hardcore punk or post-hardcore bands, Victory later expanded to metalcore, indie rock, ska punk, emo, and pop rock. The label has had multiple records exceeding the 250,000 sales mark, including one platinum record The Silence in Black and White by Hawthorne Heights, and three gold certified records Hawthorne Heights' If Only You Were Lonely , and Taking Back Sunday's Tell All Your Friends and Where You Want to Be .
In early 2002, 25% of the label was announced to have been sold to Universal Music Group. However later that year the deal was terminated by Victory. Victory is currently distributed by Sony BMG's RED Distribution.
Controversy
Hawthorne Heights Lawsuit
On August 7, 2006, the Victory-signed band Hawthorne Heights announced in a so-called "manifesto" on their website that they were leaving the label and filed a lawsuit against it, accusing Victory of fraudulent accounting practices and for "severely damag the band's reputation and relationship with their fans." Brummel allegedly issued public statements in the band's name criticizing hip-hop and singer Ne-Yo (whose CD In My Own Words was Hawthorne Heights' most prominent competition on the Billboard 200 charts), as well as urging street team members to conceal copies of Ne-Yo's CD in record stores. On September 13, 2006, Victory records countersued Hawthorne Heights, accusing the band of breach of contract and libel.
In October 2006, a Chicago judge dismissed two of the three main claims in the band's suit, ruling that the trademark and copyright violation allegations were unfounded. On March 5, 2007 a federal judge in Chicago ruled that Victory Records does not hold exclusive rights for the band's recording services and that the band can record for any label. Specifically, the Judge stated: "The agreement contains no exclusivity provision, nor does any of its language appear to prevent from recording elsewhere during the life of the agreement". The judge later reaffirmed this ruling on May 17, 2007, stating that Hawthorne Heights is still contractually bound to deliver two albums to Victory, but may record albums which are released elsewhere.
In January 2008, Victory filed a lawsuit against Virgin/EMI Records alleging that "Virgin/EMI improperly induced platinum-selling band Hawthorne Heights to repudiate its contract with top independent label Victory Records," including allegations that Virgin/EMI funded the initial phase of Hawthorne Heights' lawsuit against Victory. The suit sought actual damages of $10M and punitive damages of $25M.
Relations With Other Bands
Former Victory bands Hawthorne Heights, Thursday, Atreyu and Taking Back Sunday have also had bad relationships with the label, although Thursday returned to Victory in 2007. Thursday stated in the DVD accompanying their compilation album Kill the House Lights that they chose to go to a major label (Island Def Jam in 2002) and, after getting dropped, Tony Brummel and Victory Records welcomed Thursday "back with open arms."
Victory Records and founder Tony Brummel have been referenced or satirized in numerous songs by other bands within the hardcore (or various sub-genres thereof) community, including:
- "Standing In Front of Bulldog Records" and "Tony Victory Knows How to Party" by Thrashcore/Powerviolence band Charles Bronson, the former based on a prank call to Victory Records.
- "Get The Kid With the Sideburns" by 90's hardcore band Reversal Of Man, which references Victory Records Founder Tony Brummel as "Tony Victory" (a common nickname for Brummel, appearing frequently in the "Thanks" section of liner notes of albums released through Victory Records), calling him "corporate rock."
- Good Clean Fun has a song entitled "V.R.S." which stands for Victory Records Sucks.
- MK Ultra's song entitled "Bring Me The Head of Tony Victory"
- New Jersey based Grindcore band xECFCx has a song called "I Also Left My Heart In Ohio (Tony Victory Is a Fucking Liar)." The Song complains about Victory Records and calls Hawthorne Heights "vacuous pop music" and compares them to Britney Spears.
- In 2009, Andrew Elderbaum, formerly of Victory Records pop punk band Bayside, announced he was creating a band called Victory Records. Elderbaum stated "I have a new project called Victory Records, and when Tony gets around to suing me after he finishes duping some other 18 year old kid into signing away his songs for 5 albums, we'll change the name to Victory Rex, because satire is protected by the constitution and Brummel is not." The band's bio on their MySpace page also states " decided to call the band Victory Records as an hommage to the bald man whose commericalization of peoples heart and soul made all this disillusionment possible", referring to Tony Victory.
- Also in 2009, ska band Streetlight Manifesto released a music video on YouTube for their single "Would You Be Impressed?"; a cartoon video animated by Jurjen Bosklopper using animals and hunters to satire Victory Records' treatment of the band. The band released the following statement:
"The creation of this video was funded entirely by the band, after our label refused to help us make a second video for our record. Our record label forced YouTube to remove our last music video from our account by claiming that using our own recorded music was a 'copyright violation'. If this video disappears from our account, we just want everyone to understand why. If you dig our band, or any band for that matter, make sure your support goes straight to the band and not to the companies that often times reap the benefits of the band's success without actually ever helping the band. Thanks."
Artists
- See List of Victory Records artists
See also
- List of record labels
- Victory Records artists
References
- ^ iTunes steals music's soul, MacWorld, 2006-02-16
- ^ Victory Records: Cute Without the eMusic, Strange Glue, 2007-04-04
- ^ MCA acquires 25% of Victory Records, PunkNews, 2002-04-17
- ^ MCA / Victory deal falls apart, PunkNews, 2002-10-20
- ^ a b The REAL Manifesto,Hawthorne Heights, 2006
- ^ a b Hawthorne Heights Sue Victory Records - News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News
- ^ Hawthorne Heights Say Don't Believe Your Inbox - News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News
- ^ Punknews, Victory files countersuit 10/13/2006
- ^ Victory Records Countersues Hawthorne Heights - News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News
- ^ Montgomery, James (2006-10-20). "Hawthorne Heights Dealt Damaging Blow In Case Against Record Label". MTV News . http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1543656/20061020/hawthorne_heights.jhtml . Retrieved 2007-02-27 .
- ^ Jack, Soapy (2007-03-06). "Hawthorne Heights Wins Partial Legal Victory". Billboard . http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/search/google/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003554353 . Retrieved 2007-05-09 .
- ^ Jack, Soapy (2007-05-17). "Hawthorne Heights Not Bound To Victory". Billboard . http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003587670 . Retrieved 2007-05-18 . ...
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