Sony has cleaned house a bit by shutting down the Arista, Jive and J Records labels and moving all of the artists under the RCA umbrella.
Clive Davies founded Arista in 1974. Arista artists include Whitney Houston, P. Diddy, Aretha Franklin, Iggy Pop. Kenny G, Eurythmics, Annie Lennox and Barry Manilow.
Davies then founded J. Records in 2000. J artists include Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys, Leona Lewis, Jennifer Hudson, Carlos Santana and Kelly Clarkson.
RCA COO Tom Corson told the Hollywood Reporter, “The concept is that there is value in branding RCA and not having it confused or diluted by other labels. The artists have all been supportive. We didn’t make this move without consulting our artists, and we haven’t had any push-back. Frankly, they’re the brand. We’re defined by our artists.”
Corson said that somewhere down the track “there may be a reason to bring them back.’
Right now for Sony, and RCA, it was time to ‘clean the slate.’