Neha Patil (Editor)

Legacy Recordings

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Genre
  
Various

Location
  
New York City

Parent organization
  
Sony Music

Country of origin
  
U.S.

Founded
  
1990

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Parent company
  
Sony Music Entertainment

Founder
  
CBS Records (Sony Music)

Distributor(s)
  
Sony Music Entertainment

Headquarters
  
New York City, New York, United States

Artists
  
George Michael, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash

Albums
  
Santana III, Songs of Leonard, The Wall, Thriller, Illmatic

Profiles

Legacy Recordings is a division of Sony Music. Formed in 1990 after Sony's acquiring CBS, Legacy handles the archives of Sony Music-owned Columbia Records, Epic Records, RCA Records, RCA Records Nashville, J Records, Windham Hill Records, Arista, LaFace, Jive, Buddah Records, and Philadelphia International Records. It also handles the catalog of recordings produced by Phil Spector.

Contents

This is not to be confused with the defunct British independent label Legacy Records.

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"The Essential" and "Playlist" album series

The Essential series are one-to-two disc compilations of an artist's extensive catalog. On occasion, albums in this series would have a limited edition third disc (Labeled Essential 3.0), or revised to include an artist's newer work (for example The Essential Bob Dylan). As of 2015, several volumes in the Essential series are also available on Vinyl LP.

Launched in 2009, Playlist is a series of single disc compilation albums based on artists' best studio work during their time on one of the Sony labels (for example, the Van Morrison Playlist only contains tracks from the BANG Records sessions), serving as a successor to the previous Super Hits series and a cheaper alternative to the Essential series. A spinoff series, Setlist, features compilations of artists' live performances.

The first several albums come in a special Eco-packet and to save paper, a PDF file is included on the disc, containing photographs, credits, and liner notes. This was met with criticism as the discs were easily scratched. Thus, in recent years, Playlist albums came packaged in standard, white-colored jewel cases.

Reception on the Playlist series varies between editions. See individual pages for more information.

References

Legacy Recordings Wikipedia