A great read in LA Magazine - an excerpt from the book 'Sonic Boom' by Peter Ames Carlin about the rise of Warner/Reprise from a jazz small-house to a rock'n'roll powerhouse. It all started when Reprise Records president Mo Ostin signed Jimi Hendrix which turned out to be a great success, against expectations from other label bosses. Then, in an afternoon in 1967, Ostin gave the company’s troops the most unexpected direction ever uttered by a top executive at a corporate record label: “Let’s stop trying to make hit records”. Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, and Gordon Lightfoot followed.

Warner Records released two flagship albums simultaneously on Friday, March 27th: Dua Lipa's 'Future Nostalgia' and PartyNextDoor's 'PartyMobile', the latter featuring Rihanna’s first new vocal for three years. Warner's COO Tom Corson explained to the Rolling Stone: “Music is very of the moment - it captures a time. To say, ‘Let’s push these releases back a number of months,’ which we did consider, felt very risky from the standpoint that we had momentum and great music that people wanted to hear”. Streaming services were happy with the decision, Corson adds - "There was a real excitement of ‘This is just what we need!’".