Amiga (record label)
Amiga (own spelling also: AMIGA ) was a record label founded by Ernst Busch Music Publishing Song Of Time Vinyl -Gesellschaft mbH, Berlin. In 1954 it was transferred to the East German state record producers VEB German records and Berlin was now subordinate to the Ministry of Culture in the VEB. Amiga should cover the spectrum of popular music. This included beat, rock and pop music as well as jazz, pop, folk music and popular instrumental music. Amiga was founded on February 3, 1947 and lasted until 1994. Since the repertoire of more than 30,000 titles ( 2200 and 5000 singles record productions ) of the BMG Berlin Musik GmbH, now marketed Sony Music Entertainment. As a brand name for releases of recordings from the communist era Amiga is still used.
Repertoire
The core repertoire of Amiga consisted of dance and entertainment music by artists from the GDR. The allocation of the musical genre as well as the selection of the artists, their pieces and texts was subject to the state guidelines of the GDR's cultural policy. Pop and Rock / Pop took last 25% of the total output, a blues / jazz and folk at 15 %, the rest is spread out with mood music, children's songs and light classics. After the advent of rock ' n ' roll and beat in the 1960s, the "hard beat" was frowned upon quickly, instead pop field were also in the Rock / preferably produced pieces with " songlike " character.
Chance also supported by Amiga productions, especially of Karat, Silly, and the Puhdys City, in the Federal Republic of Germany were taken as a license, including the West German record label Teldec. In the area of free jazz Amiga took over against " Western" images of Free Music Production DDR - musicians, for example, by Ulrich Gumpert Workshop Band and the trio Kowald Smith summer and published them as Amiga disk. Also in the late 1980s, there were co-productions with Western contractors. Among other things, some shots of Eastern artists in the West Berlin Ariola Studio were recorded or supervised by western guest producers.
Licensed production
In addition to artists from the GDR also selected singles and LPs by artists from Western countries were laid under license from the mid- 1960s, which were sold out quickly due to the low overall offer of Western music and the usually short runs mostly. In most cases, no single albums were licensed, but a compilation of tracks from multiple albums of the artist. One of the first license LPs included in the 1960 albums of the Beatles and Bob Dylan. In the early 1970s, it was because of the restrictive cultural policy and the scarce foreign exchange mostly only license pressings of Eastern European artists such as Czeslaw Niemen or Omega before in the late 1970s and especially with the declining popularity of national productions in the 1980s again numerous license pressings of known Artists from the United States, the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany appeared. Jazz and blues licenses issued within the ranks Amiga Jazz and Blues Collection later, by which BB King, Klaus Doldinger, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Champion Jack Dupree, Howlin 'Wolf, Bessie Smith and others were laid.
The selection of the pressed in West Royalty productions followed this culture also political considerations. The license Publications offered within the GDR itself had " to unite artistic quality with bourgeois- humanist or socialist attitude ". Compared to so-called permission productions that were offered primarily for foreign exchange in Intershops, were less restrictive requirements.
Sampler
In addition to individual albums, numerous compilation including the appeared in 16 episodes from 1972 to 1976 series Hi were published (some with poster insert) The great success from 1976 to 1989. Use the appeared in over 20 episodes compilation series cloverleaf were and the annual compilation from the late 1970s, four bands or performers, each with several tracks featured on an album. Under the name Amiga Quartett plates were released in single format, each with four pieces.
Cover and packaging
The record covers of all publications were designed by the company's own design department and produced Gotha - pressure at VEB. The lead time for publication was there up to half a year.
The LPs (mostly it was individual LPs, rarely double LPs, LP boxes or the like have been published) were mostly delivered in a simple four-color LP- sleeve with neutral interior shell. Inserts or covers in special formats were rare exceptions. Also for the license pressings own LP covers were mostly designed, often emulated the to the design of the original editions, but were also frequently changed political details. So when the band photos an LP by Herbert Grönemeyer, the drummer had been retouched, because he moved from the GDR to the Federal Republic in 1978. In an LP of John Lennon did not prepare a summary contained on the cover of the U.S. Constitution.
The singles appeared frequently of time and lack of money only in neutral envelopes or uniformly designed hole covers. Although the singles had Custom Covers, they often fell out very easily. Thus, the cover design of many Amiga Singles only from Scripture, and the three published in 1965 Beatles singles each use the same Cover. Basically, Amiga differed with this cost-saving method significantly from the record companies in the Federal Republic of Germany, which used full print designs.
Edition Strongest productions
The Amiga productions with the highest requirements were the following albums:
- Christmas in family with Frank Schöbel and Aurora Lacasa ( around 1.4 million copies)
- Rock'n Roll Music of the Puhdys ( around 1.1 million copies)
- The blue planet of carats ( about 1 million copies)
Pricing
The price of an Amiga Longplay was solid at 16.10 East German marks. The Amiga LPs whose numbers begin with 845, were sold for 12.10 East German marks, about folk records or music productions for children. Also for double albums, singles and music cassettes have fixed prices. Occasionally Remnants were sold at the lower price.