Giant Records (Warner Bros. subsidiary label)

Giant Records was launched as a joint-venture in 1990 between Warner Bros. Records and Irving Azoff, who had sold his companies to MCA Records for $15.7 million. Azoff had wanted to call his label Big Records originally, but that name had been taken. Warner saw this as a replacement for Geffen Records, which had been purchased by MCA Music Entertainment the same year. Giant used the catalog numbers that would have been assigned to Geffen, had it remained with Warner Bros.

A start-up label for Warner Music Group (then called WEA), that at the time also bankrolled another new imprint, Interscope Records.

Giant scored hits with such acts as MC Hammer, Tara Kemp, Color Me Badd, Jade, Lord Finesse, and teen pop star Jeremy Jordan. The greatest venture was the 1991 soundtrack for New Jack City movie which sold 16 million copies domestically under the leadership of Cassandra Mills President of the Urban Division. The company also signed Steely Dan, Deep Purple, Oingo Boingo, Morbid Angel and later Brian Wilson, and released "If Only My Heart Had A Voice" by Kenny Rogers in 1993, who had previously recorded a number of albums for Warner's Reprise Records label.

While the company was good at launching the careers of new artists (namely R&B, hip-hop, and Country acts), it often had trouble sustaining their success for an extended period of time. In 1993, Giant became dissatisfied with the way Warner was handling its international affairs and subsequently struck up a deal with BMG to distribute its records outside of the U.S.

By the mid/late 1990s, Giant was quickly unraveling. In a bid to begin anew, the company changed most of its staff and renamed itself Revolution Records in 1996. By decades end, the company went back to calling itself Giant Records again, to little effect. During this time, it distributed Paladin Records, which included country-trip hop artist Greg Garing and singer-songwriter Steve Forbert.

In 2001, Warner Music Group ended its joint-venture with Giant, which was absorbed into its Warner Bros. parent. The last Giant release, however, did carry the originally intended Big Records name.

List of Giant Records artists

The following artists have all released recordings on Giant Records:
*Above the Law
*Ahmad
*Deborah Allen
*Air Supply
*Army of Lovers
*Peter Blakeley
*Big Head Todd and the Monsters
*Tony Banks
*Carlene Carter
*Manu Dibango
*Certain Distant Suns
*Mark Collie
*Color Me Badd
*The D.O.C.
*Deep Purple
*Disturbed
*Divine Styler
*Thomas Dolby
*Hank Flamingo
*Steve Forbert
*Greg Garing
*Keith Harling
*Jade
*Jeremy Jordan
*i5
*Tara Kemp
*Letters to Cleo
*Lord Finesse
*MC Hammer
*Neal McCoy
*Tim Mensy
*Georgia Middleman
*Morbid Angel
*Oingo Boingo
*Orrall & Wright
*Pirates of the Mississippi
*Tad
*Pudgee tha Phat Bastard
*The Reese Project
*Regina Regina
*Dennis Robbins
*Kenny Rogers
*Shello
*Blake Shelton
*Kenny Wayne Sheppard
*Daryle Singletary
*Roger Springer
*Steely Dan
*Super Deluxe
*Sway & King Tech
*Doug Supernaw
*Tony Thompson
*Too Much Joy
*Valentine
*Rhonda Vincent
*Clay Walker
*Chris Ward
*Brian Wilson
*The Wilkinsons
*Warren Zevon

See also

* List of record labels