Calderstone Productions facts for kids

Calderstone Productions is a company based in London, England. It is part of a much larger music company called Universal Music Group. Calderstone Productions is in charge of managing and releasing the recorded music of the famous band, the Beatles.

The Beatles' music was first released on different record labels. In the United Kingdom, their early songs came out on the Parlophone label. In the United States, their music was released by Capitol Records. This was from 1962 to 1968. After that, from 1968 to 1970, The Beatles started their own record label called Apple Records, which was also distributed by EMI.

What is Calderstone Productions?

Calderstone Productions manages all the music The Beatles made. This includes their famous albums and songs. They make sure this music is available for people to listen to today.

How Calderstone Productions Started

In 2013, a very big music company called Universal Music bought another large music company, EMI. When Universal Music bought EMI, they also got the rights to all of The Beatles' amazing music.

To help manage The Beatles' music around the world, Universal Music created Calderstone Productions. At first, this company had a different name, "Beatles Holdco Ltd."

The Story of the Parlophone Label

When Universal Music bought EMI, some rules were put in place by governments. These rules wanted to make sure that one company didn't become too big. So, Universal Music had to sell some parts of EMI. One of these parts was the Parlophone record label. Parlophone was sold to another big music company called Warner Music Group in 2013.

Even though Parlophone was sold, Calderstone Productions still releases The Beatles' music. They mostly use The Beatles' own label, Apple Records, for releases everywhere. In the United States, they also use Apple/Capitol. If you see an old Beatles album that originally had the Parlophone logo, it still keeps that logo. This is because of a special agreement with Warner Music.

Solo Music from The Beatles

Calderstone Productions also manages some of the solo music made by individual members of The Beatles. This includes songs by John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr that were originally released on the Apple label.

However, Paul McCartney's solo music that was released on the Apple label is managed by his own company, MPL Communications. Since 2016, Universal Music's Capitol Records helps to distribute Paul McCartney's music.