The Columbia label goes back to 1888, when a company of that name was formed in the US to distribute Edison’s phonographs and cylinders.

It opened an English operation shortly afterwards. This was sold in 1922, and then the independent UK Columbia Graphophone Company itself purchased its almost bankrupt former parent the late 1920s. This was then purchased by The Gramophone Company, which had been set up in the UK in 1896 by William Barry Owen and E. Trevor Williams. This company was renamed Electrical And Musical Industries Ltd in 1931.

US anti-trust laws forced the UK company to divest itself of its US operations that year and the two severed all relationships.

For the new few decades the Columbia label was exclusively an EMI label outside North America and Japan. In the US, Canada, and Japan, Columbia was a label owned by CBS, and then Sony and was and is completely unrelated to the EMI label of the same name.

In 1973 EMI merged most of it’s labels into EMI and no longer released pop or rock acts on the label in much of the world (although it remained in use in parts of Asia and for non-pop releases).

In 1988 EMI sold its global rights in the name to the Sony Corporation which had purchased CBS’ recorded music operations.

This page is for non US / Canada / Japan releases by EMI on its Columbia label from 1931 to 1988. All such releases by Columbia EMI, or EMI Columbia should go here.
Note that some older releases on this label may not mention EMI but should still go here.
No releases on Columbia after 1988 should appear on this page. All other Columbia releases should go on the Columbia page.

Labelcode: LC 0162