Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.

Company history

Beginnings

' Something Else.]] Reprise (pronounced rih-PREEZ) was formed in 1960 by Frank Sinatra in order to allow more artistic freedom for his own recordings. Hence, he garnered the nickname "The Chairman of the Board." Having left Capitol/EMI, and after trying to buy Norman Granz's Verve Records, the first album Sinatra released on Reprise was Ring-a-Ding-Ding! As CEO of Reprise, Sinatra recruited a host of his cronies for the fledgling label, such as fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. The original roster from 1961 to '63 included Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Esquivel and stand-up comedian Redd Foxx. The label still issues any Sinatra work recorded while on the label and, after his death in 1998, it had great success with his greatest hits collections.

's Smash Hits). After the Kinney National Company took over Warner Bros. in 1969, the orange tone at the top of the label was changed to the same tone as on the rest of the label, the W7 box logo was removed and the circled :r logo became a boxed logo without "reprise" designation.]] One of the label's founding principles under Sinatra's leadership was that each artist would have full creative freedom, and at some point complete ownership of their work; including publishing rights. This is the reason why recordings of early Reprise artists (Dean Martin, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks, etc.) are (in most cases) currently distributed through other labels. In Martin's case, his Reprise recordings were out of print for nearly 20 years before a deal was struck with Capitol Records.

Sold to Warner Bros.

Many of the older artists were dropped when Sinatra sold the label to Warner Bros. Records in early 1963 due to insufficient sales. Reprise president Mo Ostin was retained as the head of the label and he went on to play a very significant role in the history of the Warner group of labels over the next four decades. Warner-Reprise executives began targeting younger acts beginning by securing the American distribution rights to the Pye Records recordings by The Kinks in 1964. Reprise would later add teen-oriented pop acts like Dino, Desi, & Billy and Frank's own daughter Nancy Sinatra, before moving almost exclusively to pop-oriented music in the late 1960s.

Through direct signings or distribution deals, the Reprise roster grew to include Lee Hazlewood, Jill Jackson, the early Joni Mitchell recordings, Neil Young, The Electric Prunes, Arlo Guthrie, Norman Greenbaum, Tom Lehrer, Tiny Tim, Ry Cooder, Captain Beefheart, the early 1970s recordings by Frank Zappa and The Mothers, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Nico's Desertshore, The Fugs, Jethro Tull, Pentangle, T.Rex, The Meters, John Cale, Gordon Lightfoot, Michael Franks, Richard Pryor, Al Jarreau and the early '70s recordings of The Beach Boys.

Downfall

In the late 1970s, as Joni Mitchell and Captain Beefheart had left the label, Sinatra expressed a wish to be the sole artist on Reprise, but Neil Young refused to leave (Nancy Sinatra thinks this an urban legend). Mitchell returned to the label in the late 1980s after a stint on Geffen Records but now records for Hear Music. Young remains on Reprise to this day, though he was lured to Geffen Records (itself once distributed by WB) for several years in the 1980s.

Although they established themselves as a popular concert attraction with constant touring in the US, Reprise act Fleetwood Mac suffered dwindling sales during the early '70s and went through numerous lineup changes, as well as a legal battle over the group's name which kept them off the road for over a year. They moved to the parent label Warner Bros. in 1976, where ironically, the revitalised band scored a string of hit albums and singles through the late 1970s and early '80s, including their massively successful Rumours LP, which became one of the biggest-selling albums of all time.

's Decade]] In 1976, the Reprise label was deactivated by Warner Brothers, reassigning all of its roster (except Sinatra and Young) to the main Warner Bros. label. Although older catalog albums continued to be reissued with the Reprise logo, and albums by The Beach Boys on Brother Records were issued in the Reprise catalog numbering sequence, aside from Sinatra and Young there were no new releases on the Reprise imprint.

Revival and Reprise today

In the summer of 1987 Warner Bros chairman Mo Ostin and label president Lenny Waronker announced the reactivation of Reprise, including its own separate promotions department, and former Warner Bros. Vice President of Promotion Rich Fitzgerald was appointed as label Vice-President. In the time since, Warner Bros. has often elevated the stature of Reprise to the rank of secondary parent label, as many of its subsidiary labels (such as Straight and Kinetic) have had their records released in conjunction with Reprise.

Today, in addition to Young, it is home to such artists as Devendra Banhart, Green Day, Michael Bublé, Enya, Avenged Sevenfold, The Used, Mastodon, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Serj Tankian, Josh Groban, Charice, Cavo, Taking Back Sunday, HIM (also on Sire), My Chemical Romance and Disturbed. Reprise is also the North American label for British bands Depeche Mode and Oasis.

It was formerly home to the Jimi Hendrix and the Barenaked Ladies' catalogs in the U.S.

Neil Young stated in a documentary about his life that Charles Manson was turned down by Reprise.

In 2010, Reprise opened a country music division, operating as part of Warner Music Group Nashville, featuring Blake Shelton, The JaneDear Girls, Michelle Branch and Frankie Ballard as part of its roster.

Reprise Records artists

Labels

143 Records (1999–present)

Bizarre Records (1968–1972)

Big Brother Records (2008–present)

Chrysalis Records (1969–1972)

DiscReet Records (1973–1979)

Elementree Records (1995–2000)

Grand Jury Records (1990–1993)

In Bloom Records (1998–2000)

Kinetic Records (1992–2000)

Straight Records (1968–1972)

Vapor Records (1995–present; current status unknown)

See also

List of record labels

Warner Bros. Records

References

External links

A discography of American Reprise singles from 1961 to 1970

Category:American record labels Category:Record labels established in 1960 Category:Pop record labels Category:Rock record labels Category:Time Warner subsidiaries Category:Warner Music labels Category:Vanity record labels Category:Frank Sinatra

Bobalicón.]]

An idiot, dolt, or dullard is a mentally deficient person, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way. Archaically the word mome has also been used. The synonymous terms moron, imbecile, and cretin have all gained specialized meanings in modern times. An idiot is said to be idiotic, and to suffer from idiocy. A dunce is an idiot who is specifically incapable of learning. An idiot differs from a fool (who is unwise) and an ignoramus (who is uneducated/an ignorant), neither of which refer to someone with low intelligence.

Etymology

Idiot as a word derived from the Greek , idiōtēs ("person lacking professional skill," "a private citizen," "individual"), from , idios ("private," "one's own"). In Latin the word idiota ("ordinary person, layman") preceded the Late Latin meaning "uneducated or ignorant person." Its modern meaning and form dates back to Middle English around the year 1300, from the Old French idiote ("uneducated or ignorant person"). The related word idiocy dates to 1487 and may have been analogously modeled on the words prophet and prophecy. The word has cognates in many other languages.

In modern English usage, the terms "idiot" and "idiocy" describe an extreme folly or stupidity, and its symptoms (foolish or stupid utterance or deed). In psychology, it is a historical term for the state or condition now called profound mental retardation.

Disability

In 19th and early 20th century medicine and psychology, an "idiot" was a person with a very severe mental retardation. In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry H. Goddard proposed a classification system for mental retardation based on the Binet-Simon concept of mental age. Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbeciles had a mental age of three to 7 years, and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years. IQ, or intelligence quotient, is determined by dividing a person's mental age, as determined by standardized tests, by their actual age. The term "idiot" was used to refer to people having an IQ below 30.

In current medical classification, these people are now said to have profound mental retardation. In 2008, Iowa voters passed a measure replacing "idiot, or insane person" in the State's constitution with "person adjudged mentally incompetent."

In several states, "idiots" do not have the right to vote:

Kentucky Section 145 Mississippi Article 12, Section 241 New Mexico Article VII, section 1 Ohio (Article V, Section 6)

The constitution of the state of Arkansas was amended in the general election of 2008 to, among other things, repeal a provision (Article 3, Section 5) which had until its repeal prohibited "idiots or insane persons" from voting.

Cultural References

Film

The 2006 film Idiocracy satirizes trends in contemporary consumer society.

Literature

A few authors have used "idiot" characters in novels, plays and poetry. Often these characters are used to highlight or indicate something else (allegory). Examples of such usage are William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and William Wordsworth's The Idiot Boy. Idiot characters in literature are often confused with or subsumed within mad or lunatic characters. The most common imbrication between these two categories of mental impairment occurs in the polemic surrounding Edmund from William Shakespeare's King Lear. In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, the idiocy of the main character, Prince Lev Nikolaievich Myshkin, is attributed more to his honesty, trustfulness, kindness, and humility, than to a lack of intellectual ability. Nietzsche claimed, in his The Antichrist, that Jesus was an idiot. This resulted from his description of Jesus as having an aversion toward the material world.

Music

The title song of the Green Day 2004 Album, American Idiot debuted and stayed at number one on Canadian charts for 5 weeks.

See also

Stupidity

Euphemism

References

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External links

Dictionary.Reference.Com "Middle English, ignorant person, from Old French idiote (modern French idiot), from Latin idiota, from Greek idiotès, private person, layman, from idios, own, private."

Etymonline "c.1300, "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning," from Old French idiote "uneducated or ignorant person," from Latin idiota "ordinary person, layman," in Late Latin "uneducated or ignorant person," from Greek idiotes "layman, person lacking professional skill," literally "private person," used patronizingly for "ignorant person," from idios "one's own".

Category:Disability Category:Greek loanwords Category:Obsolete medical terms Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Historical and obsolete mental and behavioural disorders