Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc. until 2019), is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the American film studio Warner Bros. Artists who have recorded for Warner Records includes Madonna, Prince, Cher, Devo, The B-52s, Frank Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Van Halen, Alice Cooper, Kylie Minogue, Tom Petty, Gorillaz, Bette Midler, Grateful Dead, Jane's Addiction, Blur, Duran Duran, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, Nile Rodgers, Black Sabbath, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys, Green Day, Linkin Park, Muse, My Chemical Romance, Tevin Campbell, Mac Miller, Dua Lipa, Bebe Rexha, R.E.M., and Sex Pistols. History Founding At the end of the silent movie period, Warner Bros. Pictures decided to expand into publishing and recording so that it could access low-cost music content for its films. In 1928, the studio acquired several smaller music publishing firms which included M. Witmark & Sons, Harms Inc., and a partial interest in New World Music Corp., and merged them to form the Music Publishers Holding Company. This new group controlled valuable copyrights on standards by George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern, and the new division was soon earning solid profits of up to US$2 million every year. In 1930, MPHC paid US$28 million to acquire Brunswick Records (which included Vocalion), whose roster included Duke Ellington, Red Nichols, Nick Lucas, Al Jolson, Earl Burtnett, Ethel Waters, Abe Lyman, Leroy Carr, Tampa Red and Memphis Minnie, and soon after the sale to Warner Bros., the label signed rising radio and recording stars Bing Crosby, Mills Brothers, and Boswell Sisters. Unfortunately for Warner Bros., the dual impact of the Great Depression and the introduction of broadcast radio greatly harmed the recording industry—sales crashed, dropping by around 90% from more than 100 million records in 1927 to fewer than 10 million by 1932 and major companies were forced to halve the price of records from 75 to 35 cents. In December 1931, Warner Bros. offloaded Brunswick to the American Record Corporation (ARC) for a fraction of its former value, in a lease arrangement which did not include Brunswick's pressing plants. Technically, Warner maintained actual ownership of Brunswick, which with the sale of ARC to CBS in 1939 and their decision to discontinue Brunswick in favor of reviving the Columbia label,