ABSTRACT
In seeking to get greater control over their recordings and careers, the Beatles formed Apple Corps in 1967. The company was originally envisioned to have several divisions, including a record label and recording studio; a film arm; and a clothing store. The Beatles themselves took the rather utopian view that artists, if left in control of their own work, would be happier and more productive than working for a gigantic corporation. The Beatles’s own recorded output, beginning with the famous White Album of 1968, was released on Apple; individual band members also issued their own experimental recordings, including John Lennon/Yoko Ono’s Two Virgins and Life With the Lions and George Harrison’s Wonderwall Music and Electronic Sounds. Some of these records were issued on a shortlived subsidiary label, the playfully named Zapple Records. Apple recordings were pressed and distributed by EMI/Parlophone in the U.K. and by Capitol in the U.S. Both had previously issued the Beatles’s recordings on their own labels. Artists initially signed to Apple included the Modern Jazz Quartet and singer/songwriter James Taylor. However, the label and business in general quickly fell into disarray; none of the Beatles were interested in running the business, and the group itself was beginning to break up. The London boutique was closed and all the clothing given away. The label
itself survived in name at least for the initial solo projects of the Beatles, but was more or less inactive thereafter. After a sweeping settlement with EMI and Capitol over past royalty abuses-as well as several
lawsuits among themselves-the surviving Beatles and Yoko Ono revived Apple Corps in the mid-1990s to oversee the issuing of the Beatles 3-part Anthology CD set, TV series, and book.
