Editing Virgin Records (section)

===Purchase by Thorn EMI===
Virgin Records was sold by Branson to [[Thorn EMI]] in June 1992 for a reported US$1&nbsp;billion (around £560&nbsp;million) ({{Inflation|US|1000000000|1992|r=0|fmt=eq|cursign=$}}),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.virgin.com/aboutvirgin/allaboutvirgin/thewholestory/default.asp?era=199 |title=About Us – About The Virgin Group |website=Virgin.com |access-date=28 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060108031457/http://www.virgin.com/aboutvirgin/allaboutvirgin/thewholestory/default.asp?era=199 |archive-date=8 January 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/mergers/cases/index/m4.html#m_202 |title=EUROPA – Competition – Cases from 200 to 249 |website=Ec.europa.eu |access-date=28 February 2013}}</ref> with a special non-competition clause that would prevent Branson from founding another recording company during the five years following the agreement (see the final paragraph in EU Merger Decision IV/M202 of 27 April 1992). It now faces competition from Branson's new label: [[V2 Records]]. Branson sold Virgin Records to fund [[Virgin Atlantic]], which at that time was coming under intense anti-competitive pressure from [[British Airways]]. In 1993, BA settled a libel action brought by Branson over BA's "[[Dirty Tricks (scandal)|dirty tricks]]" campaign, giving him £500,000 and a further £110,000 to his airline.

After being acquired by Thorn EMI, Virgin launched several subsidiaries like [[Real World Studios|Realworld Records]], [[Innocent Records]], blues speciality label [[Point Blank Records]], and indie music label [[Hut Records|Hut Recordings]], and continued signing new and established artists like [[Korn]], [[A Fine Frenzy]], [[Thirty Seconds to Mars]], [[Tina Turner]], [[Beenie Man]], [[The Rolling Stones]], [[Spice Girls]], [[The Smashing Pumpkins]], [[We Are Scientists]], [[The Kooks]], [[dcTalk]] (mainstream releases, contract ended in 2000), [[Belinda Carlisle]], [[Meat Loaf]], [[Placebo (band)|Placebo]], [[Janet Jackson]] (contract ended in 2006), [[Daft Punk]] (contract ended in 2008), [[My Favorite Highway]], [[Does It Offend You, Yeah?]], [[The Future Sound of London]], [[The Chemical Brothers]], [[Brooke Allison]], [[The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus]], [[The Almost]], [[Mariah Carey]] (contract ended in 2002), [[N.E.R.D]], [[Laura Marling]], [[Swami (band)|Swami]], [[RBD]], [[Thalía]] and [[Priscilla Renea]].

Because business models increasingly diverged, Thorn EMI shareholders voted in favour of demerger proposals on 16 August 1996. The resulting media company became the EMI Group.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/vote-solid-for-thorn-demerger-1310081.html|title=Vote solid for Thorn demerger|website=The Independent|location=London|date=17 August 1996}}</ref> In 1997, Virgin absorbed the remainder of [[EMI Records|EMI USA]], which earlier consolidated [[EMI America Records]] and [[Manhattan Records]], with [[Capitol Records]] acquiring EMI's other American operations, and in 1998, opened a [[country music]] division called Virgin Records Nashville, of which record producer [[Scott Hendricks]] was president.<ref name="sound">{{cite book|editor=Frank Hoffman|title=Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound|date=12 November 2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-FOSAgAAQBAJ&q=%22virgin+nashville%22&pg=PA973|page=973|publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135949501}}</ref> The label's signees comprised [[Julie Reeves]], [[Jerry Kilgore (singer)|Jerry Kilgore]], [[Roy D. Mercer]], [[Tom Mabe]], [[Chris Cagle]], [[Clay Davidson]], and [[River Road (band)|River Road]]. In 2001, Virgin Nashville closed and its roster was folded into Capitol Records' Nashville division.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YxMEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22virgin+nashville%22&pg=PA6|title=Virgin Nashville to be folded into Capitol|date=3 February 2001|magazine=Billboard|access-date=24 May 2014}}</ref>