Mercury Records

Mercury Records
Parent company	Universal Music Group
Founded	1945; 79 years ago (1945)
Founder	Irving Green Berle Adams Arthur Talmadge Ray Greenberg
Status	Active
Distributor(s)	Republic (United States) EMI (United Kingdom, Japan) Island Def Jam/Barclay (France) Island (pre-2014 catalog)
Genre	Various
Country of origin	United States
Location	Chicago, Illinois, U.S. (1945–1980) New York City, New York, U.S. (1980–present)
Official website	www.mercuryrecords.com www.mercurykx.com

Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury.^[1] Mercury Records released rock, funk, R&B, doo wop, soul music, blues, pop, rock and roll, and jazz records. In the United States, it is operated through Republic Records; in the United Kingdom and Japan (as Mercury Tokyo in the latter country), it is distributed by EMI Records.

Since the separation of Island Records, Motown, Mercury Records, and Def Jam Recordings combining the Island Def Jam Music Group, Mercury Records has been placed under Island Records, although its back catalogue is still owned by the Island Def Jam Music Group (now Island Records).