Sony Music in the context of "Patience (George Michael album)"

Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notable for its innovative use of repetition, tape music techniques, improvisation, and delay systems. His best known works are the 1964 composition In C and the 1969 album A Rainbow in Curved Air, both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music, rock, and contemporary electronic music. Subsequent works such as Shri Camel (1980) explored just intonation.

Raised in Redding, California, Riley began studying composition and performing solo piano in the 1950s. He befriended and collaborated with composer La Monte Young, and later became involved with both the San Francisco Tape Music Center and Young's New York collective, the Theatre of Eternal Music. A three-record deal with CBS in the late 1960s brought his work to wider audiences. In 1970, he began intensive studies under Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath, whom he often accompanied in performance. He has collaborated frequently throughout his career, most extensively with chamber ensemble the Kronos Quartet and his son, guitarist Gyan Riley.

Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands, and its operational headquarters are located in Santa Monica, California. The biggest music company in the world, it is one of the "Big Three" record labels, along with Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. Tencent acquired ten percent of Universal Music Group in March 2020 for €3 billion and acquired an additional ten percent stake in January 2021. Pershing Square Holdings later acquired ten percent of UMG before its IPO on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. The French Bolloré family still owns 28 percent of UMG (18 percent directly, and ten percent through Vivendi, the Bolloré family's investment company). The company went public on September 21, 2021, at a valuation of €46 billion.

As of April 2024, UMG's catalogue includes over three million recordings and four million compositions.

Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. (株式会社ソニー・ミュージックエンタテインメント, Kabushiki gaisha Sonī Myūjikku Entateinmento), often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short (stylized as SonyMusic), is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Founded in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is operating independently from the United States–based Sony Music Entertainment due to its strength in the Japanese music industry. Its subsidiaries include the Japanese animation production enterprise, Aniplex, which was established in September 1995 as a joint-venture between Sony Music Entertainment Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, but which in 2001 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. It was prominent in the early to mid 1990s producing and licensing music for animated series such as Roujin Z from acclaimed Japanese comic artist Katsuhiro Otomo and Capcom's Street Fighter animated series.

Until March 2007, Sony Music Japan also had its own North American sublabel, Tofu Records. Releases of Sony Music Japan now appear on Columbia Records and/or Epic Records in North America.

OKeh Records (/ˌoʊˈkeɪ/) is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name originally was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Otto K. E. Heinemann but was later changed to "OKeh". In 1965, OKeh became a subsidiary of Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music. OKeh has since become a jazz imprint, distributed by Sony Masterworks.

Boy Better Know, often abbreviated as BBK, is a British grime collective and record label. The collective was founded in North London in 2005 as an independent record label by brothers Jamie and Joseph Adenuga, better known as Jme and Skepta, respectively. The former also serves as a sole owner and director of an associated company, Boy Better Know Limited, incorporated in 2008. All members of the collective use the record label as a means to publish their music, and is digitally distributed by The Orchard, a subsidiary of Sony Music.

"Mitt lille land" (in English: "My Little Country" or "My Small Country") is a song by Ole Paus, written in 1994 as a lyrical description of Norway. The song gained strong popularity following the 2011 Norway attacks, which led to it being described by the media as "the new national anthem." According to the NRK, the song "came to symbolize the sorrow many people went through." The song featured most prominently in all the memorial ceremonies following the attacks. The NRK memorial concert (30 July 2011) following the attacks was named "Mitt lille land," and the concert opened with "Mitt lille land" sung by Maria Mena. The national memorial ceremony (21 August 2011) was opened with "Mitt lille land" sung by Susanne Sundfør, followed by a speech by King Harald V. On the Norwegian Constitution Day in 2012, the NRK broadcast was opened with "Mitt lille land." The Norwegian People's Aid and Sony Music released a memorial album titled Mitt lille land and Gyldendal Norsk Forlag published a memorial book also titled Mitt lille land during the autumn of 2011. Numerous Norwegian artists have recorded cover versions of this song, among them Sondre Bratland, Christine Guldbrandsen, Maria Solheim, Thomas Dybdahl, Mari Boine, Anne Grete Preus, Haddy N'jie, Kurt Nilsen, D.D.E., Sølvguttene, Tone Damli Aaberge and Maria Mena.

The song was originally written for the pro-EU organisation "Fra Nei til Ja" (From No to Yes) in connection with the 1994 Norwegian European Union membership referendum, and the song has been described as ironic. Ole Paus denied in 2011 that the song was ironic. According to Professor of Musicology Even Ruud, "the music and the text are very open. There is nothing in the song that is related to a particular time, which means that it can be interpreted in several different ways." The song was originally released on the album also titled Mitt lille land in 1994, which contained four tracks. The first track was Mitt lille land and the last track was a rap performed by Ole Paus and Labour politician and then-Minister of Trade and Shipping Affairs Grete Knudsen titled Sjølråderetten fallera!.

Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 is the second solo studio album by the English singer-songwriter George Michael, released on 3 September 1990 by Columbia Records in the US and Epic Records in the UK. The album was Michael's final album of all-new material on Columbia until 2004's Patience. Listen Without Prejudice was a stark departure from Michael's previous album, 1987's Faith, with largely acoustic instrumentation and a sombre intensity in many of the lyrics and melodies. While the album topped the UK Albums Chart, disappointing sales in the United States led to Michael's legal battles against Sony Music, in which he accused the corporation of not fully supporting him as an artist. Listen Without Prejudice was reissued across a number of formats on 20 October 2017 and again topped the UK Albums Chart, 27 years after it first reached number one on the chart.

Older is the third studio album by English singer-songwriter George Michael, released on 13 May 1996 in Europe by Virgin Records and Aegean Records. The American release, which occurred one day later, was the first album released by DreamWorks Records. It was Michael's first studio album since 1990's Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 – the five-and-a-half-year gap was due to the legal battle that Michael experienced with his former record company Sony Music. Michael dedicated two years to the recording of Older, and the album found him exploring new musical territories in a more serious fashion compared to his previous work.

At the time of release, the album was a huge commercial hit, particularly in Europe. In the UK, the album was particularly notable for producing a record six top three hit singles in a two-year span. The high sales of the album prompted a re-issue of the album, titled Older & Upper, eighteen months after the original release.