Tribe Records was a Norwegianrecord label founded in 1998. The company became one of the biggest contributors to the Norwegian record chartVG-Lista Topp 20 the following years. Tribe fast became a commercial label focusing on dance, trance and pop. Tribe Records was among the first record-companies in Norway to fully start with the 360-deals when building their artist. The label had management-, booking-, and the standard label-functions.
History
Originally, four partners founded the company: Christopher Collings, Andreas Papandreu Høyer, Anders Dybvik and Martin O. Muren. In 2001John Sørensen joined the group. In 2002 Tribe Records became the biggest domestic hit-label in Norway with a total of 28,9% of the Norwegian hit-share on VG-Lista. Many artists as Dina, Spritneybears, 2PM, L8R and Spin-Up was attached to the label. In the 3 last years, Tribe Records had a cooperation with the Danish company Capella Music, owned by the founder of Mega RecordsEdel-Mega Records Kjeld Wennick. At the end of 2003, the label was closed down.
Participants
Christopher Collings
A&R and creative leader. Later he founded We Love The 90's.
Andreas Høyer
To some extent A&R, presented as head of promotion.
Anders Dybvik
Head of projects, sales and booking.
John Sørensen
Martin O. Muren
Marketing controversies
Representatives of Tribe Records have stated in numerous interviews that their slogan is "we make ur shit hit". The label's aggressive marketing methods soon came under debate, when they organised marketing activities in kindergartens to promote the new group "Splash". Following weeks of pressure applied by various newspapers, most notably Avis1, the leader of "Norwegian Teacher's Association" Norsk Lærerlag Laila-Brith Josefsen, and Ombudsman for ChildrenTrond Waage, the label cancelled the plans. The dispute peaked when the Tribe Records bought the entire frontpage of Avis1, advertising Splash as "This years album" signed with "Tribe Kindergarten". The strategy on having total control of each band and artist signed to the label was not very popular among the music journalists. When Håkon Moslet wrote his reviews on one of the acts; "Spin-Up", his write-up was more of an essay that criticised the label and its methods, rather than an actual review of the act. When "Spritneybears", one of Norway's most selling artists for 3 years finally released its album in 2003, rumours arose that the artists had never sung any vocals on the albums themselves. It was rumoured that most vocals were instead performed by Kjetil Tefke, who was never officially attached to the band or credited. In 2003, when Jostein Hasselgård, the Norwegian winner of Eurovision Song Contest, was readying his single for release, Tribe Records quickly recorded and released a cover version of the track in the same week. The Tribe version of Hasselgård's song outperformed Hasselgård's own version, peaking 4 places higger on the saleschart than Hasselgård did. Norways third biggest newspaper, Dagbladet at last nominated Tribe as "The Last Cowboys" of the music scene. However, the persons involved went separate ways only months later.
Artists
Caroline Dina Kongerud
Known as Norway's first dance artist singing in Norwegian.
Album:
*"Dina"
Single:
*2003: "Bli Hos Meg" Musicvideo:
*2003: "For Evig Min"
*2004: "Fri Meg Nå"
Spritneybears
Album:
*2003: "A Night At Spritney Mansion", TR-10034
Single:
*2002: "The Bumpisong"
*2002: "Fraglene" Musicvideo:
*2003: "Ghostbusters"
*2003: "Woodpeckers From Space", Musicvideo:
L8R
Norway's first real boyband. The album was mainly produced by Clawfinger, and the young boys referring to their music as "Metal Pop"
Album:
*"Enter The Dragon", TR-10039
Single:
*"Back In Black"
*"In Da House"
*"World Of Pain"
2PM
To ensure the breakthrough of this artist, Tribe started to brand its first single as "This Years Official Russ-single".
Album:
*"2PM"
Single:
*"Sonata", TRS-10009
*"Mountain King", TRS-10012
*"C'Mon", TRS-10013
*"Open Your Eyes", TRS-10020
*"Tetris", Musicvideo:
Splash
A duo consisting of Anett Nylander and Janni Santillan
