Strictly Rhythm  

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Strictly Rhythm is an American record label, best known for its highly regarded house music catalogue. It is considered by many to be one of the genre's most important and influential labels.

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History

The label was founded in 1989 by Mark Finkelstein and Gladys Pizarro, both from New York City. During its early years, Strictly Rhythm focused on Deep House releases by artists such as Roger Sanchez, Todd Terry and Masters at Work, among others. The label quickly became famous for signing young talent, and for being one of the most business-minded independent labels in the United States. It was one of the first dance labels (if not the first) to recognize the value of actively licensing dance music singles to non-US territories and actively exploited this advantage.The label also launched 'Strictly Blue'- a division that showcased dance vocalists and concentrated heavily on artist development. Ira Levi delivered the first international hit on the Blue label with 'Free Your Mind'. At the same time, it was also one of the most artist-friendly labels as there were almost no complaints from artists and producers about Strictly's business practices. The label continued as an independent throughout the 1990s, although it was struggling to maintain its previous influence and success by the end of the decade.

In hopes of improving the labels fortunes, its founders entered into a joint venture with Warner Music Group in 2002. However, the partnership was largely a failure, and the label ceased operations nine months later. After four years of legal wrangling, Finkelstein was able to regain control of the label's trademark, master tapes, publishing, and all other rights. In 2007, the label relaunched with help from the American branch of the UK's Defected Records. Legal downloads followed soon afterward, and in June of that year the label resumed vinyl record and compact disc production, rereleasing its lost classics, signing new talent, and releasing new titles.

While they are maintain their well known artist-friendly label status, Strictly Rhythm do have a policy where they request DJs using their tracks in online mixes that are available for download keep the bitrates under 192k. The reason for the policy is that sales, licensing and third-party usage have always been key to Strictly Rhythm's existence and the artists profits. This is the same for most independent record labels who remain in business and actually pay their artists. Despite this, the label received negative online press in 2008 enforcing the policy.

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Strictly Rhythm" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on original research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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