Sony Music relaunches Arista as frontline label, David Massey to be its head

Sony Music has relaunched the iconic Arista Records as a frontline label – and hired former Island Records CEO David Massey to run it as its president and CEO.

Massey, who left Island at the end of June, will remain based in New York City and report to Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer.

Massey’s daughter Clio, currently an executive at Sony/ATV Music Publishing, will move to Arista.

The new partnership will see Sony fund Massey’s artist management and music publishing companies.

Stringer said: “We are excited to be reintroducing the iconic Arista brand as a full major label under the leadership of David Massey.

“David is a visionary and progressive talent developer and his recent success at breaking new artists around the world only highlights his remarkable consistency of creative success year after year.”

Aside from running Island, the law-trained Massey also headed Mercury and before that was at Epic, where he worked with Australian acts including Silverchair and Deltas Goodrem.

Arista was set up in 1974 by Clive Davis, and was home to superstars Whitney Houston (its biggest act with global album sales of 200 million), Patti Smith, the Grateful Dead, Air Supply, Carlos Santana, Barry Manilow and Aretha Franklin.

After 2000, Davis was pushed out and replaced with LA Reid, who went on to sign Pink and Avril Lavigne as the next generation of acts.

However, Reid’s extravagant spending saw Arista lose money and it became defunct in 2011 and folded into RCA Records.

Said Davis, now Sony Music Entertainment’s chief creative officer: “I am really delighted to see the Arista name return to a place of prominence under an executive with the talents of David Massey.

“David is a true music man who has tremendous respect for artistry, and he is the ideal choice to carry on the label’s great tradition.”