Farewell then EMI, your tunes were the background to our lives | Simon Napier-Bell

The company that brought us Cliff and the Beatles, the Sex Pistols and Susan Boyle is disappearing. We should salute its contribution to our cultureIn the 1930s, after a merger with Columbia UK, EMI became the biggest record company in the world. By the 1950s, its worldwide sales outdid everyone else's. Yet its artists were uniquely British: Cliff Richard singing the likes of Living Doll and Summer Holiday; balladeer Matt Monro, an ex-London bus driver; and Frank Ifield, who yodelled.Amazingly, ...

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