Industry veteran Clive Davis was known for his golden ear as president of CBS Records from 1967 until he was abruptly fired in 1973 for allegedly spending nearly a hundred grand in corporate cash on his son Fred's bat mitzvah. Davis landed on his feet at Columbia Pictures soon after as an advisor for the studio's various music interests, including their labels Bell, Colgems, and Colpix.
The studio staked Davis to the tune of ten million dollars as he combined the labels into a new venture he christened Arista Records. The scans above are part of a four-page spread in the November 23, 1974, issue of Billboard announcing the label's roster and staff. Arista's first 45s were released in February 1975 by several of the artists featured in the ad, most of whom were inherited from Bell Records.
Flash-forward about a decade to the dawn of the compact disc revolution. After releasing their inaugural wave of compact discs in 1983, Arista released their own compilation, Arista's Perfect 10, in 1984. The disc featured ten tracks from ten Arista CDs by the nine artists listed on the cover, with the Alan Parsons Project going back for seconds. Besides the uncredited cover model, the most striking thing about the cover image is the rather large "Sony Portable Compact Disc Player" (which is how it is credited on the back of the CD case) in the model's hand.
That CD player also appears on the cover of Arista's Perfect 10 Rides Again, released in 1985. The cover model also receives a credit this time as "Christina," but is she the same girl? Longtime cycling enthusiasts will no doubt recognize the bike Christina is straddling as a Gios, but to be fair, it is labeled as such even for us cycling novices. Like its predecessor, Arista's Perfect 10 Rides Again also features ten tracks by the nine artists listed on the cover, with the Alan Parsons Project once again represented by two tracks, including the late Seventies stereo store demo track "I Robot" that opens the disc.
In 1986, for the third year in a row, Arista rolled out its own label compilation. Arista's Perfect 10 III was portrayed as the sequel; it was right on the cover, which cleverly incorporated the cover art of the first two discs in the Arista's Perfect 10 series. For the first time in the series' brief history, there were no tracks from the Alan Parsons Project; Aretha Franklin assumed the two tracks per disc mantle this time. After buying the first two discs, I took a pass on this one as it just didn't have any compelling tracks, as I already owned the Billy Ocean and Aretha Franklin albums on vinyl.
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