[2] Miles Copeland III, the son of CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr., played many roles in the U.K. punk rock and new wave music industry of the middle to late 1970s: agent, manager, producer, magazine publisher, record company and label owner.

), while his brother Stewart played drums for The Police, a band that Copeland managed.

The Police's first album was released on A&M Records in 1978 with a hit single, "Roxanne", that Copeland called a turning point in his life.

[3] Building on success with the Police, Copeland convinced Jerry Moss, co-owner of A&M, to establish the I.R.S.

The show concept would later evolve into the alternative rock program 120 Minutes, which was launched in 1986 and co-existed with Cutting Edge for about a year and a half.

In October 2013, shortly after the integration of EMI into its successor, Universal Music Group, the label was revived again as I.R.S.

Nashville, with Striking Matches, Marc Scibilia and Cowboy Jack Clement on its roster before being shut down once again in 2015.

Illegal Records was set up by Miles Copeland with his younger brother Stewart and the manager of The Police, Paul Mulligan.

The most prominent releases on its roster were by the production team Murk and also the song "So Get Up" an iconic vocal poem by Californian author/songwriter Ithaka Darin Pappas, backed by the Progressive house sounds of USL from Lisbon, Portugal.

[11] Seven additional albums have also been certified gold for sales of at least 500,000 copies: Murmur (1983), Reckoning (1984), Fables of the Reconstruction (1985) and Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), all by R.E.M., Vacation by The Go-Go's (1982), Belinda by Belinda Carlisle (1986) and Bloodletting by Concrete Blonde (1990).