In 1962, MCA, a talent agency and television production company, entered the recorded music business with the acquisition of American Decca, which became a wholly-owned subsidiary.

As American Decca owned Universal Pictures, MCA was forced to exit the talent agency business in order to complete the merger.

MCA assumed full ownership of Universal and made it into a top film studio, producing several hits.

[11] In April 1970, former Warner Records president Mike Maitland joined MCA and initially served as Decca's general manager.

[14] The first MCA Records release in the U.S. was former Uni artist Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" single in 1972, which appeared on a plain black and white label.

In December 1972, Neil Diamond, another Uni artist, reached superstar status with his first MCA release, the live multi-platinum Hot August Night.

The management of former Decca artists the Who had formed their own label Track Records in the UK, but were still under contract with MCA for American distribution.

Street Survivors was released in October 1977, just prior to a tragic plane crash in which members of the group were either killed or severely injured.

In 1977, MCA president Sidney Sheinberg set up the Infinity Records division, based in New York City with Ron Alexenberg as CEO.

The only big hit the Infinity label had was "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes, a number one single at the end of 1979.

But MCA pulled the plug on Infinity after it failed to sell most of the one million advance copies of an album featuring Pope John Paul II in October 1979.

[16] Shortly afterwards, MCA acquired ABC Records along with its subsidiaries Paramount, Dunhill, Impulse!, Westminster, and Dot.

In late 1980, MCA received negative publicity when it attempted to raise the list price of new releases by top selling artists from $8.98 to $9.98 ($33.21 and $36.91 in 2023 dollars respectively).

The Xanadu soundtrack album and Gaucho, by former ABC act Steely Dan, were the first releases with the higher list price.

Backstreet artist Tom Petty succeeded in his campaign to force MCA to drop prices back to $8.98 for the release of his album Hard Promises, in May 1981.

The members of Black Flag found themselves covering the MCA Distributing logo on the first 25,000 copies with a sticker reading "As a parent...

Azoff is known as an experienced music industry veteran who received credit amongst MCA management and staff for saving the company from bankruptcy.

[22] At about the same time, Zappa publicly argued with members of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) over censorship and warning stickers for albums with potentially offensive content.

[22][24] Starting in 1984, William Knoedelseder wrote a series of articles for the Los Angeles Times about the connections between organized crime and MCA.

Morissette's next album, Jagged Little Pill (written and produced independently, but released through Warner Music's Maverick Records label) eventually sold more than 30 million copies.

In 1997, MCA Records adopted a new logo that featured the parent company's former full name, Music Corporation of America.

In 1998, MCA released the sophomore album Feeling Strangely Fine by Semisonic, which had the number one hit single and video, "Closing Time", about the use of alcohol in local night clubs and taverns.

[31] Boberg's resignation arrived in the wake of slumping sales at MCA, which had seen the label's overall album market share decline to just 2.61% in 2002, down from 9% the previous year.

[33] His demise was hastened by the relative commercial failure of Shaggy's Lucky Day, released in October 2002, which MCA hoped would sell well enough to turn around their declining fortunes.

[31] Craig Lambert, previously the vice president of the label, was named as the interim head of MCA, with a successor expected to be chosen within a few months.

[31] Following Boberg's resignation, it was rumoured that MCA could possibly be merged into Universal Records, something which would have given the latter, New York City–based label a stronger presence in the West Coast of the United States.

[40] Today Interscope Capitol Labels Group and Universal Music Enterprises manage MCA's rock, pop, and urban back catalogues (including those from ABC Records and Famous Music Group) in conjunction with Geffen – UME and Geffen have re-released various albums from MCA in the years since, as well as several compilations.

and GRP imprints, depending on whether the recording was acquired from ABC or not), while its classical music catalogue is managed by Deutsche Grammophon.