[2] Mercury Record Corporation was formed in Chicago in 1945 by Irving Green, Berle Adams, Ray Greenberg,[3] and Arthur Talmadge.

[5] By hiring two promoters, Tiny Hill and Jimmy Hilliard, they penetrated the pop market with names such as Frankie Laine, Vic Damone, Tony Fontane, and Patti Page.

[8][9] In 1947, Jack Rael, a musician and publicist/manager, persuaded Mercury to let Patti Page (whom he managed) record a song that had been planned to be done by Vic Damone, "Confess".

[11] Mercury, under its EmArcy label, released LPs by many post-swing and bebop artists, including Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Kenny Drew, Dinah Washington, Nat Adderley, Cannonball Adderley, Ernestine Anderson, Sarah Vaughan, Maynard Ferguson, Walter Benton, Herb Geller.

[12] In the late 1950s, Mercury released jazz recordings of multiple artists, including Max Roach, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, and Buddy Rich.

[13] During the 1960s albums were released by artists including Gene Ammons, Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich, Cannonball Adderley, Dinah Washington, Max Roach, Paul Bley and Jimmy Smith.

During the 1970s, Mercury released hits by musicians such as The Statler Brothers, Paper Lace, Rod Stewart, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Cledus Maggard and The Citizen's Band, Jacky Ward, Glenn Sutton,William Bell, Rush, The Brains and Reba McEntire.

From late 1974 to early 1983, the company's label design featured a painting of three famous buildings that are located in Chicago: Marina City, John Hancock Center, and One IBM Plaza, the latter which was Mercury's headquarters during that period, having moved from its long-time address at 35 East Wacker Drive.

Under PolyGram, Mercury absorbed the artists and catalogue of Casablanca Records (also home to the 20th Century Records back catalogue), which consisted of hard rockers Kiss and disco stars Donna Summer and the Village People, and primarily became a rock/pop/new wave label with Van Morrison, Thin Lizzy, All About Eve, Julian Cope, Scorpions, Rush, John Cougar Mellencamp, Big Country, Tears for Fears, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, and Def Leppard as well as the Oklahoma-based three-piece Hanson.

Under the reorganization, Mercury Records was closed and folded into the newly formed The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG).

The first record in this new Mercury Olympian Series was Pictures at an Exhibition performed by Rafael Kubelík and the Chicago Symphony.

The group that became the best known using this technique was the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which, under the leadership of conductor Antal Doráti, made a series of classical albums that were well reviewed and sold briskly, including the first-ever complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.

A stereo release in 1960 featured new recordings of the cannon shots, and the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon at the Riverside Church in Chicago.

Cozart took over recording director duties in 1953 and also produced the CD reissues of more than half of the Mercury Living Presence catalog in the 1990s.

By the late 1950s, the Mercury Living Presence crew included session musical supervisors Harold Lawrence and Clair van Ausdall and associate engineer Robert Eberenz.

The greater emulsion thickness, track width, and speed (90 ft/min or 18 in/sec) of 35-mm magnetic film increased prevention of tape layer print-through and gained in addition extended frequency range and transient response.

At Fine Recording in New York City, the Westrex cutter head on a Scully lathe was fed by modified McIntosh 200W tube amplifiers with very little feedback in the system.

In 2012, Decca Classics, the current owner of the Mercury Living Presence label, issued a value-priced 51-CD box that included 50 of the 1990s CD titles (remastered by Wilma Cozart Fine), a bonus CD containing an interview with Wilma Cozart Fine, and a deluxe booklet detailing the history of Mercury Living Presence.

The CD box set included two bonus discs: a new reissue of the 1953 monophonic recording of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" by Dorati with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and a first-time-on-CD reissue of the premiere recording of John Corigliano's Piano Concerto, played by Hilde Somer with the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Victor Alessandro.

The label aims to identify and work with strong creative individuals who bring a distinctive and fresh perspective to classical music.

In its first year, artist signings to the label included Icelandic neoclassical composer Olafur Arnalds, New York-based string quartet Brooklyn Rider, Chinese pianist Yundi, and Austrian clarinetist and Berlin Philharmonic soloist Andreas Ottensamer.

[citation needed] In 2014, Mercury Classics released "Aranjuez", Milos Karadaglic's recording of iconic guitar concertos by Joaquin Rodrigo, featuring Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mercury Nashville took over management of all of PolyGram's country back catalog from sister labels such as Polydor (including releases once issued by MGM Records), A&M, and the small country back catalog of Motown Records (Motown released these albums under subsidiary labels).

[30] In July 2005, Iley appointed Paul Adam to senior artist and repertoire (A&R) director of the label; the two had previously worked together at Island Records.

[32] In March 2011, the label announced it was stopping the production of CD and vinyl singles, and would only release them physically as "rare exceptions".

[33] In 2012, signings on Mercury included Pixie Lott, Arcade Fire, Amy Macdonald, Noah and the Whale, Chase & Status, Jake Bugg, and Bo Bruce.

Some successful Australian artists on Mercury included: INXS, Kamahl, Bullamakanka, Darren Hayes, Carl Riseley, The Preatures, Tiddas, Dragon, Teen Queens, Melissa Tkautz and Karise Eden.

Various other national Universal Music Group companies are known to actively use the Mercury Records trademark as an imprint for their local A&R operations, but no other Universal Music Group companies use the label as a key marketing differentiator, nor do they operate frontline divisions based on the Mercury label.

Its artist roster included Seiko Matsuda, Yūji Oda, Delta, ZIGGY, Kinniku Shōjo Tai, and Takashi Sorimachi.

[38] As of 2022, the label, currently operating under UMJ's EMI Records division, has added K-pop groups Drippin, Golden Child, Loona, and STAYC on its roster.