Alan McGee

Alan John McGee (born 29 September 1960) is a Scottish businessman and music industry executive.

He has been a record label owner, musician, manager, and music blogger for The Guardian.

McGee was born in East Kilbride on 29 September 1960.

He grew up in Glasgow and attended King's Park Secondary School, where he met future Primal Scream founder Bobby Gillespie.

McGee left school at 16 with one O Grade.

He and Gillespie were heavily into punk rock, and they joined a local punk band, The Drains, in 1978.

The band's guitarist was Andrew Innes.

After the breakup of The Drains, McGee and Innes briefly joined the band H2O then moved to London and formed the band The Laughing Apple with Mark Jardim, a drummer from Croydon.

They recorded three singles in 1981 and 1982, two of which were released on Autonomy, and the third was put out on their own Essential record label.

He co-founded the independent Creation Records label, running it from 1983 until its closure in 1999.

He was also the lead singer and guitarist for the indie pop group Biff Bang Pow!, who were active from 1983 to 1991.

In 1983, quitting his job at British Rail, he co-founded Creation Records (named after cult 1960s band The Creation) with Dick Green and Joe Foster.

McGee said that his intention with Creation "was to merge psychedelia with punk rock".

He also began managing then-unknown The Jesus and Mary Chain, whose first single was issued on McGee's label in November 1984.

Creation Records was one of the key labels in the mid-80s indie movement, with early releases featuring artists such as Primal Scream, The Jasmine Minks, and The Loft.

When The Jesus and Mary Chain moved to Warner Brothers in 1985, Creation was able to use McGee's profits as their manager to release singles by acts including Primal Scream, Felt, and The Weather Prophets.

While these records were not commercially successful, McGee's enthusiasm and ability to promote Creation releases in the weekly music media ensured a healthy following.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to run an offshoot label for Warner Brothers, McGee regrouped Creation and immersed himself in the burgeoning dance and acid house scene, the legacy of which saw him release era-defining albums from Creation mainstays Primal Scream and new arrivals like My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub.

At the point it seemed Creation would collapse into receivership, the recently signed Manchester band Oasis began selling albums in huge quantities, as one of the leading lights of the Britpop movement of the mid-1990s.

The success of Oasis was unprecedented for an act on an independent label, and their second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? became the biggest selling British album of the decade.

He also formed the band Biff Bang Pow! (named after The Creation's song), which would continue until 1991, and began running a club night called "The Living Room" at The Adams Arms in Central London.

During this time Creation had run up considerable debts, which forced McGee to sell half of the label to Sony Music in 1992.

McGee calls the Sony years as the beginning of the end of the real Creation Records, which was driven by Joe Foster, Tim Abbot, Dick Green and McGee himself, and not by Sony accountants and marketing managers.

McGee was awarded by the NME 'Godlike Genius' award in February 1996 and Creation Records was awarded "independent label of the year" every year between 1995 and 1998 by Music Week.

This brought McGee substantial exposure, and his position was noted by the revitalized Labour Party, who considered him a figurehead of youth culture and courted his influence to spearhead a media campaign prior to the 1997 General Election.

McGee was largely responsible for changing government legislation in relation to musicians being able to go on the New Deal which gave musicians three years to develop and be funded by the government instead of having to take other jobs to survive.

McGee returned to making music in 1997, collaborating with Ed Ball under the name The Chemical Pilot, releasing the album Journey to the Centre of the Mind in 1998.

In 1998, Omnibus made a documentary about McGee and Creation for BBC One.

He subsequently founded the Poptones label, running it from 1999 to 2007.

He has managed or championed acts such as the Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Momus, Oasis, and the Libertines.

In late 1999 it was announced that Creation Records would cease operations.

The final album released by the label was Primal Scream's 2000 release XTRMNTR, which went gold in the UK.

The final single was the third released from the album itself.

Two books were written in the wake of Creation Records: One, by David Cavanagh, which McGee calls "the accountant's tale" and one by Paulo Hewitt.

McGee closed Creation Records for good, selling the rest of the shares to Sony in 2000 for an overall price that was staggered through the 1990s of around $30,000,000 (USD).

Following Creation's closure, McGee became a property developer, buying houses, flats, a farm in Wales and even an office block in Primrose Hill.

The dissolution of Creation Records led to McGee forming Poptones in 2000.

The label is named after a song by Public Image Limited.

While Oasis went on to sell nearly 54 million records by 2008, Creation continued issuing albums by other artists, none of which came near the success of the Manchester band.

Rumours began to circulate of McGee's dissatisfaction with the direction Creation had gone.