User:Mushroom Pillow Music/sandbox

Mushroom Pillow was launched in 2001 by Marcos Collantes and Keina Garcia, university students at the time, who had a passion for identifying underground talent and bringing them to mainstream audiences. After years of working in the music sector as a hobby (organizing concerts, running fanzines, producing cassette compilations, creating a mail order catalogue, DJ sessions, collaborating with magazines, etc.), the time came to take that next big step, launch a record label, just when the crisis in the music sector had reached its peak. They started with 1,000 € lent to them by close friends and embarked on the development of a company that aspired to be as big as possible, taking in all those influences that inspired them (adapting it to their reality), labels such as Elektra for its diversity, Creation for its passion for the underground or Motown for its constant search for hits.

From the first release on the label, the company's guidelines for the future were set: new projects to build from scratch, pop songs that have crossover potential and the search for new ways to reach audiences as a way to transcend music from the underground that were previously denied by the main stream media in Spain. In the end, create an independent company that was not limited by the established or habitual norms of the music industry. Transcend barriers and do what is believed to be necessary beyond what is expected for a music label and be totally independent in what, how and when.

The Early Years 2001 to 2003
2001 was the debut of Deluxe "Not what you had thought”, the response from the established music press was tepid, but the passion and support of music fans pushed the release to the  # 12 chart position for best-selling singles. After more than 150 concerts, their followup album was released in 2003 "If things were to go wrong” reaching number # 25 on the charts for best-selling albums in Spain it was also released in Japan, another of the usual ways to expand the company through actions, licenses or synchronization abroad. The album contains "Que no", the project's most popular song which has since appeared on various publications among the most outstanding songs in Spain in the early years of the 21st century. After a year of its publication it manages to make the jump to commercial radio stations.

In the early years the label apart from releasing acts from Spain, international groups were brought to the label, such as The Go-Betweens from Australia, The Raveonettes from Denmark, Jeeves from the UK and Essex Green from the US, among others, were released. During its trajectory, the company never wanted to be constrained to one sound and released instrumental, garage, psychedelic, indie, pop, electronic or folk music groups but always with the aim with each genre having that pop feel.

We Just Got Noticed 2004 to 2007
In 2004 "Little Heart Attacks" by The Sunday Drivers was released, which, in addition to becoming the best album of the year voted by different media, was also released outside Spain through an agreement with the French label Naive. They toured mainly around France and other parts of Europe and headlined well-known music festivals. The group continued to find success with albums such as "Tiny Telephone" with Brad Jones and "The End of maiden trip", until they split up after 11 years.

In 2005 Mushroom Pillow signed the group La Habitación Roja, and they recorded their first album for the label in Chicago with Steve Albini that marked the zenith for the group to date. They continued releasing regularly with the label until 2018, they recorded their most successful songs during this period and the label incorporated their previously released tracks into its catalogue.

Triángulo de Amor Bizarro released their debut in 2007, an instant classic within the alternative scene that marked the appearance of other type of sound in the ecosystem at that moment. The group continues to release albums throughout the years, with releases such as "Año Santo" or "Salve discordia", and featuring on annual charts in Spain and America. They are by far the group that has received the most awards in Spain in the last decade.

The Sevillian Sr. Chinarro released his first (and most successful) album on Mushroom Pillow in 2007. "El mundo según” was the project that gave a wider audience to a very niche artist, included in headlines and covers of well known publications and touring for long periods of times around Spain. He continues to release albums with the company, that also bought his previous catalogue with up to 17 of his albums on the label. In 2015 Nando Cruz took the title of his first single to tell the history of independent pop of the 90s in Spain in the book "Pequeño Circo", where he has a prominent place.

With the consequence of releasing different albums of the year and featured campaigns in Spain and abroad, led the company on a different path, promoting Spanish artists in synchronizations in countries such as UK or USA.

What Just happened 2008 to 2014
In 2008, Mushroom Pillow received the Independent Music Award for the best record label, recognition received in a total of 3 occasions over the years in this category. The activity of the label and its groups has been rewarded on more than 25 subsequent occasions. Something that also continues with its mission to export artists with Delorean and its Balearic pop, who were featured in media for several years and touring around the world. We Are Standard, recorded with Andy Gill from Gang of Four in London and released records in the USA and France as well as in Spain. These were the Pitchfork years with more experimental groups, as well as the trips to Japan, England, Mexico or the USA and synchronisations for brands such as Mastercard or Google Play Music (in the launching of the platform) as well as theme tunes in ads for the NBA and international TV series.

Another of the groups that reached new highs with repercussion in the company was El Columpio Asesino, whose song "Toro” is a now classic in Latin American on the independent scene and taken them to headline festivals in Spain, Mexico or Argentina for several years.

Over the years releasing albums from Hola A Todo El Mundo, Maga, WAS, Polock, Los Punsetes, La Costa Brava, Nudozurdo, Joe Crepúsculo, Belako and a long list of other songs continue to have high plays in the digital libraries of millions of people around the world. The label also acquired releases from other labels and from classic Spanish indie groups such as Love of Lesbian, Dorian and La Buena Vida.

We Are Pop 2015 to 2020
At the time in 2015, when digital consumption was gaining momentum, Mushroom Pillow closed a cycle with its constant search for evolution and expansion. In previous years the company had created a long list of classic albums within the alternative circuit, it was with the release of "Hundred Miles" by Yall x Gabriela Richardson that surprised many and led to the company's need for change and reflected. The song wons the Diamond Record in France as well as the #1 spot on French radio and became a classic on its own merits in continental Europe, also winning gold records in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium or Spain, as well as appearing in the Pepsi worldwide campaign. At this time Reyko's "Spinning Over You" was released which reached #1 in radio in Spain, and "My life is going on" by Cecilia Krull and Gavin Moss, #1 on radio in France for eight consecutive weeks ahead of Calvin Harris or David Guetta and platinum record in France. Both "Hundred Miles" and "My life is going on" entered the top 20 European commercial radio stations, a very unusual milestone in the Spanish music industry.

From 2015 to 2020, up to 10 Mushroom Pillow songs appeared in Shazam's top 100 worldwide, led to their catalogue to take on an unusual dimension for a Spanish independent label, and more so when they were debut releases. Songs by new artists such as Vega Almohalla, Zazo & Gxurmet, Gavin Moss, Cecilia Krull or Yall, all of them with an above-average digital plays, turning the company into more than just a Spanish based label and into a known European label. In 2020, several tracks were featured in 52 international digital platform charts. The singer Najwa released her first album with the company and several tracks went viral along with an increasingly large legion of fans from different countries that causing label's website to crash with the release of her first collection of merchandising. The increasingly extensive catalogue of the label brings together successful songs that have stood the test of time since its creation in 2001 and that mark the commercial high point of many artists who have passed through, and continues to seek international expansion along a path marked by its own decisions, beyond what it is supposed to be and represent an independent company that can mix the sensitivity of caring for an alternative project with the effectiveness of working a track that can be # 1 on commercial radio.

Artists In Absolutely No Particular Order And No Particular Genre

 * Gavin Moss
 * Cecilia Krull
 * The Raveonettes
 * The Go Betweens
 * Black Crystal
 * The Essex Green
 * Linda Draper
 * Los Fancy Free
 * Najwa
 * The Jeevas
 * Boedekka
 * Club 8
 * Bart Davenport
 * Call and Response
 * Astrid
 * Pinkie
 * Heavy Blinkers
 * Bronco Bullfrog
 * Tribeca
 * Alex Lowe
 * Mondial
 * Yall
 * Sr. Chinarro
 * Vega Almohalla
 * Delorean
 * The Sunday Drivers
 * La Habitación Roja
 * Extraperlo
 * Tarik y la fábrica de colores
 * Triángulo de Amor Bizarro
 * Limousine
 * Universal Circus
 * Galáctica
 * La Costa Brava
 * Da
 * Belako
 * Jubilee
 * Panorama
 * Lovely Luna
 * Femme Fatal
 * Deluxe
 * Xabel Vegas
 * We Are Standard
 * Maga
 * Polock
 * Kostrok
 * El columpio asesino
 * Siloé
 * Novio Caballo
 * Zazo y Gxurmet