Yes it's New Years Day, where we celebrate another year on this planet, and yes today is also hangover day, where we pay for all that celebrating we did the night before, but today should also be celebrated as dumbass day, why? Because, today is the day that Decca records passed on The Beatles, because they thought the band was going out of style. Yes, right at the start of what would be one of the biggest careers in rock music history, an executive at Decca records passed on The Fab Four thinking he was ahead of the curve.
The band auditioned for Decca Records at Decca Studios, and were rejected, as the company opted to sign Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.
Yeah, exactly.
The Beatles manager Brian Epstein met with Columbia, HMV, Pye, Philips, and Oriole records and was rejected by all of them, after Epstein met with both EMI and Decca, and A&R executive Mike Smith travelled to Liverpool to see the Beatles perform at The Cavern Club. He asked Epstein to bring the band down to London for a test in Decca's recording studios, and John, Paul, George, and Ringo arrived on January 1, 1962. The Beatles performed songs hand-picked by Epstein, and the session was recorded by the company. About a month later, however Decca rejected the Beatles, feeling that "guitar groups are on the way out" and "the Beatles have no future in show business".
While Epstein was negotiating with Decca, he approached EMI executive Ron White, they eventually signed with EMI subsidiary Parlophone, where producer George Martin heard the Decca demos and met with the band. The rest as we say is Rock & Roll history as the Beatles went on to have the biggest career in music history that still resonates to this day.
It didn't end all badly for Decca as they would later sign The Rolling Stones, when George Harrison, raved about the band. The label would eventually, however find a way to screw up that association, as the Stones would later negitiate their way away from Decca years later.