A&M Records is one of the most successful and admired labels in music history. A&M had more than 100 top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962, when Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss founded the label, and 1989, when they sold it to PolyGram NV. The label’s first top 10 hit was Alpert & the Tijuana Brass’ bullfight-inspired instrumental “The Lonely Bull,” which reached No. 6 in December 1962. Its last in the years Alpert and Moss owned the label was Janet Jackson’s “Miss You Much,” which logged four weeks at No. 1 in October 1989.
As the industry continues to mourn Moss’ death on Wednesday (Aug. 16) at age 88, we give you this list of A&M’s 50 biggest hits in the 27 years that Alpert and Moss owned the label. Carpenters have eight entries on the list, followed by Jackson, with six; Captain & Tennille, with four; Billy Preston and Styx, with three each; and Alpert, The Human League, Breathe and Simple Minds, with two each. (Sting has two if you combined one solo hit and one megahit with The Police.)
The sale to PolyGram NV, announced in October 1989, became effective in January 1990. Alpert and Moss stayed on after the sale, but it wasn’t quite the same. Gil Friesen, who became A&M’s second employee in 1964 and succeeded Moss as president in 1977, resigned in April 1990. Others followed. After the sale, A&M became a little less special, a little more corporate. On June 18, 1993, Alpert and Moss left A&M which now operated as a division of PolyGram. The glory days of the label were when it was an indie – initially the little label that could – that earned the admiration of the industry.
For the record, A&M had more than 40 additional top 10 hits on the Hot 100 after Alpert and Moss relinquished ownership, including No. 1s by Jackson, Amy Grant, Extreme, Bryan Adams, Fergie and Maroon 5.
Methodology: Songs, which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962, when A&M was founded, and the end of 1989, when Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss sold the label to PolyGram, are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from each era, certain time frames were weighted to account for the difference between turnover rates from those years.
