Odeon

Odeon was founded in Berlin in 1903 and is generally credited with putting recordings on both sides of a disc, from 1904. Rivals disputed the priority at the time and discographers still do, but Odeon certainly made the practice normal in Europe years before the American houses accepted it.

It was absorbed into Carl Lindström AG, the Berlin combine that also held Parlophon, Beka and Fonotipia, and which built one of the largest international catalogues of the acoustic era — European operetta and dance music alongside recordings made across South America, India and the Far East.

Lindström's holdings passed to Columbia Graphophone in the late 1920s, and from there into EMI.