Arista Records was founded by Clive Davis in 1974. The story of Arista and its founders appear to embody the ideals of the American paradigm in that Davis turned personal misfortune into one of the most prosperous record labels available today. Through innovation and an adherence to his personal values in the face of criticism and evidence to the contrary, Davis built the label of Arista to sky-rocketing success. It is precisely this success that helped the company survive in spite of disasters such as the Milli Vanilli scandal.
             Arista's story begins with Clive Davis being fired from CBS Records. He was subsequently employed as a record and music consultant for Columbia Pictures. Here he rose to the position of president in 1974, combining Columbia's legacy labels into a single entity that was to become Arista Records.
             In 1976, Arista was sold to Ariola Records, based in Germany. Ariola then purchased RCA Records from General Electric in 1986, after which the parent company became Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). These changes did not have any adverse effects on the label's rapid rise to success. Indeed, Arista, under the direction of Davis, appeared to go from strength to strength during the 1980s.
             Arista's acquisitions for example include Northwestside Records, Deconstruction Records, First Avenue Records and Dedicated Records, while many prominent music personalities joined Arista and contributed to its success. One of these was the combination of Antonio "L.A." Reid and Babyface in creating LaFace Records during 1989. After the Milli Vanilli scandal during the same year, the 1990s marked Arista's recovery, and similar string of prominent names associated themselves with the label, including Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in the creation of Bad Boy Records in 1993.
             At the turn of the century, BMG made the decision to replace Davis with L.A. Reid as
             ...