Before the world was listening.
First records. Small labels. Extraordinary beginnings. Discover the recordings that opened a door to modern music.
Every beginning was once an unknown.
We hear these records knowing what came next. The musicians who made them had no such certainty. A first session, a borrowed studio, a small run of singles: each was a step into an unwritten future. These surviving copies bring us closer to that moment, before a familiar name became a familiar voice.
Every record starts a story.
Four names, one beginning
“People Need Love” / “Merry-Go-Round”
ABBA
Billie, at eighteen
“Your Mother’s Son-in-Law”
Billie Holiday with Benny Goodman
A bus ride.
A grandmother.
A first record.
At age 13, Dolly Parton travelled from Tennessee to Louisiana with her grandmother to make a record. “Puppy Love” captures a young voice at the beginning of an extraordinary career.
Follow a sound.
The record.
The story.
The surviving copy.
OMMA collects, preserves and documents the first physical releases of influential artists across genres and around the world. We share the records and the stories behind them through a public research catalogue, educational resources and loans to vetted exhibitions.