Alan McGee

Alan McGee, who founded Creation Records in 1984, gave £20,000 to the Labour Party in March 1999. Creation Records gave £24,838 before the election in 1997. McGee discovered Oasis, and has attended parties at No.10 Downing Street with Noel Gallagher. His personal wealth was put at £25 million in 1999. Creation was sold to Sony in June 2000, thus ending the position that McGee owned 35% of the company (Sony owned 49%). Following Creation's closure, McGee developed into property buying houses, flats, a farm in Wales and even an office block in Primrose Hill. McGee also got into buying art as a hobby. He now runs the Poptones label, manages bands, DJs and writes a blog for The Guardian and myspace.[1]

He is also involved with clickmusic, an internet music directory, which he set up with Robert Devereux and Matthew Freud. In April 2000 he said in an interview with MP3 magazine that the way Internet firms were buying up record companies was good because, "More bands dropped by major labels, more staff will lose their jobs and there'll be more space for people like me to come in and grab them. Its a selfish view." He now runs Poptones Records, an internet based music label.

McGee sat on the Government's Creative Industries Task Force and their Music Industry Forum. In January 2000 after criticising the Government on several issues, he backed Malcolm McLaren's (later abandoned) bid for the London Mayor's job, although he has since renewed his relationship with New labour.