Men of constant sorrow - the A&R persons

Well, As I’ve already mentioned  I don’t think that a musician looking up for a record deal needs to know all about particular  branches and functions of a record label  in details. It’s enough to be aware of the A&R system. But, it’s vital to be aware of it. Because, to cut in short, these are the people who decide whether you have chance of signing to their company, or not. In other words, it’s up to them to decide if you are cool and talented enough to get a chance.

The A&R job is one of the few jobs on earth, where age doesn’t matter. Mostly because of the many diverse types of music which have listeners from different age zones.  If you are a Cello player  in an orchestra you should not expect an A&R person younger then 35-40 years on your performance. On the other hand, if you are a 18 years old lead singer of a girl band and are performing songs named like  “Mama I’m big enough to pierce my ass”, you must rarely expect an A&R person older then 35. As widely accepted, an A&R of a specific musical style or genre is much alike the listeners of that style. 

There are different levels and types of A&R and all of them have different approach to music business.

Some of them go to shows (are interested in live performance), some of them don’t.

Some of them accept unsolicited material, some of them don’t (Well, in 90% of the cases they don’t).

Some of them accept authorized CD-s, some of them emails, some of them do both.

Some of them stick to one city (not necessarily where their company is), others spend 25 hours in a plane each week.

The biggest problem is that these guys (especially the ones who work on label) are really hard to get in touch with. They receive hundreds of emails and CD-s each day, hear stuff like “Check out, this is the New Nirvana” every day and generally despise people. Especially musicians. But mostly, these people are really busy. In fact, they probably are the busiest branch of the industry business. Reaching them without loads of contacts in the biz must be considered as sheer luck.

We’ll discuss how to get to these punks in another topic.

Well, some say that the days of A&R are numbered because musicians now can create and market their music online. Digital revolution in da Haus!!! Well many people (and me also) consider this point of view as being too simplistic. It’s right that internet took away the necessity of a middleman and musicians can get to their listeners without the help of a record company, but the main problem of a today’s artist is the difficulty of getting heard above billions of other, fighting for listener’s attraction. A&R here is nothing but a filter. Because they decide, which of these million artists have real potential to create unique (or highly commercial) music and who really deserves a chance (or who can bring loads of money).

The Skills and tastes of some A&R persons have greatly influenced the course of music history. Nirvana was signed when Alternative Rock was not favored by labels; Jackson was refused to be signed several times because disco music was going down. We all see the consequences. 

The A&R persons come in two different flavors – The ones who work on a record company and the independent ones.

The hired A&R persons  have the exact advantages that major label has over the independent ones (sorry, we haven’t passed that yet). They are mostly paid really well, have the opportunity to work without limits. Very often they even don’t have to listen to all new material, they just accept solicited CDs. 

But this can be frustrating too. A hired person may discover a unique band, but the president of the label, the head of A&R, or some other big player in the company may just decline the choice, despite the fact that the A&R are paid for one thing – choosing. Frequently they just don’t have the freedom to sign what they want.

Independent A&R persons are free from this burden; they can listen to whatever they want, whenever they want and as much as they want. But they don’t have the power of the record label backing them up. Let’s say, you are an indie A&R and you’ ve met a band which you’re sure will make an explosion in Japan. Or a female singer, who needs a high quality video clip to become another Lady Gaga. But without the infrastructure of the record company, the only thing indie A&R can do is to go back to the company and promote his artist.

Last but not the least – after 1990’s there is a growing tendency of more commercial and business-minded signings. The main factor to blame is that the most powerful names in modern music industry are no longer people with strong background in music, but business people. Traditionally, A&R persons came from music, being composers, producers, etc. In Today’s business, an A&R person with solid musical ability and knowledge has become a rarity. Which of course has its impact on modern music.