Playback and Payback series; (part 5) Who does what to whom (I)

A brief tour of a fictitious record company

WELCOME TO FUN with flowcharts. In this episode, we play Sherpa following a piece of music from the artist’s brain to the consumer and through all the steps in between. While this tour does not represent any specific record company, all of them work something like this, and have for eons. These are broad strokes that help explain how music gets turned into a corporate commodity – and one reason the business has hit ebb tide.

Starting at the top, we have the artist. This may be one of the few instances in which the artist is at the top of the corporate structure, but for our purposes, it all starts here. The artist creates music and needs to communicate it. This is the kind of artist who would not be content for the work to get circulated only among friends and family – this artist wants the world to know and hear. Our artist can be male or female or a group, making any kind of music and attempting to find an audience. In the process, an artist will often find an advocate and avatar, otherwise known as a personal manager.

A word of warning – anyone can be a manager. Unlike, say, booking agents or automotive mechanics who in countries need licenses and must follow certain regulations to stay in business, artist managers need no license, no credentials, no experience, only a contract. No one regulates them. For you artists out there, it behoves you to make sure the manager can deliver, that the manager knows people in the music business who can help propel your music. (Keep in mind, artists from Christina Aguilera to Leonard Cohen to INXS have found it necessary to sue their management. And within one week in 2006 the managers of both INXS and the Killers sued their bands. Especially when money gets involved, an artist needs a manager they can trust. ‘Nuff said.)

In addition to contracts in the music business (preferably with every A&R person in creation), a manager will often have a lawyer on retainer. The only time the artists should need their own attorney is to read through (and possibly negotiate) the management contract. Many managers have affiliations with a business manager. This person makes sure that the business of being an artist gets handled like a business – taxes filed, money invested, rent paid, employees (if the artist gets so lucky) paid, etc.

Lately, a great deal of artist development, which used to be the purview of the record company, has fallen into the lap of managers. Record companies do not want to hear from an artist who doesn’t have several release-ready songs and a “story” – the unique selling points that explain why the record company should take a chance on the artist. Many of the majors will not sign artists who have not previously sold 20,000 units of a record, either via an independent record company, or on their own. That actually becomes part of the “story.” Sometimes, the story is evident – the Bacon Brothers didn’t need to work too hard to generate a story when one of the brothers, Kevin, is also a movie star. (on the other hand, it doesn’t help them sell earth-shattering numbers of records.)