Playback and Payback series; (part 6) who does what to whom (II)

For the sake of this series, we’re going to assume our artist’s sales and story are convincing, else our Sherpa won’t have very much reason to guide. The manager gets the artists on the A&R radar and signed to a major label.

Occasionally, artists will get onto the A&R radar without benefit of a manager. If the artist gets signed, the first thing the A&R person in charge will do is find the artist a manager. The reason is pretty simple: in most cases, record companies would rather do business with a manager than have an artist running amok in their hallways. A manager ostensibly knows the “rules of the game.” A good one knows how to play the rules as well as play by them. Managers will push to keep an artist in a record company’s face rather than its rearview mirror. And believe it or not, that’s what the record companies want – they realise that without someone holding a cattle prod there would be no motion at all.

All the little boys and girls intent on getting into the music business wanna do A&R. There is a certain amount of glamour and power there. Theoretically, the A&R department decides which artists get in. They are the gatekeepers, the maw of the digestive system of a record company. However, as we’ll see later on in the series, it ain’t necessarily so. A&R people work insane hours, learning to live without sleep. Their day usually finds them at their office by 10 A.M., sifting through CDs and paperwork. Each CD generally gets about 30 seconds a track unless:

1. It has too many tracks – circular file and not even a note

2. The track is so unengaging the A&R person forgets to forward to the next track

3. The A&R person actually likes the track, in which case it goes into a pile for further review

The paperwork involves making sure all of the projects the A&R person currently has on tap are working properly – the producer the A&R person hooked up with the artist is working out, the artist is living up to contractual obligations, the company is living up to contractual obligations, negotiations with managers and the label brass are moving forward, and other issues involved in feeding the hungry maw of the record label are being handled.

Ultimately, an artist and manager who go the major label route sign a record deal offered through the A&R department. A major record company generally will pay the artist an advance against future royalties (usually between 10 and 20 percent of gross sales). The manager gets a 15 – 20 percent cut of this off the top. The rest of the advance will pay for making the record – studio time and hiring producers and engineers and the like – as well as giving the artist something to live on while the record is being made.

In the meantime, the A&R department will get busy. The A&R person oversees the initial steps of the artist through the record company and the recording process. If the artist did not come to the company by way of a production deal (a deal where a producer takes the artist into the studio initially and records three tracks; if those tracks land the artist a record deal, then the producer gets a piece of the action and produces all or part of the full album), the A&R person will suggest producers. If the artist or producer doesn’t have a studio, the A&R person might help find the best one to suit the artist’s needs. For artists who don’t write their own material, the A&R person might also suggest songs.

Beyond that, though, the A&R person is the artist’s champion within the record company. Often, if an A&R person leaves the company, that person’s artists get divided up among the people who are still there. These artists are called “orphans,” and sometimes they get adopted by someone who loves their work and will continue to be their champion, and sometimes they wind up with the wicked stepparent of A&R.

This is not an atypical event, nor does it only happen to new artists, nor only in the record business. as Pete Townshend said, “When I was doing The Iron Giant with Warner Bros., the people in charge of the company and the line producers changed five time! Five times! So every time it was like a new group of people too deal with. The project remained, but the people changed.” Those poor orphaned artists frequently don’t last long, unless they manage to rise above the neglect (usually with the aid of a good manager) and actually sell enough records to let them make demands of the record company.

Ultimately, all this activity by the A&R person, the artist, et al., will result in the producer and the artist delivering some form of digital recording medium to the A&R person. This master then makes the rounds of the record company. The heads of the company listen to it to make sure they want to sign off on it (whether or not they know a thing about music) and the promotion department listens to it to see if they hear a hit, something they can work with to get the recording some attention. It really doesn’t matter, as the deck is stacked against everyone – conventional wisdom in the record business says that only about 5 percent of the records released actually recoup their advances eventually. Only perhaps 15 percent turn a profit for the record company. This is not for lack of trying, and more’s the pity.