Playback and Payback series; (part 7) who does what to whom (III)

Once everyone has signed off on the recording, the A&R department hands it off to the product manager and the production department. At this step of the process, the recording goes from a raw tape to the package that you would find at your local record retailer.

The production process involves deciding what artwork will appear on the cover, how many pages the booklet inside the CD package will run, what kind of packaging it will use, what will be printed on the CD itself, etc. Beyond this, the production department will also come up with promotional copies of the CD, usually packaged in cardboard, paper, or plastic, as the record company has two systems through which the recording will pass – the “front office” promotion machine and the “back office” distribution machine.

At its most basic, the distribution side gets the recording places where a consumer can buy it – a record club or catalogue, a store, a website, anywhere a CD can be bought. At most record companies, distribution occupies a separate space from the front office functions of A&R, promotion, product management, legal, etc., although at the remote branches, sometimes the local sales and marketing force will share office space with the local promotion force. (The actual manufacturing of the CD takes place at a third location, separate from both the front office and the distribution team.)

The first thing that gets done is the sales department creates a “one sheet.” This document will have the name of the artist, title of the record, order number, bar code, and the artist’s “story.” This might be the first exposure anyone, including the sales force, has to the artist’s CD, which they will refer to as “the product.” They go out to the chain warehouses and offices, determine how many copies of each CD the buyers want. Some recordings don’t get ordered at all. After all, over 30,000 CDs have been released every year since the mid-1990s, many more than will fit in most stores.