12/11/2023 0 Comments Artist and repertoire salaryBut most of the time, it was a bust, there was nothing. So I'd go to Rough Trade Records in London on a Saturday and see what was happening. We would go to all these shops and find out what people were listening to. My first gig with Craig Kallman was going around to record shops with records and trading them for independent ones. Paul Samuels, Vice President of A&R at Atlantic Records UK, clearly remembers how hard it was to research what records “the cool kids were listening to”: I am old enough to remember record shops and finding out what records were selling. The job of an A&R scout is extraordinarily analytical and requires having a great understanding of the musical environment. Even if this idea still has a lot of charm, these signings are extremely rare today. Before the Beatles, after all, commercially viable artists who wrote their own material were pretty much unheard of.Īs the album format reached full maturity with ‘60s/‘70s Rock, A&Rs were increasingly involved, in varying degrees, with every aspect of an artist’s development, from discovery to production, creative direction to career trajectory.Ī&Rs weren’t just song pickers or talent scouts: They were the business-minded angels on artists’ shoulders, the bridge between the artist’s wildest creative impulses and the record label’s most stringent budgetary concerns.Ī&R has changed since the dawn of the internet: Gone are the days when an A&R scout had to step inside a dark and smelly pub in South London and be the first to find the new Ed Sheeran. Originally, the A&R role was tasked with matching artists to the right song and/or songwriter. The recording artist was born, and A&Rs were positioned to help them succeed. The technological disruption of recorded music at scale expanded the artist pool, because it opened up a whole other world of song interpretation and, consequently, consumption. As the commercialization of the phonograph ramped up during the mid-20th century, the music industry was splitting from two sectors into three sectors: publishing, performing, and now, recording. Still, data-driven A&R is largely a secret kept in plain sight, and very few people have a clear understanding of what A&R is and how it works in the music industry today.Ī&R, or Artists and Repertoire, really came into its own with the development of the recording industry. New technological advancements have already changed the role of A&R in the music industry today, transforming the relationships between labels, artists, and managers. Saying too much could mean losing a competitive advantage over another label and potentially arriving late to a signing. With such an impressive number of records, it is impossible to use only a “gut-feeling” approach.ĭue to these factors, record labels are extremely careful about how much they share regarding the technology and methods they are utilizing. The second reason why the industry is going full-data is volume: As stated by Spotify itself, nearly 40K tracks are uploaded on the DSP every day. With such a significant share of recording company budgets invested into artists, their main objective is to minimize revenue loss, and data can help them make the right bets. According to the IFPI Global Music Report of 2019, record companies are investing more than one-third of their global revenues ($5.8 billion) in A&R and marketing each year. Even before the acquisition of Sodatone by Warner Music Group, major and big indie record labels started to switch their mindsets and focus on the advantages of a data-driven approach.Ĭompared to the classic "gut-feeling" expertise of a senior A&R, data analysis allows today’s A&Rs to validate their intuition and justify talent acquisition with predictive modeling. You can listen to our podcast interview with Tommaso about his article below.ĭata-driven A&R has been a buzzword for quite some time in the music industry, but also one of its most guarded secrets. As a former college radio Music Director at, Rocchi focused on copyright law, new business models, and data analytics. Editor's Note: Tommaso Rocchi is a 2020 Master of Arts graduate of The Global Entertainment and Music Business program at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain.
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