One of important roles in the entertainment
industry would be A&R. According to About.com, A&R stands for artist
and repertoire and their basic job is that finding new artists and signing them
to the label or the production company. In the music industry, A&R agents
cover all kinds of important things such as contracting negotiations, booking
recording sessions and preparing for the album release. These are typical roles
of the A&R in the past. However, the role of A&R has changed in current
entertainment industry.
Currently,
the global music industry has struggling with dropping in the total recorded-music
revenue because the global music industry wasn’t ready to adopt themselves to
new technologies and business formats well. So many important roles in the
global music industry, such as producers, record labels, and artists, have
changed and developed in order to survive in this hard situation. A&R also
has needed to develop new functions with newer technologies and become one of
important divisions in the global music industry.
Like
I mentioned before, the previous roles of typical A&R was that the
developing artist and talent scouting. However, in current global music
industry, they have to become people who can multitask several important
functions effectively. A&R producers cover wide and different fields of
roles in the music industry for artists’ success such as marketing, artist
concept developing, researching markets, contents developing, etc. This is why
the current trend of A&R has become the team-based working with
multitasking functions.
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According
to billboard.com, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)
stated that global music and record companies invested $4.5 billon in A&R
and marketing in 2011, of which $2.7 billon was in A&R alone. I think the
reason why the international music industry has invested huge amounts of money
on A&R and marketing could be that the right marketing tactics and
effective promotion strategies with the good artist developing will be a powerful
way to generate profits in the entertainment industry.
Even
though the roles of A&R have become multi-functional and the key fact of
generating revenues in the industry, the basic role of A&R is still the
important part of the A&R agent’s abilities. In order to become a good
A&R producer, having a passion with the job, building a good relationship
with songwriters, producers and record labels, having a good taste of music and
understanding about the process of the music producing will still be the basic
and critical characteristics of A&R producers. According to
ArtistsHouseMusic.org, Bob Jamieson, the former President and CEO of RCA Music
and BMI North America, mentioned that a good A&R producers need to be able
to communicate with artists, become multi-talented and understand thinking of
artists.
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