Wednesday, March 6, 2013

8. A&R





        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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