The Dark Art of A&R, we are out to get you aren't we? :-)
I thought I should do one of those "why we do this, what's it all about" posts in response to the comments on the 'I'm Alive' post.
What it is.
I think it's important to identify what this platform is and it's purpose. Essentially, it's a submissions platform at it's core. The first port of call for artists who simply want to get their stuff heard by A&R at the labels who otherwise don't have access to those people via a well connected manager, lawer, the radio etc. On top of that it has powerful blogging tools which allow artists to further promote and develop their presence within the online community.
It has been started as a UK based project. However, I've always thought if I come accross something good it shouldn't be dismissed because of territory. So I still push oversees acts to the labels where possible. Though when I promote local acts on my nights they are not simply from London, I try to get talent from all over the country and I've been fairly successful in this so far. Except I haven't managed Scotland yet. :-)
Feedback
The feedback issue has been the subject of much arguement in the past. Bottom line is it's impossible to give constructive feedback often enough to satisfy the demands of those who feel they need it. Plus as was mentioned in the comments, there are people far more qualified than the likes of myself or other record company types to appraise music submissions. So who am I to say the chorus isn't strong enough, the mix is crap etc etc? I saw mentioned that artists need to have feedback in order to judge their own viability with the label. If you are a producer this may be the case if you are essentially pitching your wares. If you are a recording artist viability of your material isn't the question, the suitability of the label is. If we don't like it, don't respond in time etc then that's not the label for you.
What companies want?
As for what company's want I think a formulaic structure to A&R simply doesn't exist. That's more of a marketing thing which would be more at home with a creative publishers or catalogue label. Such as, "We need a product to co-incide with the olympics" or something. I have sat in many A&R meetings and each A&R person has their own angle and opinion on what acts we should be breaking. I have never heard anyone say "We really need an acoustic, early 20's, UK-based etc etc". It's simply the case of bringing what that particular scout has been in to. The head of the label does not instruct A&R as to what to bring in. A&R are employed to know what to bring in.
Power to the People?
I also read a comment talking of the company actively prohibiting the behaviours of groups within Vox or various groups set up to work in tandom with this project. How would that benefit us? For a kick off, this is hosted and maintained by Six Apart Inc, I couldn't have a group shut down if I wanted to. Plus I really encourage any development in community structures, groups and integration of other platforms. I think the weheartmusic page apitomises this concept and serves as a good example as to what can be achieved within a blogging community.
What do artists need to do to guarantee deals?
As regards what is required of an artist to warrant investment from a label this is impossible to quantify. I remember an act practically being signed on the strength of a myspace page whereas we recently got a signing off the blogs who signed up a year ago and there has been much to-ing a fro-ing since until the deal recently. I was in regular contact with them advising on deals, lawyers etc. Both are completely different as regards genre, investment and route into the company. I could probably list 30 or so different ways bands have come in. This really wouldn't help you as every signing can be slightly different.
Ultimately this is why I ask simply to submit your best material, rehearse loads and ask everyone everything. I've known acts signed off the strength of a gig, demo, buzz, recommendations, overall image, a recorded album etc etc. So the only way to truly advise on getting in, is to boil it down to what works in all those situations. Which is good music, shite songs wont be recommended, come across well at gigs, sound good online, generate a buzz, make a great album etc etc. Don't try to fulfill a market niche or some pre-conceived quota that you think the label may have or some kooky angle that you've devised.
Now then, from the comments I can probably see this will be pulled apart but I do think it's important to see this, and the label in it's true form. This is a demo submissions process, infinitely more practical than physical submissions though not perfect (yet). There's probably an air of mystery around the concept of A&R, the meetings, how it's all done, how we're potentially evil greedy no-gooders and all that. Truth is, I work closely with all of A&R who all come from the similar musical backgrounds, many are around my age (late twenties/early 30's) and who's only interest is to break acts that they are proud of pushing, as you don't want to be the guy who brought in something rubbish. It doesn't get much more complicated than that.
As I've preached many times before, due to the empowerment of artists through new technology and the competition within a shrinking market, it makes good business-sense to create different methods/channels to encourage as much new busness/markets/assets (ie you) as possible. Any ideas to expand this always welcome.
I'll shut up now. :-)
Hope all is less frustrated with you.
IB
Comments
You do tend to get some that I cant even understand , but most only occur because people haven't read the FAQ or dont have much idea about the industry basics, and there are still a lot that havent figured Vox out yet. Rarely there is one that is out for blood..
We recently got an abusive letter from one chap who was very angry that we hadn't given any feedback etc, and he hadn't ever posted anything,
You are doing a good job, and doing much over the top.
Laudus Indius!!!!!!
Hold the bridge!
However you should remember that you are trying to run a formalised process within a social networking community. You cant help bringing in people via your main websites who would never want to get involved in such ( about 4000 members of this group are completely blank or inactive)). In earlier posts and I think on the FAQ, the community side of things was promoted, enthusiastically., not so much now though..
I hope this is not being pushed aside.
Dont spoil the party, Bands and artistes that dont do the joining in , community thing, online or off and show any social conscience are just a pile of timewasters and w....s as far as the Gnome (with its extremist criteria)is concerned. no matter how good their music. bringing the selfcentred and greedy into any community, even unknowingly , is bound to cause ripples. Perhaps they should be prewarned , (yes we have even had one plonkers remove our comments from his post) so that they know what they are getting themselves into..
P.Gnome
At least with this demo submission route - we get the chance for other like minded and equally talented members to hear our material as well as the intended industy recipient - and it's even better when other VOX members can leave a comment or constructive criticism to help us develop our chosen skill, be it songwriting, performing, production etc ... It's better than the soul destroying thought that all those jiffy bags we send out just end up as landfill - lovingly produced promo packs that never got to see the light of day at the other end.
A&R? I wouldn't want your job even though I hate mine!
I often get chased and told off, it's quite tought sometimes. Especially when it comes to comments.
One of the reasons all is quiet on the label blogs front is everytime I'd submit a review of a band or something, the post would be horrifically spammed and receive nasty PM's asking why we put that band up and not theirs or how crap they were etc etc. I got sick of delete masses of comments, some of which were really explicit.
If the people in more executive positions at the companies you represent aren't giving you clear "quotas" on the kind of acts they do and don't want then you obviously can't address queries like that directly, but I suppose that is better really because it leaves the door open for you to judge label viability based on your own sense of the talent and possibly marketability of whomever you happen to like.
Your list of prerequisites relating to what will get an artist attention from A & R basically boils down to "be good at what you do and do it with serious intentions" and from there it's really just a matter of the taste and subjective reactions of any and all A & R who hear an artist's material as to whether they see it as desirable from a label standpoint.
I'd like to add here a comment about "buzz" in the context of the Vox A & R group. My strong sense is that no one will receive much buzz here beyond a handful of positive comments because few people spend much time listening to other people's material at a site like this. On YouTube or MySpace there is much, much more of a community of people who are logging on simply to listen to and enjoy quality unsigned musicians, and they leave much feedback to support the artists. You will not see much of that here on Vox, because people come to post here with their own career goals well to the fore of their interests.
A good example of that is the UK singer Tamara Rossi (RossiSinger), who is getting floods of ecstatic comments for her videos on YouTube, but has only gotten a handful of them here (and several of those are from me).
So, yes, look for an online buzz, but don't gauge that here---you will have to go to one of the other sites, such as MySpace, to see if such a buzz exists for a particular artist.
Although, as I stated in the previous post, this kind of site has drawbacks in that there isn't much feedback coming from any direction, what there is is a community of people from various levels in music, some purely amateur, some already established in the industry at some level, and what they have in common is that they are all oriented to varying degrees towards a career in music, rather than just wanting to play around with it as a hobby and post it online.
This kind of professionally oriented forum is a valuable resource and I feel I'm starting to meet people who I might choose to interact with at a a career development level, plus I'm learning more about the business side of things, so I'm grateful for the existence of the Vox group for those kinds of opportunities that it provides.
Hey
Will u do me a huge favour and check out my song Irish Party, Seeing as rap is a huge market in the states and the american people love the Irish anyone with a good business head on them would see that a Irish rapper would make it huge over there, and Irish party is the song to do that with, could u take a quick listen and give me some feedback, I would really really appreciate this.
Peace and Respect
Shakey
God post IB. Well done!
MM
You know we love you.....
Love
The Lost Levels
I had a listen shakey. Very infectious. It's time Rap started to evolve before it becomes completely stilted. Cross cultural intermixes such as the Celtic style might be the way for it go. Personally I like that new intermix - it's exciting and new. I'm not an A&R so I can't help on that score but keep on with that new style - it's pretty darn good.
Thanks Indie boy for giving helping us to see what you guys are looking for.. I ended up on Vox becuase the BMG receprionist would not give me a name of someone within Syco.. I explained I wanted to submit 1 song only [ not as an artist ] but she would only give me the vox details.. the song in question was a very commercial Christmas song which for the life of me I can't see myself posting here on Vox.... my own worries about this online submission form are these [ please do not take this the wrong way as I mean this to be constructive ]...
Many different styles of music are getting submitted and from time to time it is obvious the fellow members are impressed by certain submissions.. now that says to me that maybe that perticular person submitting may have something "possibly" commercial going on with their music.. ..Yet nothing seems to happen for them.. my main concern is that how can "you" yourself be expected to take care of all the submissions.. to me it seems that you are interested in a specific area of music [ slap me if I'm wrong ].. if the next Sarah Brightman came along and presented a great demo would it be fair to expect you to like it and take an interest... I myself do not think so... I honestly think there should be a team assigned to this project or it should for sure be split into categories of music run by A&R who work in that field.. To be honest I recon running your project could be a full time affair but as with most things I guess it comes down to £$£$£$..
Anyway hope you take this comment in the way it is meant..
Cheers Rene
Ultimately it doesn't have to be about what I like, just about what I think is good. :-)
IB,
Nice summary of what you've been saying here all along. You know, I feel the need to repost items here and there because people simply didn't read it the first time it was posted.
-Then again, you'll always come across some who'll just read what they want to read, and miss the point of the whole story. -What can you do?
Repost.
Have a good weekend!!!
We've had nothing but positive experiences from using this site not only as a forum to reach A+R and other bands, but as a means to meet new people interested in music who have nothing to do with record labels or the music industry.
Our "neighbourhood" is mostly made up of regular voxers who like to read about what we have been up too and vice versa. The site has become as important to us as any MySpace or Facebook facility.
IB, you are right to mention the Welovemusic blog as they have been really supportive to "This Morning Call" and always have interesting content. Another success is Suzie Wilkin's tour diary on her blog and its been great to hear what she's been up too, I've really enjoyed logging in for the next installment, and its a great example of what VOX is all about.
However, I do sometimes get a bit frustrated by people posting "angry" comments to various threads which seem to be a bit heavy handed. Some folk should lighten up IMO.
I want to know who this mysterious pop act is that has been signed as a result of the blogs so I can check them out!
PS. Don't forget about out London show on the 3rd April at The Troubadour. Thank you!
Ben
A good article, although you didn’t tell us anything new.
If you really want to make the site work, there is a lot more you could do.
FOR THE BANDS
We all want help and advice, not just signing. We for instance do not want to be signed, not yet at least. What we want is to learn and improve. These days the technology is available to record your own material, single, demo track or album. What I feel you should be doing is pointing us at resources to help us become better at what we do.
For instance, we are looking for a producer, someone who is sympathetic to the type of music we play. Our local demo and recording studios are full of bands, but no producers. We would also like to hook up with an arranger, our lead singer and Manager write our lyrics, but before Sep 07 they hadn’t written anything before. We would like to talk to someone who can help people who could coach us. And before your Finance Director has a seizure, we don’t want you to pay for them, most bands don’t make enough money to perform full time, so we all have day jobs, we are more than willing to pay for the services we need. What you could do is point us at people who know what they are doing, those that could provide these services.
Then there is the image, most bands dress in what they feel like wearing, no one at our live gigs gives a flying f***k what we wear, we are especially good live, we put on a show and that is what they come to see. However, we would love to meet with some budding designers, perhaps on a University course where they need to dudes to style, or other stylists from the industry who might give us some pointers. It is harder to impress when the only access is to your online tracks and a few photos, so image is important.
And what about the gigging scene. We formed late last year, we had never done much more than a school gig, or a local youth centre. Advice on what to do, where to go, the preparation and pitfalls would be really helpful to new bands. We learned the hard way, early on, we convinced a couple of promoters to put us on at some excellent live music venues, we ended up playing to 3-4 people, in a room that would fit 500, seriously embarrassing. Once we found some good promoters like Wild Plum, we now play gigs to audiences of 200 and we get paid. Maybe you guys should publish helpful advice in this area.
PR and Marketing. As we all know, the big labels take no risks, unless the band can demonstrate a good following then no A&R man (or woman) will stick their necks out, so we would like to talk to people who are good at publicising, PR and marketing. Yes we do that ourselves too, but we all have day jobs.
Not all bands will want the same stuff but most would benefit from some of this help, it’s the coaching, education and stuff that will help us all improve.
AND WHAT ABOUT THE PUNTERS
I cannot imagine that you are going to spend millions on promoting the Vox blogging site to music fans, but then again, you say that the site is about demos and listening to new artists, so why would you.
If that is true, why not use the music player from MySpace, it would add value to your site and theirs, MySpace is well established and that is where punters go to listen to new unsigned and signed bands. Music would be listened to on both sites and you could see how many people were playing an artists track.
Then there is FaceBook, likewise, social blogging is done on FaceBook, work with them to integrate their blogging technology with yours, most bands have fans, but they reach them through “the least path of resistance” it is hard enough to win new fans, we shouldn’t be expected to herd them around the internet like some electronic Shepherd.
We tried to get our fans to comment on our Vox pages, but you want them to set up an account first. Why would they want to do that? They want to come, but they have to give you their details before they can comment or take part. So they all take a look and then come back to FaceBook or MySpace and carry on listening and talking.
I will give you a real example, we did a Google ad campaign to get punters to our Vox page, we promised a free CD of our music. Over a two month period we had over 500 clicks to our Vox page, only one person set up an account and left a message. In March e.g. this month we switched the campaign to point at our MySpace we have had a significant number of plays and over 200 new fans join us.
Don’t take this as a pop at you or the company, we all understand that you must get a deluge of material through your post box, taking demos online is a great idea, and it contributes to saving the planet too. But you could make the site far more useful to new bands and artists if you helped us to improve our music with some of these ideas and helped us to widen our audience.
Cheers and good luck
Spikey
4Hours
Then.. all the things you need to do to succeed - all the things you need to learn - you really don't need a label or a site like this to give you that kind of information, or point you in the right direction... Research it, find this stuff out for yourself.. I don't think I've met a single working musician who hasn't learnt the hard way at some point.. I sometimes feel it's the only way to decide whether you can truly hack it in this business...
Oh and a good starting point for working with a producer is look at who produced your favourite albums, and contact them.. you never know, if they like your stuff, they may just get in touch.. And if you're able to pay, then it makes it far more likely that you'll get to work with someone worthwhile... if not, you can do a filtered search on myspace - you're bound to find up and coming producers who are willing to work on spec..
I would say this forum is already fulfilling its purpose. It's a digital demo submission platform. Pretty much the same as the old school method except it saves on postage.. I wouldn't expect anything more.. you have to do the work yourself.. then the labels will come looking for you anyway.. at which point you realise you've done so well off your own back you won't actually need them.. :-)
Good luck...
i think what a real issue which seems to reocurring (and not necessarily on your blog but on the other Columbia ones) is that there is not enough transparency from people with different types of authority.
If Columbia/Sony etc. want to embrace this blogging thing you can't just dip your toe in the water. It should be all or nothing - a two way relationship. As I pointed out on Mike Columbia's blog, Starbucks new website is a very good example of this.
What peer production proves is that no matter how much talent a company has internally, there is always more talent externally. For example, check how the CBS owned Last.FM has opened up a platform for engineers to add new applications to the site.
I think he answered almost all of my nagging questions (do all the tracks get listened to, do you consider non-UK acts, do you have a list of genere priorities, is this a real A & R effort or just an electronic bin for unsolicited demos). I get the sense of a positive response to all of those questions so I'm satisfied. I think IB's main points that he has expressed in this blog should be added to the FAQ or made into some kind of sticky so these questions aren't asked over and over again by newcomers.
Well,I think this vox thing is really great.It´s a good way of getting your music heard by A&R´s.Also,you get to listen to other artists and see what´s going on out there.But, at the same time,I think the work of an artist is not only promotion,that´s more the job of a manager.Artists usually aren´t that good managing their stuff.Anyway,I´m glad that VOX exists cause I´ve just recorded some songs and soon I will upoad them,and it is obviuosly a better way of getting my stuff heard than the older method.
I just read this and I think it's a great post. I think a lot of bands give A&R people too much credit. Trends change so quickly it would be very difficult for them to engineer and manipulate the entire music scene through a carefully crafted plan especially with the internet. On the other hand, when you see some of the brilliantly produced, spectacularly marketed crap that gets played on the radio over and over and over again, it is frustrating, so there's two sides to the coin I suppose. (although that's as much to do with DJs, Industry bosses, and the end customer as it is to do with the A&R people).
I'm all for internet submissions. Within a few weeks of joining VOX I had a reply for the A&R Columbia people to say they would listen to my stuff which was great. Nobody's told me what they think yet or given me any advice (I look forward to that email), but at least I know someone had a listen which is more than I would get by sending off CDs left, right and centre. Thanks Indieboy.
That aside, I enjoy your blog - it's ace that you're genuinely involved in the grassroots music scene and enthuse about stuff properly, rather than just hype up the usual suspects or dribble on like some of the folk who write music blogs on other sites. McGee, for one. You've carved your own niche away from the corporate blogs and the hipster MP3 blogs.
I hate voting systems, organising voter teams just takes up too much time out of the day and you cant always be sure that they are clicking as promised.
I do much prefer this system..
Mind you the FAQ, although extremely basic and over simplified could be very instructive to many. Eg " What is a record deal?" " What is a producer?"
Indieboy
"He only blogs cause his mum says to and he would rather just watch cartoons, eat chips, and wait for the next chance to go to filthy Camden and get drunk."
:-)
They wanted genre specific groups. You said it was not workable, not viable, too much effore, could not be managed, could not be edited. So we did it, we formed the IAU we set up calmer coma we set up soul base we set up funk base we set up revolution, we set up pop-life and we did that both here and at last.fm.
They wanted to be played on web-radio to get exposure. They wanted better media players at vox to make it easier for people to listen. You talked about it whilst we did. We made genre specific web-radio playlists specifically for each group, for each of the main groups of related genres. We made them avialable in groups here for all to hear and we made them available to everyone at Last.FM who you have a relationship with.
They wanted to get the backing of a label so they could get help with marketing on promotion to help them develop. So we set up labels for them and offered the services for free.
They wanted more feedback on their demos and the major labels do not have the time and so we did it, we made comments on just about everything we could find and although we dont work for sony and we dont get paid, we tried.
The major labels then decided that had to stop so they shut it all down at last.fm and banned us all so that we can not access the groups ot the web-radio or the label pages or the music manager, thus, in effect shutting it down at Vox as well because they projects media was based at last.fm.
They are however still giving our music away for free and they do have control over our recordings on their platform and they ignore us like you do indieboy because they have no repsect for artists, A&R here are quite happy to abuse us, they are quite happy to aggravate, they find the time to give us a hard time and so do those who are associates, perhaps if took a look at all the abuse from Dark knightingale and if you remember the abuse YOU gave us then you will see out point. Stop trivialising the important issues and making the trivial important, be fair indieboy. We had respect for you and although you it will not bother you in the slightest, that respect is fast slipping away.
You sound pretty bitter.......
Do something else like admin (your'e an ok typer) before it eats you up.
IndieBoy, we are being accused of abuse, you are apparently the abused. So if this is true, please inform us of the details. Thankyou.
Columbia A&R will not respond to blog of tunes posted, they will want to see us in the right press, playing the right gigs and being involved with the right people. The only time columbia are probably going to actively approach us is when we are in a position to do it all ourselves, a guaranteed bet, and thus a better business proposition for the label. I'm not so sure they actually care too much what the music is like, as long as long is it can make a buck o' five.
Perhaps I'm wrong....
And indieboy you are correct it is a platform, songs upload, you listen make a decision. Feedback should not expected.
I heard 'You Stole the Sun' and I wasn't convinced straightaway. Then I saw them live, saw the promo and other bits and could see why they were selling out venues.
I've been missing out on the stuff in the Northwest as I haven't been up there enough recently. All the stuff I'm coming accross is Scottish at the mo. I will have to head south a little.
Is there still a decent grass roots circuit up there? Someone was telling me it's diluting a little because people from all over the place are starting to fill the bills at the venues in town.
manchester is not really a place that looks after its own...we've had decent press from all around the country but the hardest place to get some (we did in the end) was funnily enough our hometown...you'd tend to think that your local area would be the first to get into you and then you branch out, we seem to be coming at it another way! BBC Manchester love us though so its not all doom and gloom!
We have come of the gigging treadmill, being more picky as we have found far more joy when supporting bigger names or doing some research and finding the decent promoters, recently supported Kill The Young and Mark Morriss and we went down a treat. SO we have kind of set ourselves a standard, which will mean less quantity but hopefully more quality.
Must be fucking hard sometimes doing A & R?!!? knowing where things are happening and who is hot...do you base your approach on cold hard facts (numbers, press etc) or your opinion...or a bit of both? Cheers
As regards my approach it really varies. I recently came accross something I heard once and loved. I wasn't bothered what was going on around it or where it was getting exposure. I thought the track was amazing (shame the rest of their album was a bit pap). As a result I've got to know the band quite quickly and really hope to get them somewhere soon.
Sometimes I'll get a real "This is good because of A, B & C" kind of thing. Ultimately I have to personally think it's good as I have to stand by it and convince others that I think it's a good punt. I'm only as good as the acts I bring forward and anything perceived as shite is a black mark against my name and also de-values the perception of future acts I bring in. If I've got loads of research feedback, hearing loads of radio, got a personal recommendation from several radio DJ's etc and not personally felt it would be sucessful then I wont go for it. This doesn't mean it has to be to my personal taste, it just has to be something I see as good. I punted a really sugary pop act recently which isn't my thing but was quickly picked up here and there.
what worries me is this: with Manchester being viewed as frustrating for a & r and the bands, how long before A & R sod off. nothing to do with bands, just the approach in the city.
I cant shake the feeling that manchester is akin to a fat bloated, dying behemoth, clutching to it's past glories instead of looking ahead. FIne, if it was ignored, but the be honest it infects and tries to impose a detrimental effect on outfits like our own, who respect the legacy but want to create our own
Good advice and points taken as a young musician with very little experience in the industry / business end of being signed to a label! All I know from what I know is, I don't want to have to deal with the organizing and administration of production/tours/videos/collaborations/new technology/itunes/social networking etcetera ... YES, I want to retain control over my music as a product, but as someone with only a MySpace and YouTube account, I can see how the day-to-day stuff on a bigger scale would totally take away from my creativity as an artist. So ya, I'm all about the labels and their evil greedy no good A&R!
I kid indieboy, please come and check out my profile.
ariel
The thing that led me to this page was a message I received on my myspace profile form a group calling themselves Shadow Atlantica Records. They said they liked one of my songs at that they make a compilation which they send to 31 labels and they wanted to put a track of mine on it... and they wanted me to pay for the privilege. They list Sony BMG on their page, along with Universal, Warner, EMI etc.
I just wanted to ask if you'd heard of them? I'm pretty certain it's a scam as I can't imagine how they would benefit from the situation other than pocketing the 'postage' money of £25.
I went looking for A&R contacts to see if these guys were for real and it led me to VOX... maybe I can get some genuine interest using this thing!
Sony BMG was split up a while ago.
Do not expect replies.
Sony BMG was split up a while ago.
Do not expect replies.