That’s because this is the “All Time” list. You will notice in this list a bias towards more established A&R people (a nice way of saying “older”). For this list, we’ve selected folks based on a balance of the above-mentioned skills, and ranked them according to the quantity of successful artists they’ve signed, the quality of their signings, the longevity of their roster, and the endurance of their artist’s work. This list skews a bit towards the former. You can have great talent scouts who don’t give much input on the finished product and you have in-house A&R specialists who may not have signed the act but give crucial and timely artistic direction in the creation of an album. Some A&R people excel at one of these aspects in particular. In the hip-hop context, the “Artists” part means finding and signing talent to a label The “Repertoire” part means not only corralling producers and beats, but working with the act on musical and lyrical direction. What the hell is “A&R” anyway? It’s actually an old-timey music business term meaning “Artists & Repertoire,” a relic of a time when artists didn’t write their own material and their “record men” at the label had to pair them with songs and session musicians. With that, I’d like to present to you The 25 Greatest A&Rs in Hip-Hop History. I’ve certainly thought a lot about why they were good at their job: an intuition about what makes music timeless coupled with a visceral sense of the moment. Still, I like to think I’ve made enough mistakes to have a real reverence for the A&R people in hip-hop who had the right instincts and really did it big. I was right, but at the same time, oh, so wrong. You know, like not signing House of Pain because I told Rick I thought “Jump Around” was their only truly great record. Looking back, I have no ambivalence about the artists I worked with, but rather regret about other missed opportunities.
I then recounted my own mediocre career in A&R-first working for him and then for Rick Rubin at American Recordings.
You said, ‘You can’t know what’s going to be a hit. “Cory,” I began, “when you promoted me to A&R coordinator, you called me into your office and gave me some advice.
This loss of voice often contributes to the band’s failure as a recording group.When I began researching the book that would become The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, I returned to interview Cory Robbins, the co-founder of the legendary Profile Records, the man who signed Run-D.M.C… and the first person to give me a job doing A&R. Most bands fail to make personal contacts in this second department, thus losing their voice in the important final process of producing and marketing their album. This department decides whether or not to mass produce and market the band’s album. Once a band has signed the contract and has finished recording an album, the Publicity and Promotions department takes over. During this period it is important that a band reciprocate with an investigation of its own, learning as much as possible about the record company and making personal connections within the different departments that will handle its recordings. A company will spend a long time investigating the band itself as well as current trends in popular music. The signing of this recording contract is a slow process. After the representative identifies a promising band, he or she will work to negotiate a contract with that band. The process begins when a representative of a company’s Artists and Repertoire (A&R) department visits bars and night clubs, scouting for young, talented bands. Surviving in the music industry requires luck and patience, but most of all it requires an intricate knowledge of how a record company functions.
It is very difficult to succeed in the music business nine out of ten bands that release a first record fail to produce a second. Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, c or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the question
0 kommentar(er)
