What's That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It?

A&R Executive A&R executives don't make musicbut without them, you probably wouldn't have heard your favorite song. They're the folks at record labels who discover bands and musicians, get them record deals, and then shepherd them through the music industry bureaucracy until their albums are in stores. It's an amazing career where you can meet unknown, talented musicians and-if you really believe in them-help make their wildest dreams come true. You just got a little misty-eyed, didn't you? What's A&R? A stands forartists, the actual human musicians, and R stands for theirrepertoire, or their songs. So the A&R department is the part of a record label that first scouts and discovers the Artists, and then develops their musical talent, Repertoire, with the goal of eventually making albums that earn millions. To do this, they not only find the musicians, but then help handle everything including the contractual negotiations involved in signing a band, hiring songwriters and record producers to improve the band's sound, and scheduling the actual recording sessions. Sometimes A&R people toil to make important records, sometimes mediocre records, but either way, records that everyone hopes will make money. It's not just about art-the A&R people's job is to find and develop moneymakers. And if they don't, well, generally they get about eighteen to twenty-four months' leeway before it's time to pack up their crap and wave buh-bye. And What's It Like to Work at a Label? Rockin'. Well, it's not a used-record store, and colleagues don't hold lighters in the air when you make a good presentation, but as you'd imagine, it's pretty damn casual. Every label has its own culture, but it's the music world and it's open to letting you be the person you want to be. You need not hide the piercings or tattoos here; feel free to let your inner Goth, rocker, or diva show. Some labels focus on indie rock and their vibe is very jeans and T-shirts; others are more hip-hop oriented and the gold rope chains are in effect. There are large labels housed in shiny office towers and small ones in makeshift lofts. They are all places where (just about) every employee chose to work because they loved music and wanted to be close to it, from the marketers to the receptionists to the accountants. A&R folks jobs are entirely performance based-everyone sees what you do and what bands you sign. In fact, the whole business starts with you. You find the band, sign them, get their record made, and then feed it into the company machine. The rest of the label-marketing folks, online promotions people, and so on-then works feverishly on it. They may love the album, or they might grumble, "Why are we working on this piece of crap?" But You Won't Always Be in the Office As an A&R person, you'll travel a lot. Sometimes you'll go see bands across the country (or world), and sometimes you'll literally be chasing them around because other labels want to sign them as well. There are a lot of frequent-flyer miles to be had. If one of your bands is recording their record away from where you live, you'll go join them. You need to be at the studio for support, to help them make the best record they can, and to make sure they are using their expensive studio time wisely. Soup to nuts, recording and getting out a record (promotion, artwork, and so on) at a major label costs a minimum of a million bucks. And the label is doing it all because they believe in your taste, that you picked a winner. Yeah, you'll be at the recording session. Where You Start and Where You Go So you're getting excitedyou love music and this job sounds pretty cool, huh? Well, hear this now and digest it: You are not going to start working at a label in the A&R department. There is no job there forRosen, David J. is the author of 'What's That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It?', published 2008 under ISBN 9780767926126 and ISBN 0767926129.