Welcome to our "Year-End A&R (Artist & Repertoire) Rewind of
2004," where we reflect on what occurred over the last 12 months
in the world of A&R and to see the impact those events made in
the music business. This is also a time of year when you begin
to look forward with a strong sense of commitment, expectations
and making plans for the coming year. But, as the great John
Lennon once said, 'Life is what happens while you're busy making
other plans.'

With the Sony/BMG merger, 2004 will always be remembered as the
year the 'Big Five' became the 'Big Four' and don't be surprised
if we're telling you about the 'Big Three' at this time next
year! Last year will also be remembered for labels aggressively
utilizing video games as a marketing vehicle for the launching
of many of their artists.

It was a year when the public finally said "No Thanks" to the
concert business in a very loud and clear way. The summer
touring season, especially, taught some very painful and costly
lessons regarding exactly how much the public is willing to pay
to see an act and what they are no longer willing to pay! As a
result, Clear Channel has removed service fees from its ticket
prices and drastically reduced parking prices at many of its
venues. The industry also learned some valuable and long overdue
lessons about the number of acts the marketplace is able to
absorb.

Of course, the most profound impact on the world of A&R as well
as many other areas of the business was the closure of four
major labels: DreamWorks, Arista, Elektra and MCA (although MCA
was reborn with far less staff as Geffen). These closures
accounted for the loss of over 600 jobs (35 in A&R departments).

In looking back over 2004, we're reminded of the many
conversations we had with various music business professionals
on both sides of the Atlantic concerning the current state of
today's music industry. Without exception, there seems to be a
very sobering sense that the record business we have known for
the last 25 years is now gone. This is extremely troubling for
many, sad for some and terribly exciting for others. I see these
times as an incredible opportunity for a total and complete
reinvention not just for record label A&R Depts., but for the
entire spectrum of the music industry.

If you as an artist, band, agent, manager or any other music
business professional cannot see that the old paradigm of artist
development (the actual long-term process of building a career
from the ground up) has been completely re-invented over the
last few years, then you need to get out of this business. The
old methods of doing things no longer apply. This may sound
obvious to most of you, but you wouldn't believe how many fairly
well known music business professionals within the industry
still believe that the only way an act can have a viable career
today is to get that act signed to a major label.

What's so sad is that these people who believe this (and there
are many) can't even see that the very system they feel can &
will accomplish this for their artist no longer even exists!
We've said this before, but it bears repeating - though no one
will actually come out and say it (truth is, they may not even
be consciously aware of it) -- Major labels today, with very
rare exception, are no longer willing to be in the business they
have built over the last forty years. The train of thought today
is that the 'old' process of signing, recording and developing
talent takes far too long and is way too costly to achieve the
results they desire in the time they have allotted.

As a consequence, whether intended or not, (and this is the part
many simply can not see) is the major labels are now in the
Promotion and Marketing business, but of course, only for those
experienced artists who have already been developed that they
feel can be turned into multi-platinum sellers. Well, that would
be nice, but that just isn't the world we live in anymore. Of
course, there will always be platinum sellers in the future, but
far fewer of them. Today, there are simply too many choices
available.

It's fascinating to observe some of the most influential music
publications out there today, such as pitchforkmedia.com and
Blender to name two, which have hardly any mainstream artists in
their Top 50 of 2004. Today, it's all about choices. The future
of this business will be thousands of niche artists selling
fewer records much like cable television, which has a fraction
of the audience, but is profitable! And this is the most
profound difference from the past in terms of A&R signings and
looking at what can and will work in the marketplace.

Under the old paradigm, the public (the majority of the time)
only wanted what the major labels signed and sold to them (of
course, that may have had something to do with what was
available). Today, choices of music being vastly wider, a far
more diverse artist selection available to us, not to mention
the various new formats provides an almost infinite selection
for today's listeners and consumers. And, as most of us have
known for years, the market is far, far broader than the major
labels ever cared to acknowledge (yes, people between the ages
of 30-50 WILL BUY MUSIC when presented with artists who they can
connect with). How else could Ray Charles sell two million
copies of a CD via a coffee chain, or James Taylor sell over one
million Christmas CDs via Hallmark without his CD without even
being available at retail? If either of those artists were at a
major label, (James Taylor was with Columbia/SONY for 27 years
up until last year) they most likely would not have sold more
than 200,000 to 300,000 copies, tops!

These two examples provide an insightful illustration why
several of the major labels are struggling today for their very
survival. They truly can't see what their customers want. But,
in much deeper sense, they have no desire to get to know what
their customers want.

Don't get me wrong, there are several wonderful executives who
work for the major labels, it's just that the corporate culture
at the top of most major labels is so profoundly out of touch
with the times we live in, they cannot see their own part in the
problems they face. The building of careers is a luxury of time
to which they no longer choose to contribute. They really would
like to THINK & BELIEVE they do, but the reality is the just the
opposite.

The opportunities today are vast and limitless for those
artists, bands, managers, and other individuals and companies
who truly understand and embrace what is actually occurring, who
can step back and see the decaying mechanism that many are still
struggling to maintain for what it is - not only a crumbling
business model, but an entire way of viewing the world in which
we used to live, but no longer do! The personal, business and
artistic successes we are seeing today are from those
individuals who can peer through this fog of delusion and see
the business as it actually is; not as they want it to be or
hope it will become, but how it actually is! Those individuals
are moving freely and creatively interacting with our new social
order while others, including some politicians (and apparently a
lot of voters), are still clinging to a world or a way of
thinking that no longer exists.

Forward-thinking artist managers, agents, venues, indie labels
and the artists themselves are the ones who have become (and
truthfully have been for some time) responsible for building the
next generation of career-artists. Careers are not supposed to
be events that have huge a build-up and then are over like The
Super Bowl. As we all know, the best careers (The Beatles, Led
Zeppelin, Elton John, Neil Young, U2) are long journeys that
have been built on solid and viable foundations that can (and
do) sustain a wide array of paths and experiences. Each of these
artists was able to build extremely solid and viable foundations
without a major label and in most cases, had no mainstream radio
airplay at all. What these artists (and their managers) do have
in common (regardless of genre) was an entirely new way of
thinking and approaching the marketplace with regard to the
development of their careers.

They all utilized new and non-traditional methods that did not
have the luxury of an enormous marketing push behind it to
create awareness. Most were lucky at the start to get Public
Radio exposure and critical acclaim.

But today, with so many more marketing and exposure options
available to artists (iPods, Internet radio, websites,
non-traditional retail), the artists who develop and build
careers for themselves won't necessarily be household names in
the first few years, but they will have a built a very solid
base of fans that actually want their music and will attend
their live performances. These artists will have built their
followings over a long period of time, not through hype and
over-exposure on MTV, VH-1 or other media outlets that in so
many cases actually damage careers instead of enhancing them.
More than ever, today's youth culture is looking for something
real, something it can feel a genuine connection with, not
something it's oversold on!

This is the tragedy of the major labels. They keep looking for
the formula that will give them the huge multi-platinum sellers.
Only problem is, we don't live in that world anymore! The system
today doesn't allow these types of massive sellers like it did
in the past. Today, we have FAR too many choices. And that's
their tragic flaw. Major labels do not see that the harder and
louder they continue to market their acts, the more the audience
they're trying to reach doesn't seem to hear them or care.

Doubt me? Just ask any 13-18 year old today and they'll tell
you. Or ask any 35-50 year old why they don't buy CDs anymore
and they'll tell you "They don't put out any artists who I can
connect with." Let's face it, Norah Jones' enormous breakthrough
and continued success wasn't a fluke, but rather a very strong
indicator that the so-called "target demographic" (12-21 year
olds) is completely out of touch with the times we live in. And
for the record, Norah is another example of a recent career that
was built entirely from this new paradigm of artist development
- It is this particular phenomenon that I believe will alter the
type of artists, regardless of style, that will emerge and be
able to build viable careers for themselves in the coming years.
Will these new Artist's careers look like what came before? Not
a chance! This will be the most difficult lesson for us as an
industry to truly get. Letting go of what we've always held as
the definition of success (Out-of The Box Top-10 radio hits,
videos in high rotation on MTV, VH-1, BET, product endorsements
for anything and everything, appearing in TV commercials,
transitioning into motion pictures all within the first 12-18
months. Today, for those in the know, these things are no longer
seen as a path to career longevity. These are all things we have
seen over and over during the last 5 years that have hurt
careers when they occur too quickly or without direction.

The new breed of artists and managers (and yes, there are a few
who do think long-term) emerging today do not appear to see
their clients' careers with this same unhealthy compulsion. They
have a solid grasp of who and what they are and have been able
to map out a career path that is consistent with that vision.
This is what will contribute to building careers, rather than
destroying them.

A recent development in the Industry that we would be remiss in
not mentioning is the recent trend of "upstreaming". This is
where an independent label develops an act from the ground up,
and at a certain sales level, the act goes upstream to the major
label system. The catch is, of course, that the smaller label
will have to give up their acts to the major if the acts become
successful. The great flaw in this scenario is that the major
labels have traditionally thought that any act doing 100-250K on
an independent label should be able to do at least three times
that within a major label system. As we've seen over the last
few years, 'it just ain't so!' Most acts do not go from 150K to
500K in the course of one album. And there is nothing wrong with
that. An act's evolution (both artistic & commercial) is an
organic process and a long one. We don't expect our children to
walk in their first six months, nor should we. Often, the
problem with the major labels' expectations is the unrealistic
sales goals set for their acts simply because the act is now in
a 'major' system.

So often we've seen labels set their spending based on totally
unrealistic sales expectations. All too frequently, a label
declares that its sales goals have not been met and drops the
act. Is it any wonder that our industry has produced fewer and
fewer career artists over the last fifteen years? That is also
why all of the major label artist rosters have continued to get
smaller and smaller.

The most fascinating aspect of this particular process today, is
how many artists and bands truly WANT NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO
WITH MAJOR LABELS AT ALL! The illusion that a MAJOR LABEL CAN
MAKE ALL OF THEIR DREAMS COME TRUE is over. So many artists
today have seen too many acts during the last 10 years break up,
implode or simply get lost in a system that they truly had no
business being a part of in the first place.

If major labels are to survive in the future, they are going to
have to come out of denial about the world in which we live and
completely re-invent themselves. They are going to have to start
seeing their business as it truly is today - not how they would
"like it to be" or "how it was," but how it actually is. As
Werner Erhart so brilliantly said, "The Truth will set you free,
but first it will really piss you off!"

About the author:
Ritch Esra and Stephen Trumbull are publishers of the A&R
Registry and and several other music industry directories and
may be reached by phone at 818-995-7458 or online at
http://www.musicregistry.com

Author : Ritch Esra and Stephen Trumbull
Site : www.goarticles.com

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