The New A&R

My career goal is to work in the music industry and start or work for a talent scouting company. It has always been my dream to be an A&R for a major record label, specifically Interscope Records. When researching the market for starting my own A&R company I came across a few companies that interested me and dug in a little deeper to find out what they were all about. 

The company that stood out the most to me was Crazedhits.com. Crazedhits is an A&R reference website that has a well established roster of artists who were once found through their site and are now signed to major record labels. The have gained credibility of major label representatives due to their many successes. A company like Crazedhits makes a staple in the music industry because major record labels are starting to downsize their A&R departments opening up the doors for online platforms for talent scouting such as this one. I think that this is the beginning of the future of the music industry and talent scouting. Because of the digital era we are in it has become as simple as putting your info and music on a site to get discovered. The only thing that is difficult is being discovered due to oversaturation. That’s where these types of companies come in. They create relationships with major record labels by gaining credibility and trust with them. This means the record label can cut out the legwork of finding artists on their own and outsource to these companies. 

As great as these companies are, I have to say it is kind of disappointing to me that the music industry has changed so much that there is less and less of a need for actual A&R departments. As a said before, it has always been a dream of mine to be the head of an A&R department and be a part of the traditional ways of finding new talent. Traditionally an A&R representative would handle matters in person such as auditions and going to live shows. This way they get the whole idea of not only the artists recorded music, but how they are as a performer as well. If artists are only judged by what they put up the hear on a website, I fear that there will be less and less of a need for TRUE artists, only ones that can be manufactured.