The A&R Representative

A&R representatives (an acronym for Artists and Repertoire) are record company personnel whose job it is to discover new talent and help develop careers. This is the gatekeeper to your deal. Chances are if your music is good, there is a A&R looking for it right now. The job itself is not easy, very stressful & has a very high rotation rate. The average life span of an A&R rep at a label is about three years, almost as bad as a car salesman. Since were on the subject let’s compare the two professions. A car salesman first checks your credit history then presents the deal to the floor manager for final approval. It’s up to the floor manager to authorize the sale, and the sale of the car gets accredited to the salesperson. If car salesman does not sell enough cars per quarter then he’s out of a job. An A&R Does exactly the same thing. Let’s say a car salesman had to go out and find a qualified car buyer to make his quarterly quota, where do you think he would go look? He would go look in all the right places. Would he go looking for a qualified buyer at an unemployment office? A&R’s have to be proactive to survive, and they are very good at looking for talent in all the right places. The sooner you put yourself in the shoes of an A&R Representative the sooner you’ll understand where they go to find what they need to survive. The further A&R reps can climb up the corporate ladder and the bigger their salary, the more stressful their job, and also the more fearful they become of losing everything they've worked for. They have a great responsibility to make money for their companies and to justify their career positions. For this reason, A&R reps often follow new trends, look for "sure things" or wait to see what other A&R reps at other labels are pursuing. Contrary to popular belief, most A&R personnel do not have "signing power" just like a car salesman can’t authorize a sale. Once an A&R representative finds a potential artist, they have the difficult task of getting the approval of their record company presidents-and getting approval or selling the bands money making potential is often the hardest part of the job!

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