by Christian Dietrich, Budi Voogt, MusicCareers
In this series, we’ll unpack the most interesting jobs in the music industry, helping you understand what it entails, what skills it requires, how to get such a role, average compensation and featuring interviews with industry professions in such roles.
We begin with the most coveted role in the business (as per our data), that of the A&R or Creative Manager.
What is an A&R or Creative Manager?
A&R stands for Artist & Repertoire, which has its roots in the early days of the music industry, where the recording (or performing) artists often were not the same as the songwriter(s). For example, Elvis Presley notoriously didn’t write many of the records that he performed. Historically, the A&R Manager at a record label or publisher would match a recording artist with songs that fit their voice and image, and may even have collected the right session musicians to help perform the record in the studio, where the recording was made. At that time, the record label played a much more prominent role as “bank”, since recording at commercial quality necessitated having good performers, a recording studio and sound engineers.
Today, with home-recording tooling being much better and many more performing artists also being songwriters, it means the barrier to creating music is much lower. And via the internet, distribution is easier than ever. With this increase in music and the revival of the industry through streaming, the need for A&R Managers, or also referred to as the “creative” department within music companies, has also grown.
The work of an A&R or Creative Manager (often used interchangeably in the biz) differs depending on the company she works for. The classical role is that of A&R at a record label or publisher, where the A&R Manager may have a periodical signing budget and needs to attract the best artists or writers to the company’s roster. Depending on the company’s history, the objective may be to attract hit-producing creators, which may be traced by tracking radio, streaming and TikTok charts, or it may be identifying promising young artists which are just beginning to buzz. Signing artists that are already “hot” is fiercely competitive in music and often a game played by the larger labels and publishers, whereas identifying upcoming creators and genres can be done by more independents.
Fundamentally, that means the Creative Manager needs to keep an ear to the ground. Besides tracking charts and social trends, it means developing a strong network within music, befriending artist managers, booking agents, promoters , other A&R managers and music lawyers in order to hear what’s buzzing and help their roster collaborate. A&R Managers are known, like many frontline roles in music (like Artist Managers & Booking Agents) to attend many shows, events and conferences, as it’s helpful to become a person’s first phone call when they are trying to sign a record or publishing deal or are setting up recording and writing sessions.
An A&R Manager typically is a creator (artist, writer)’s primary point of contact within a record or publishing company. You could view them as an account manager of sorts. They collaborate with the creators and their managers to assist them in the creative process, but also to help them navigate the company. Some record labels and publishers are large organizations, sometimes with many departments and international franchises, so it’s helpful to have a champion within. At a record label, you’d often have a Label, Product and Marketing Manager to complement the A&R on the other functions that a label performs for an artist.
What does it take to become a successful A&R?
To be an effective A&R, you need to have good taste, the ability to read trends and be a strong networker. These are all skills that you can develop, however many believe that taste isn’t something that can be taught and it may be hard to learn how to network well if you’re an introvert and uncomfortable around strangers or groups. Nonetheless, I’ve seen many people develop significantly on both these facets, so think evolution is certainly possible.
The development of taste and understanding culture is something that comes by “swimming in the water”. Many A&R roles focus on particular genres, for example Hip Hop. It helps to be an enthusiast of the genre, to know which artists are part of the legendary canon and which are upcoming, and what their stories are. You will therefore know what the key tastemakers are in the genre and will have a variety of places to spot upcoming talent. I’ve also worked with A&R Managers who didn’t particularly enjoy the genres they had to work on personally, but had a good enough ear and understanding of the focus genre that they were able to perform their role effectively for the genre the company needed.
We’ve touched on the importance of networking in the previous section. If you’re doing what is referred to as “A&R Scouting”, it means that you’re proactively reaching out to new talent or parties, trying to get them interested in working with your company. This is effectively a sales job, where you’re doing a bunch of outreach and will get many non-responses or rejections. You will need to (learn to) deal with this. A&R Management is – in a way – much like a sales position, but with great creative nuances. When prospecting higher caliber creators, they and their managers will have grand and specific expectations of you and your company; including particular collaborations, a particular creative and marketing budget, access to studios and so forth. And these higher caliber artists are rare and highly competed for, making deal conversations with them often both time sensitive and high stakes. An internationally reputed touring artist may command a signing advance in the 6 or 7 figures, which may materially affect the budget the A&R’s been allocated for a period and the company altogether.
Different creators and managers desire different things in an A&R or Creative Manager. Some just want a deal and view the A&R as a portal to the record or publishing company, others desire creative assistance with studio sessions, finding collaborators and deciding which works should be on an album and in what format. It’s thus hard to generalize about what’s appealing to an artist in terms of the A&R’s proposition – however what can be said is that it’s absolutely competitive for an A&R to be able to build a relationship with an artist and her management, to understand their needs and speak their language. Some creatives appreciate when an A&R has a recording and writing background and can thus speak “their” language. Others don’t care and will have you interface strictly with their representatives.
How to get started as an A&R or Creative Manager
The creative roles in the music industry are the most coveted, which Budi (our founder) knows from experience having run two music companies (Heroic, bitbird) and via our MusicCareers applicant data. It’s likely easy to explain; people are deeply affected by music and like the idea of being a contributor to the process, without necessarily making the music themselves. With that background, it means that you must know such creative roles are very desirably and heavily competed for.
To get a start in a creative role, the most tried and tested path is becoming an intern. Alternatively, you can try and get a foot in the door by becoming an A&R Consultant. We will expand on both routes.
Most senior A&R and Creative Managers spend much of their time reviewing demos, visiting conferences and doing time-sensitive sprints to find the right collaborators, co-writers and samples for artists that are “on cycle”, which is what we call it when an artist is working on a body of work. Historically, many artists work on album cycles, where they may write and record an album within a set period (could be 6-12 months), then it’s released, marketed and toured globally for 6-18 months. These recording/writing windows are when the creative managers can really make an impact, as that’s when the cake is made, so to say.
We give that context, to help you understand that senior creatives are thus spending much of their time working with their existing roster. The converse implication of the album cycle is that there will be lulls in a Creative Manager’s schedule, when many people are not recording. So, they counterbalance that by having a large enough roster so they can always keep busy. They must therefore continue to sign new talent.
The identification of new talent is often done by A&R Scouts, which are interns or junior A&R people who spend much of their days looking at charts, trends, social media and attending shows, to identify the most promising upcoming artists. Music companies may have weekly A&R meetings where these scouts discuss their most prominent prospects with the senior A&Rs, whereafter they may get permission to reach out to them. This is both a data and volume game, effectively a blend of “good ears”, data analysis, reading culture and doing a sales job. Many people who eventually land an A&R job have started as A&R scouts or A&R Interns, effectively doing the boring admin-heavy work that Senior Creative Managers don’t have the time to.
The other route is to become an A&R Consultant. This is a role often assumed by Artist Managers or people who have experience and a network in the business already, but who need to earn additional income or want to get an in to a music company (like a Major Label) and do that by assisting an A&R or Creative Manager. A&R Consultants often have access to good artists, writers, their songs or beats, or a particular expertise in a genre, and can help A&R Managers at labels or publishers more effectively identify new talent to sign, or complement their efforts in fulfilling their roster’s needs. Budi’s seen some managers take A&R Consultancy jobs and later land A&R jobs in a part- or full-time fashion.
To qualify for either role, it helps to demonstrate that you have your finger on the pulse. When applying to positions or cold-pitching A&R Managers, show a combination of taste, data analysis and if you can, network. Prepare a spreadsheet with top tracks or artists and metrics that demonstrate why they have potential. Make it easy for the reviewer to listen to the music by including a curated playlist, for example on Spotify. And if you can provide info or access that isn’t publicly available, that’s definite edge.
To become an A&R Scout or Intern, it may help to go to become a student at a reputed music programme, such as those at at Syracuse University, Berklee College of Music or NY Stern. Not that such prominent programmes are necessary, but they are helpful. Many music companies have summer internships that these music programmes encourage their students to apply for, and the music companies know that it’s effective to select students from such programmes, since they already have foundational context on the music business. Major labels often sometimes have “floating” internship positions that allow you to discover many facets of their organization, and if you perform well, you may be able to eventually score an A&R Scout position.
Average Salary:
Entry level A&R positions earn between $20,000-$25,000
Mid-level A&R positions (A&R Manager) earn between $39,000-$96,000
Senior-level A&R positions (Senior Vice President A&R) earn between $194,000-$365,000
A&R Opportunities:
Many companies in the music industry depend on finding the best artists, music or helping create it. Fundamentally, that’s the role of an A&R Manager, and it exists within many companies in the music industry. Most commonly, the role can be found at Record Labels and Publishers, where the A&R works directly with the (Performing/Recording) Artists and Songwriters. However, other companies such as publishing administrators, PROs (like ASCAP & BMI) and music distributors will also have such creative roles, to help identify and attract the right creators, companies and catalogues to their businesses.
Common roles and job titles include the following:
Junior to Medium seniority (no particular order):
1. A&R or Creative Intern
2. A&R or Creative Scout
3. A&R or Creative Assistant
4. A&R or Creative Coordinator
5. A&R or Creative Manager
Medium to Senior seniority:
1. A&R or Creative Manager
2. Head of Music
3. Vice President (VP) of A&R or Creative
4. President of A&R or Creative
Depending on your experience in the industry and with A&R roles, you may want to look for these types of job titles to find matching jobs.
Via MusicCareers, you can also register for a weekly job alert specific to the job categories you’re interested in. By navigating to our Jobs page and clicking the Job Alerts pop-up, you can sign-up and a curated weekly digest of positions that interest you.
