Jim Markunas

Written By: Jim Markunas
Photo Credit: Ryan McVay

In the olden days, A&R was king in the music industry. Young, hip guys in street clothes found the latest "big thing" in music. The A&R rep romanced said band, persuaded them to sign an exclusive contract (which still exists today), hand-picked tracks for placement on albums released by said band, and more importantly selected which tracks from the album were to be the "singles."

Said band's "singles" went on to get major radio play, the radio play led to press coverage and both the press coverage and radio play led to said band's albums selling off the shelves. It was a GREAT thing to have competent A&R reps with a "good ear" back in the hay days of the music biz when music was an art form above all else.

Then... CD burners happened... Then... Napster happened... Then... CD Baby happened. Nowadays, any band in existence can get their own high-level distribution deal for a mere $30. That's right, for $30, any band with songs committed to record can have their tracks and albums available everywhere from iTunes to Wal-Mart.com. In addition, consumers can get any song in existence for free on the internet.

The above set of phenomenon has led to the over-saturation and overt over-commercialism of music. Music, although still an art form is now more than ever a commodity; much like burnable DVDs and tulips.

This begs the question, "Is A&R still necessary in today's music industry?"

Before answering this dire rhetorical question, take into account the following factors:

1. A&R used to be about finding a great artist and picking great singles to drive record sales. Nowadays, records don't sell; it's now possible to have a No. 1 radio hit and a corresponding LP that sells a mere 35,000 copies. (Somewhere around 500,000 units is usually the break-even point for most standard recording agreements.)

2. Quality of songs were king and were the driving force behind record sales. Today, quantity of songs are king in the minds of consumers.

3. There were no shortage of bands chomping at the bit to be signed to a major label to be used as necessary. Here and now, bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Arcade Fire can sell out arenas and pressings of albums without the help of a major label. There's a famous industry anecdote in which CYHSY had meetings with several major labels and flatly refused to sign their contracts as the band felt the majors couldn't do anything for them that they hadn't already done for themselves - Prior to 2004 this was unheard of!

4. A&R reps were gate-keepers and taste-makers who filtered out the crap. Nowadays, consumers perform that very function on their own via Pirate Bay, Limewire and Myspace.

5. Quality of indie bands have increased, and industry standard sound quality of recorded music has decreased. Back in the day, not many bands could afford to spend $1,000 an hour on studio time, and no one had even heard of the iPod. Today, bands can record their own songs on Pro-Tools in their basements, and the iTunes generation is used to poor sound quality. (The MP3 is not nearly as rich as CD audio or even Vinyl, but kids and adults alike LOVE their iPods that contain low-quality MP4 files from the iTunes store.)

In the future, will labels be as willing to pay high A&R and artist advances? I can't say for sure. But... I can say that marketing and new media will always be necessary. In the near future, A&R as a whole may take a back seat as "eye-balls" and volumes of demographic information become the new king of the music industry.

Jim Markunas is a music industry futurist and editor-in-chief of Chicks With Guns Magazine. Jim has a decade of new media and music industry experience, he's run highly successful new media campaigns and has worked with James Brown, Miles Davis, The Walt Disney Company, Truckee Brothers, Mick Fleetwood, and Minty Fresh Records. Currently Jim's focus is monetization strategies for record labels and digital business development. 

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 "So let me get this straight. The Pirate Bay shuts down and suddenly all its users go legit, stop trading and start buying the wares of the entertainment companies." - Bob Lefsetz

The music industry is the only industry in the world that is willing to take civil and legal action against its own consumers. Think about that for a moment... When was the last time GM or Apple Computer put you in jail? 

Although piracy is wrong on a lot of levels, it simply cannot be stopped in a cost effective and/or mutually beneficial manner. 

Here's why the Pirate Bay prosecution was yet another colossal failure for the music industry even though its being touted as a "victory."

1. "You'll Never Get Her Back on the Farm Once She's Been to Gay Paree" 

The cat's been out of the bag for a while... As a consumer, you simply don't have to pay for music. Every song ever released is available on the internet for free in MP3 form. As an industry, we must come to the horrible realization (and really realize it) that most people aren't willing to pay $18.99 for something that they can get for free.

The music industry will never be able to get consumers to pay for music now that it's been free for the last 9 years. Sure... some albums sell, but those days are numbered.

2. Alienating One's Target Market is the Surest Way NOT to Sell a Product or Idea

People view record labels and music industry professionals as greedy and dishonest. This is a fact. It's brought on partly because of the way we've done business in the last 70 years, but mostly because we've resorted to suing college students, jailing talented computer programmers, and strong-arming universities across the US.

As an industry, we suck! We'll have to learn to "un-suck" in order to get things moving again. If we can win back public trust, we can turn a profit once more.

3. Touting Pirate Bay as a "Victory" Buys Into The Outdated Business Model of "Selling Records" 

Yes, music industry, it was great when we had a physical product and people paid us handsomely for it, but those days are going the way of the dinosaur - If we don't start to explore new income streams as an industry we're going to be extinct faster than the dodo. 

Suing pirates in a "whack-a-mole" fashion not only costs labels millions of dollars in legal fees and damages the reputation of the music biz as a whole, but also points our Tyrannosaurus Rex-like, single-pointed focus in a direction that's failing - towards the old business model!

If the music business' old business model was working, we wouldn't have to sue pirates, because we'd be too rich to care.

I hereby proclaim the album dead! Now what?? 

OBLIGATORY PLUG: Let's become too rich to care! Let's make filesharing work for the business instead of against it. E-mail me for an interview, and we can discuss how to make the music business work without selling records.

"February 20, 2010, is the day the CD dies."

Written By: Jim Markunas

I'm not a fan of Michael Jackson... for several reasons (sorry). However... I LOVE Mr. Jackson's sales record for "Thriller." This landmark release sold 40 million copies worldwide, and is hailed as the best-selling album of all time.

I assume the album after "Thriller" didn't do as well because I'm not sure what the follow-up album was called. In my humble opinion, this phenomenon highlights the importance of analytics and direct marketing. I say this because the decade surrounding "Thriller" was a hot time period for Michael Jackson musically. I'm pretty sure the follow-up album for "Thriller" was just as good musically as its predecessor.

Written By: Jim Markunas

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, the music industry had a successful business model. A band would sign a contract with a major label, the label would press an album of songs; they controlled the distribution of said album - Consumers could only purchase the album in a store. The label also paid radio for airplay, thereby driving the only means of promotion (with the exception of print media). You had a single on the radio (anywhere from 1-4 per release depending on sales), and you had an album in stores. Viola! The labels drove record sales, large profits ensued, and everyone was happy (even most of the bands). 

The browser may be the new iPod, but what's the new browser?

Physical is dead! Well... not completely, but think of physical sales as a 1962 Chevy Impala - A niche group of people still want to drive one, but most people would rather roll in a Hybrid. 

Putting bad economic times aside, the music biz as a whole is still frantically trying to figure out how to monetize; they're also scrambling to understand the constantly changing digital landscape. I've solved everyone's problems.