[Editor's Note:  I've re-posted this because I reaaaaally want you guys to read it as a featured article and it got lost in the shuffle after the "breaking news" post that now follows it.  READ ON!]

Part Two is here already!

Y’all judged me so hard last time cuz you wanted the goods IMMEDIATELY, so I decided to follow-up sooner than anticipated with the second portion of the Gospel A&R Series of And Now You Know.  To refresh your recollection, this series features top industry professionals giving us the EXCLUSIVE deal on how things work in the gospel music biz.  Be sure to POST COMMENTS and lemme know what you think!

Monica Coates, a Gospel music industry vet with experience in artist management, publicity, radio promotions and A&R, is back with more info on what’s happened to “true A&R.”  Over the course of her diverse career, she has worked at the top Gospel labels (EMI Gospel, Verity) and with a variety of artists, including Fred Hammond, Donnie McClurkin, Hezekiah Walker and Joann Rosario. Her first book, The Beginner’s Guide To The Gospel Music Industry, will be published in the Spring. 

If you haven’t read PART ONE, you should prolly do so now (click here).  Here’s PART TWO of the Gospel A&R Series, entitled “True A&R: A Dying Art Form”…

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PART TWO: TRUE A&R: A DYING ART FORM

In our last chat, we discovered that historically A&R representatives scouted new talent (artists, songwriters and producers) and were also responsible for finding and developing appropriate material for artists at their labels to record and perform.  So how is it possible for such an important role to virtually disappear from the Gospel music industry?

In all fairness, most record labels still have A&R Departments housed by A&R directors (or A&R reps).  However, with few exceptions, those divisions have morphed into Artist Relations departments where the A&R rep is expected to serve primarily as a financial and production administrator, overseeing the flow of album and video projects. 

I can tell you it is no small task to deliver the project of a major artist both within budget and on time!  Nevertheless, that’s a far cry from true, old school A&R.

Two major changes in the overall music industry contributed to this shift in A&R method: (1) the acquisition of Gospel labels by major record companies and (2) the audio technology boom of the 1990s.

In the late 1980s, several Gospel labels came under the umbrella of major, mainstream record companies. While those corporations delivered important perks—huge increases in CD sales, mainstream media exposure and significant touring opportunities for their Gospel artists—the demands of big business gradually shifted focus at the labels away from developing their artists and toward meeting the parent company’s timelines and sales goals.

Simultaneous with that development, the creative side of the industry was forever altered by the audio technology boom.  The widespread use of musical programming and digital recording technology—most notably the introduction of the MPC programming system and Protools software—gave rise to the self-contained producer. 

No longer did artists and producers have to rely on record labels to provide access to expensive recording studios.  For the first time, anyone with an MPC and a computer could take a song from idea to mix in the comfort of his own home.  Consequently, a major breach occurred between record labels and the creative process, which has only widened over the past two decades.

Those historic changes had an inevitable ripple effect—a void in training opportunities for A&R executives.  In a world where quarterly sales projections rank higher than an artist’s creative vision and where record labels are all but removed from the creative process, there are fewer opportunities for industry executives to learn the art of true A&R. 

A genuine ear for Gospel, an eye for real talent and the insight and wisdom necessary for artist development are skills cultivated over years spent in creative spaces, learning how to work with creative people.  Furthermore, true A&R requires opportunities to try new things in an atmosphere where failure is viewed merely as a stepping stone to breakthrough. 

With the steep drop in CD sales due to the impact of digital music sales, in a very real sense major Gospel labels simply cannot afford the luxury of developing their artists nor their executives. 

So, what does all of this mean for the future of the Gospel music marketplace?  More about that next time…

Copyright © 2009 Monica A. Coates.

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Crazy, right?!  As the music industry evolves, it almost seems like the “creative” aspects are getting sidelined while folks are overburdened and overwhelmed with administrative duties.  So, how we gonna fix it (fix it… fix it)?

Thanks, Monica!  Don’t forget to check our her MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/monicacoates for more info on her and her upcoming book.

What do y’all think about what she had to say this go ’round???