SO sorry for makin’ you wait for this… we’ve been busy busy busy at the site (as you’ve seen), but we’re back with PART THREE of the Gospel A&R Series of And Now You Know.  As a reminder, 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 is updating us on the current state of “artist and repertoire” (A&R) in the gospel industry.  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, is available NOW at http://www.monicacoates.com.  Do not sleep… it’s an incredible, must-have book.

If you need a refresher from Parts 1 and 2, click here now.  Otherwise, here’s PART THREE of the Gospel A&R Series, entitled “A&R And The Current State Of Gospel Music”… 

 *     *     *

PART THREE: A&R AND THE CURRENT STATE OF GOSPEL MUSIC

In our last conversation we discussed how and why true A&R methods are dying in today’s Gospel music marketplace.  We cited the corporate demands of mainstream record labels along with the broad accessibility of high-quality recording technology as the main contributors to this phenomenon. 

So what does all of that mean for the future of Gospel music?  To fully answer that question, we need to look at the short-term impact as well as the long-term implications.  In this article, we’ll focus on the short-term impact.

In recent years the lack of a true A&R presence at our major labels led to two major trends: (1) the rise in power of the Gospel producer and (2) a lack of artist development at Gospel labels.

Perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of the music technology boom of the 1990s were producers.  It is the role of the producer to shepherd a song from idea to full production.  The producer oversees the creative direction of a song, hires the performers (musicians and background singers) and engineers, directs the recording sessions and, although funded by the record label, is often responsible for ensuring the bills are actually paid.

Where once a producer had to rely upon hefty financial support from record companies to create a song, the introduction of MPCs and Protools gave virtually anyone with a dream access to high-quality, digital audio in the comfort of their own home.  That shift in venue also marked a shift in financial and creative power.

Historically a producer had to allot a sizeable amount of each recording budget to an expensive studio along with an array of recording costs. However, in the wake of the technology boom, the same producer could now spend that money in his own studio.  And because the new technology made recording more affordable, producers could now complete a song with a bit more money to spare.

As the creation of music moved into home studios across the nation, A&R representatives became less involved with the daily process of production.  And for the first time producers found themselves in a position of greater control not only financially but creatively as well.

That’s when things began to get really interesting. 

When you combine the pressure of corporate timelines and responsibilities with a decreased need for A&R reps to be hands-on in the production process, the role of true A&R is relinquished by the record label and picked up by the producer.   The result was our second trend—a lack of artist development at Gospel labels. 

Rather than the A&R rep discovering an artist and working to develop that artist’s material and style, labels began signing artists based upon their potential and sending them out to develop their sound with a producer.  Over time the process shifted even further to the point that producers were discovering and signing talent and then bringing that talent to the labels to cut a deal.

From a business perspective the arrangement worked well for large record companies.  As with other kinds of businesses, the ability to outsource certain tasks can increase efficiency and allow the company to become more profitable.  But when the main product is creative, that business model has a way of stunting artistic growth.

The strength of the old-school A&R model was the broad access that the A&R rep had to various producers, songwriters and musicians.  An A&R person could draw from a large pool of talent to best explore the potential of an artist and further develop that artist’s sound.  Conversely, with producers at the helm of the process, too often an artist would conform to the style of that producer, rather than growing into a sound of their own.

In the new scheme of things, the producer is often more famous than the artist.  Audiences can recognize the producer shout-out at the top of a track even though they’ve never heard of the artist featured in the song.  In fact frequently it’s the producer’s name and sound that lends immediate credibility to a new artist.

In the short term everyone wins:  The label gets the power of an established name to attach to an unknown artist, the artist gains an immediate audience through his connection to a well-known producer and the producer finally gets to reap real financial benefits.

But what happens to our marketplace in the long-term?

More about that next time…

Copyright © 2009 Monica A. Coates.

*     *     *

Wow.  I love that entry because it talks about the stuff that we’re SEEING in the industry, but haven’t really articulated.

For example, we’ve definitely seen the pro’s and con’s of everyone being able to record without big label dollars behind them– some amazing indie projects, and some reaaaallly bad ones.

Soooo… whatd’ya think of the article?!