Record labels and finding new artists

Why do some bands get signed by record deals and others don't?

A & R, artists and repertoire. An A & R executive has the job of going out and finding new talents and working with those new talents and helping them become successful recording and performing artists. 

Michal Alago

Michal Alago was an A & R executive for Geffen Records in the 80s. He signed one of the biggest rocks and metal acts in the world, known as Metallica. 

He would go out to bars and club in New York and watch out for bands and different artists to eventually find something that caught his attention and something he wanted to work with. Michael Alago was from a major record label and he was willing to sign bands who were not very good musically but had a lot of potential and something about them which was critically marketable and made them stand out.

The job of an A & R executive has developed and changed massively over the past decade and is now more about analysing data and what's going on in the market, rather than watching bands, and experiencing a bands performance. It is much more like a commodity market now, the idea being you buy them when they are not worth very much and then sell them when the value peaks.

You have to look at artists and find out what makes them stand out and stand out from the crowd and then match that with music which works and is marketable.

Character sheet

What is it about this rack that is marketable?

A character who would bring a wider population and make enjoyable content for an audience to consume.

A character who I think would attract a wider population and produce enjoyable content and be marketable would be:

  

Unsigned music

A Month Of Sundays - Kingpin 

What is a music campaign?

A campaign is a connected series of different advertisements which use a variety of marketing tools that collectively share the same message and ideas to promote a business or event to a certain target audience.

It is a coordinated set of actions and elements which aim to achieve a shared, set of goals.

Examples of film marketing campaigns:

- Trailers

- Social media

- Interviews 

- Behind the scene photographs

- Competitions / giveaways

- TV spots

- Billboards 

- Synergies with toys/accessories/costumes

- Sponsorship with food/drinks

- Premiers / awards

Warner Brothers and Belstone Pictures both use a variety of different activities and types of media to help build awareness and demand for their media which they produce. They organise and time these releases in order to build up the anticipation for the run up of the opening weekend. 

Music Promotion Campaigns 

A series of actions and elements which incorporate a wide range of events and use a variety of different media to market their products, such as:

- Music videos

- Any type of video content

- Album covers / artwork

- Tours 

- Live shows / performances (radio shows, festivals, concerts)

- Social media

- Interviews (newspaper, magazines, tv, radio, posters).

The record table or the artist themselves are investing in money through the campaign, for example the production budget for the video, which helps build the demand for the products and service it sells. This would consist of recorded music, merchandise and tour tickets. The record label will raise the revenue through different streams and plays of the music through YouTube and different radio stations / platforms, in addition to licensing the music for use in TV shows, films, video games and adverting without being copyrighted, therefore available to more people and more people will end up using it which results in further streams and an increase in investment. 

My Music Campaign 

My music campaign will consist of some sort of a website, a social media platform - depending on the genre of the music video / song (instagram, twitter, facebook, tik tok), an album cover including art work. There will be a music video and potentially a behind the scenes video of the set and actually the process of making the music video which would add to the campaign.

The Arctic Monkeys

The Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band which formed in 2002. This group consists of Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Nick O'Malley and Matt Helders. The Arctic Monkeys have sold over 20 million records worldwide. This band has won seven Brit Awards and have been nominated for the Grammy Awards five times. The band headlines at the Glastonbury Festival in 2007 and 2013.

On their instagram social media platform they have 2.3 million followers. On this account they post different album covers, release dates, tour dates / locations, upcoming music, festival announcements etc.

From the album AM, the song 'Do I Wanna Know' has huge streaming figures of around 73 million listeners and 465,000 downloads, it is their biggest song across all formats and platforms and most downloaded track.

The Arctic Monkeys playing R U MINE? live at T in the Park festival in 2014.