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Kick Ass! I got called out by name in a thread header.
... gimme just a second ...
.... still basking in the awesomeness ...
Ok, now I'm done. If you ask 100 people how they got into the music business, particularly the industry side of it, you'll get 100 different answers. Some started out as studio musicians and migrated over to where the money is, some started out as assistants to the key playmakers and got bumped up when a spot opened. Alot of people get in by working for successful indie labels that get bought by majors. Some come along with the artists - they start out as the van driver for some small artist who keeps getting bigger and bigger, they move up to tour management, then tour promotion, and their long-time loyalty pays off with the credibility to jump to an office downtown. A lot of A&R people seem to be former one-hit artists who don't have a performing career anymore.
A few people come in the same way that you get into any industry - they get a degree in entertainment law (or media marketting, or something), intern with a large record company, and then get hired on.
A&R is a very, very tough gig to land. In most majors, very few people actually have that title by their name, and get paid to troll redneck bars and punk dives to find great new artists. But everybody, I mean everybody, working on the industry side *wants* to be doing A&R, so they do it on their own, in their spare time. When they find an artist, they bring it to the A&R guys and pitch them. If the artist ends up being No Doubt, then that legal secretary who found them and brought them to the decision maker suddenly finds herself with a seat at the table.
So how do you get in? I don't know. Don't have a clue. No two stories are the same. Everybody's break into the industry seems improbable and fantastically lucky, and it is. Anybody who tells you there's a way, or any book you read that shows you the right method, they're lying.
Maybe someone else here can swing a more positive look at it. My job is just to tear down and destroy!
-sm
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