During an interview with the BBC last year, Rob Stringer, the man who signed Manic Street Preachers, and now Sony Music CEO, said: “We have statistical teams now who are literally looking at data all day long to see whether something looks like it’s got an audience.” But Stringer is swift to acknowledge his A&R team: “There has to be some degree of personality injected into the process…”
A&R (artists and repertoire) is the department responsible for discovering and nurturing talent. Think George Martin, or indeed Simon Cowell. It’s no wonder Sony and other majors are bolstering it with big data because statistically, it’s more likely that new artists fail to find an audience and disappear into bargain-bin obscurity. LLV asked a number of A&Rs for their salutary tales.
THE DISCOVERY