A & R

A&R is the department of a record company that finds and/or develops bands, songwriters, or musicians.  More often than not A&R reps help out with a band’s artistic and commercial viability.  Think of the A&R department as the middleman between the band and record label.  

A & R duties include: 

1. Locating bands, songwriters, and musicians for their record label
2. Negotiating contracts for a band or artist
3. Finding producers for recording the band
4. Locating recording engineers
5. Scheduling time to record the band
6. Locating songs for a band from music publishers with whom they have relationships
7. Listening to demos from bands
8. A variety of other brokering/middleman tasks between the band and record company