In the business of music A&R is a short acronym for Artist and Repertoire. This department or division is composed of the record label’s representatives that have the mandate to look for new acts and promising artists that can be signed to the record label.
Once an A&R representative (i.e an A&R scout) spots a talented upcoming artist they can make the decision to bring that musician or band to the attention of A&R manager. From there the A&R manager will verify whether the discovered talent is worthy to be signed under standard contract to the record company.
Now in the event that the record label signs the new discovered talent. The record company will have the obligation to promote their new artist and make sure they receive the best support they are contractually entitled to in order to succeed in the business of music.
However, in contemporary times where artists can literary achieve mainstream success without the traditional ways of being heavily affiliated with a major record label or an independent record label for that matter.
It has come to the attention of some A&R representatives to be well informed with the current trends and the clout some artists have on the internet. That’s because in modern times internet personalities can literary get enough buzz to have a huge following behind them.
NOTE: In summary we can also think of Artists and Repertoire as one of the music industry jobs which is manly about discovering new talent and linking that talent to music producers and songwriters in order to come up with intellectual property in the form of songs and albums.
