Even so, sound recordings would become far less expensive, because the physical packaging, warehousing, and real estate expenses would...

Strangely, the next great panic attack came as sort of a delayed reaction, though one that Weiss foresaw, in terms of the ability to...

But what was it really scared of? More than anything else, it was lack of control. For the first time since one of Edison’s minions put a...

“It’s a great scam if you think about it,” wrote David Shamah, an economics reporter for the Jerusalem Post. “You bought, say, Goodbye...

Continuing from last week’s article; author Hank Bordowitz further recounts: The era of compromise and deliberation over the chart...

In this article, we explore the experiences and perspectives of one music industry expert and author Hank Bordowitz on how changes in the...

What has changed over the years is the role of the A&R department. In the early days, they still went out and found talent, but, as the...

Q: How many A&R guys does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: We can’t screw anymore – they cut off our balls! Vic Steffens and Mike...

In the meantime the marketing people prepare artwork and budgets for the displays at the base of each row of records, or “endcaps,”...

Once everyone has signed off on the recording, the A&R department hands it off to the product manager and the production department. At...

For the sake of this series, we’re going to assume our artist’s sales and story are convincing, else our Sherpa won’t have very much...

A brief tour of a fictitious record company WELCOME TO FUN with flowcharts. In this episode, we play Sherpa following a piece of music...

In the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, before the corporate reports spotlighted the cash laid out for the practice, record companies had the...

PUBLIC LOSSES were not all that visible if the company didn’t want them to be. Even the I gonifs knew enough to hire clever accountants....

Ahmet Ertegun, son of a Turkish ambassador, formed Atlantic Records in 1947 with his friend Herb Abramson, funded by a loan from their...

This series and subsequent ones will seek to lay out in very specific terms, how the system that turned music into a commodity ultimately...

This is where things can get sticky, and generally do. With the advent of the 360 deal, the lines between management and label, and...

Accounting transparency This is probably the biggest and most contentious issue in the relationship between artist and manager. Yet it is...

As indicated previously, there may be (as in the USA) a distinction between the personal manager and the business manager. In the USA, a...

As a starting point, the general principle is that all of the artist’s earnings from the activities described in the contract will bear...