One year ago I started this blog with a post about what I wanted to write. It's interesting to go back and read that post now.
At the time, I was at Island Def Jam, working in A&R Administration. In that role I worked with artists, A&Rs, producers, management and all kinds of internal and external people in order to get the company's records made. I had done that job for a long time, at many different companies and for many different artists across all genres.
Throughout that time my job title may have remained the same, but the job function had changed. I felt that the creative process was, in some ways, leaving the labels (the rise of the producer is a big part of this) and so I felt my role had become more removed from it.
I certainly felt the changes that the music business felt. Something was different at the labels and in my job. I realized that I wasn't playing the role I wanted to play.
I had been asked by Andrew Dubber to write a piece of music business advice for an upcoming book, The 360 Deal (published this past March). In preparing to write this piece, I realized I wanted to provide some perspective on my experiences at major labels, especially in the context of the change in their relationships with artists.
I wrote specifically about how artists (though it applies to all in the music business) must no longer be content to ask the same questions they once did. The music business continues to change, and our ways of dealing with it must change too.
Hopefully, this blog has become a reflection of that piece, that only through examination of what is happening and comparing it to the past can we determine what the future will be.
Hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed writing it.