December 11, 2006

• "To be fair, there are plenty of men signing female artists not prancing around in high heels. But it's hard to imagine this comment about Spears coming from a female: During an A&R panel at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, in March, a male talent exec joked after seeing a wholesome photo of a young Spears with a puppy that "she was the all-American girl you just wanted to defile." Who would ever think such a thing?
• It's because women have no sense of humor. :)
• I really don't know what to say about the last line of that article. It's like it completely invalidates her role as a major player in the music industry because hey, she can't cook a decent casserole. Or is it irony? The reporter is a woman too, so I guess it is.
• The entire industry is a Boys Club - this is no surprise.
• Few industries aren't. =/ (At least at upper levels.)
• What is A&R?
• I thought the same thing about the last line of the article.
• Artist and Repertoire
• "If there were more women in decision-making positions, there would probably be more diverse sounds; [radio] would be a little more experimental," Yeah right, doubt it. That has nothing to do with man/woman issues. she signed his ex-wife, Jessica Simpson, to Columbia Records, where she also signed Destiny's Child. Case in point. "I went to so many clubs while I was pregnant. I would wait outside so I wouldn't inhale the cigarette smoke." YOU ARE IN THE WRONG BUSINESS! Don't take up snow crab fishing in Alaska, it wouldn't be good for the baby. "You have to look like a model and dress like a stripper and it's sad," says the Donnas' Robertson. "I don't think if women were heading A&R it would look like that." Yes it would be, parts of rock are about sex, hedonism and drugs. Sure some music is granola eating birkenstock music, but that is a niche market. During an A&R panel at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, in March, a male talent exec joked after seeing a wholesome photo of a young Spears with a puppy that "she was the all-American girl you just wanted to defile." That is what they were selling. Was Spears hired for her talent? Doing what? "Lyrics aren't even a factor with men," says radio consultant Guy Zapoleon, "[whereas] a woman is saying, 'Can you believe what they said?' " So men are equal or different? The same characteristics many social scientists attribute to women — that they are often better listeners and more nurturing than men — are skills that can make them strong A&R execs. That is a spurious assertion. Sorry I am feeling contentious. Listen I got a good friend that runs a "hipster" bar that is a major venue for the SE. She gets most major indie bands through there, and she is neither sexy, nurturing, or understanding. She is a hardass, and she is just as aware of crappy music as her husband. I don't mind the point of the article but who ever wrote it does a real shitty job of it. Either way the people in this industry are slime balls. Their new tactic is to sign every god damn band before they make anything decent, so if they do produce a good album the record company owns everything, and they have little to no investment if they don't. Fucke'em all, man, woman and their little bastard children.
• Thanks gomi
• Anything which hastens the death of the record industry, as it now exists, is absolutely OK by me. In fact, preferable. It cannot happen soon enough.
• I think the last line can be read several ways; I read it as an "All in a Day's Work" kind of thing, where not only do women have to deal with all this crap, but on top of that they're also expected to carry out traditional duties at home. A sobering reality for many (most? almost all?) working women in the world. I have to agree with glama on certain points here; the article veers a bit too close to the many "If Women Ran The World" fallacies (there'd be no wars! the environment would be saved! we'd recognize good deeds as currency!) This section really rubbed me the wrong way:

  Robertson says working with a female A&R exec... heightened the emotional level, for better and worse: "When a woman's really excited, she's more excited than a man would be, very loving and caring and more like a sister. And then when you're arguing, she gets more offended."

  Oh my god! Like, I totally love what you've done to your hair! Can I, like, get a record deal? Oh... your time of the month? I'll, like, totally come back NEXT WEEK when you're less emotional, 'k? Don't, like, be all offended!
• "Yes it would be, parts of rock are about sex, hedonism and drugs. Sure some music is granola eating birkenstock music, but that is a niche market." Interesting dichotomy--it's almost as if you must dress like a ho or cover it all up and there is no in between. If only there was a good name for that choice women face with how they present themselves. I will say that the two times I saw Macy Gray perform, she had a way of projecting all of those hedonistic things while wearing clothes that were mildly flashy, but not revealing. I'm thinking it had something to do with her pwning the stage.
• Yeah that has nothing to do with Macy Gray being ridiculously ugly.
• Oooh, burn!
• Sounds like someone needs a hug. Would female A&R's intrinsicly improve the record industry? I seriously doubt it - unless you can get a group of women who won't be tempted by the money factors currently ruining it. The record industry is about Artistry as much as the court system is about Justice. It's about money. Britney generates dollars and that's all the execs care about. When she ceases to generate insane sums of cash, she will be kicked to the curb like yesterday's trash. Just like every other artist who failed to achieve a certain level of self-regenerating income.
• Sounds like someone needs a hug. Aw thanks . . ya big lug. To your point, I agree - maybe there are less women A&R reps because less women are so enthusiastic to crassly sell out a precious passion for vats of greasy money. Maybe not, but I'd be interested what the ratio of women/men A&R reps was at the various labels from the biggest-selling to the smallest. Theoretically there would be more women reps at the smaller more "music-minded" labels.
• My point was that it wouldn't matter unless you get the right women. It's not that women are on some level less prone to the same crass instincts of greed. As for the more "music-minded" labels, I think that's more a function of how they want you to perceive them, than how they actually are. The record industry is first and foremost a business, not some touchy-feely playschool. I also think any label out there will sell their momma to the most crack-ridden, cockroach-infested Thai whorehouse if it makes them money.
• If women buy half of CDs, then the men who run the industry are doing a decent job of appealing to them and no change is needed on those grounds. Of course there's no reason that women shouldn't have such jobs, but the reason they should have such jobs is fairness, not because they buy half of CDs.
• It's not that women are on some level less prone to the same crass instincts of greed. Then perhaps all is lost. "If women buy half of CDs, then the men who run the industry are doing a decent job of appealing to them . . " If there are (proportionately) very few women in the music industry, isn't it a moot point? What choices are there?
• What about Jerrica Benton?
• She's truly outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous. (I loved that show when I was a kid...) I didn't want to spend time posting last night, but to some degree I agree with glammajamma - I'd be much more sympathetic with the female A&R types in this article if I didn't know what absolute crap they'd been instrumental in putting out. There shouldn't be more female A&R types because music would be better, there should be more female A&R types because it's a ridiculous inequality and I believe that "boys' club" situations should break down. I don't want ANY single type of person controlling my entertainment. (I'm the sort of person who likes indie stuff a lot but doesn't automatically condemn mainstream work just because it's mainstream or praise indie work just because it's indie. Some mainstream work is a quality product; some indie work isn't. I loathe most product that's put in front of me as "women's interest" - because I think it appeals only to one type of woman, and that type ain't me.)
• PS I saw Macy Gray open for David Bowie almost 3 years ago. I'm not a big fan, but she is a very talented performer. (I mean, you can respect someone's work and talent, skill, charisma, and energy, without necessarily becoming a fan yourself. Seeing her really changed my mind about her & I wouldn't mind seeing her again at all.) It doesn't really help my argument that I don't like most female rock acts, because female voices tend to sound pretty strident when they're singing rock (case in point: all my friends love Sleater-Kinney, and I can't stand to listen to any tracks with the gravel-voiced singer, though tracks without her voice on lead are OK).
• I've known a few A&R guys in Europe, and the personality type is not one that I've encountered in many women (or many men, for that matter). It's a mix of nerdish obsession and 7-day-a-week-partying that you don't come across very often. In Dublin, at least, it's a job that's gonna take you out and about minimum four nights a week, probably six. And Macy Gray is totally hot, imo.
• And again it comes down to whether someone is hot or ugly? Good God, there's no hope. sly_polyglot, I think you're right about your interpretation and I was being overly cynical about the writer's intent. I did miss the other part you quoted, though. It's like bring on the pillowfights!
• verbminx I agree with you about Sleater Kinney, I never cared for them, but there are some real great rocking indie girl vocalists. Blonde Redhead (Misery is a Butterfly is an amazing album, and anyone that reads this should own it.) The Gossip Asobi Seksu Deerhoof Pizzicato 5 L7 Giant Drag Love is All As for the A&R rep, my point wasn't that there couldn't be female artists that carried themselves with some class, but that it is an industry knee deep in sex. Music and sex goes together like monkeys and flying poo, if it's crappy music or really great music. Even Belle and Sebastian was remixed into rave music, a scene known for sex and drugs.
• > And again it comes down to whether someone is hot or ugly? No, I think the point is that one person's ugly can be another person's hot. viz. it's talent that shines through.
• Not that this is about My Music and all, but yeah, there are some good vocalists. I don't think Beth from the Gossip is one of them (for pretty much the same reason I can't stand the voice of the one Sleater-Kinney lady - I've never heard a Gossip album where Beth sang on key, and my loathing for their music is pretty visceral). L7 is over, TMK, and the vocals were never anything to write home about, though not awful at all. But Satomi from Deerhoof is pretty good. I just saw her a few weeks ago. A lot of the rest of the ppl you name are Japanese women not necessarily singing in a rock style, even if that's their backing music. I like Lush a lot too; it's a shame they split up. Kim Deal is a good example of a female rock artist I like. And yeah, sex sells, and sex especially sells entertainment, and an allegedly-hot girl like Jessica Simpson on the cover of something can sell records, even if the product inside isn't so great. (I was going to say that I thought that's one reason studios hate downloading so much, because it allows people to sample music freely before they buy and thus learn that allegedly hot people still make lousy records, but DUH, ppl can just listen to the radio for the sort of throwaway pop music we're talking about here. On the other hand, payola and other shady kinds of "marketing" is the reason that stuff is on the radio to begin with.) Dear god I hate Jessica Simpson.
• Kim Deal is a good example of a female rock artist I like. I was going to throw her in there, but can't remember why I decided not to. And yeah, sex sells, I wasn't talking about selling the music through sex. I am saying sex itself is part of music, some music more than others. Bands like Interpol and Franz Ferdinand make sexy music and I would be willing to bet, at least early in their career if not now, they lead some pretty promiscuous lifestyles. I am not into those bands so much, but I know that that scene likes promiscuity. It is part of the world of bands and such. Some of it is androgynous, gay or straight, but all of it has a lot of sex in it. Now I am sure an A&R type needs to be a bit of a chameleon to engage in their slimey professions, so dressing sexy may be part of the process. We are not dealing with boardroom members, we are dealing with some people that are pursuing their career solely for the sex. Look at 80's glam rockers.
• Dear god I hate Jessica Simpson. Is she the one with the tall hair, or the sax player?
• Neither. She's the one with the pacifier. I guess shooting Mr. Burns wasn't notoriety enough.
• . . pursuing their career solely for the sex. Look at 80's glam rockers. And the coke.
• I think it is slightly amusing that she works for a company that tramps up Jessica Simpson to sell records, but God forbid she tramps herself up to do her job.
• Women in Entertainment Power 100
• No music jobs there. 100. Robin Kaminsky Executive vp publishing, Activision Huh.