Making Music the Business – the Creative Entrepreneur as Producer Mike HowlettLecturer in Music, London College of Music, Thames Valley University and Cardiff College of Creative and Cultural Industries, University of Glamorgan
AbstractMuch of the analysis of record production and the associated musicology is concerned with the creative process in the studio. But what is often overlooked is the creative process involved in both facilitating the recording, and bringing the result to an audience. This paper is a consideration of the role of record company "creatives" from John Hammond, Sam Phillips and Ahmet Ertegun to Chris Blackwell, Clive Calder, Dave Robinson and Richard Branson, and the extent to which their activities can be considered creative record production. From the personal experience of close working relationships with many of them, the author will argue that these individuals participated actively in enabling, inspiring and facilitating the actual recordings, as well as having the capabilities to bring the outcomes to the market - to a greater audience, and should be considered as record producers.
1 Introduction—an argument for the redeeming nature of popular music“One way of describing the music industry is as a business in which both the supply side (the musicians) and the demand side (the consumers) are irrational; record companies, which make their money from bringing supply and demand into line, are thus organised around the bureaucratic organisation of chaos…the vast majority of the music industry’s products are, in economic terms, failures…more than 90 percent of product is loss-making…failure is the norm” (Frith 2001: 33).
Simon Frith’s perceptive comment accords precisely with my experience. Criticisms of the record business as a ruthless, monolithic destroyer of creativity apply, at best, only to a small proportion of the vast number of releases. On the whole, the industry is populated and run by individuals who, above all, are fans. The A&R (Artist and Repertoire) person in particular (at least, the successful ones), whose job it is to discover and sign new talent, has a unique skill in understanding the potential of a given artist to appeal to a larger audience. Often the first music heard is in the form a ‘demo’ . The usual trigger of interest will be a song that sounds as though it could be a hit. Typically the next step will be to ask about gigs and see the band live. The decision to sign the band (or solo artist) depends on the seniority of the A&R person—some are given free rein to sign whoever they like because their track record is so successful; junior A&R executives have to bring the material to meetings with the more senior executives, including marketing and promotional personnel.
At this point a justification needs to be made of these individuals, whose job (and skill) it is to promote and market the act, of the commercial potential of the band. The most commercial songs are played and discussed, and the way the band can be marketed and promoted—their “unique selling point” their image, and their target market. Marketing in the music business is mostly quite the obverse of traditional marketing, where research and surveys look for gaps in the market and design product to fill these gaps. In the music business the product is already largely formed and marketing means deciding which area of the market should be targeted for a particular act, based on the genre and image the act itself comes with. There is a high level of “hit or miss” about the process—as Frith notes above, “more than 90 percent of product is loss-making”.
This quality of randomness, the “organisation of chaos”, is evident throughout the history of the music industry. Charlie Gillett (1986) has shown eloquently the way the industry has been “wrong-footed” time and again by the remarkable capacity that popular music has to re-invent itself. Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios label was so overwhelmed by the demand for Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog that it couldn’t meet manufacturing costs fast enough and licensed him on to RCA. Pretty well every decade since the birth of rock ’n’ roll has seen a new construct erupting from the sub-culture that is youth music. From the Liverpool Beat scene and the Rolling Stones to punk and rave, to grunge and Brit Pop, the cavalcade spans at least five decades. Each time a new “scene” evolves the industry plays catch-up and scurries around trying to sign the latest flavour.
This is their business: to chase the market. Even apparently cynical pop constructs like the Spice Girls demonstrate the market-driven quality of this industry. Anyone involved in A&R end of this business will confirm that every year hundreds of similar acts approach major labels looking for the marketing power and expertise they provide. Every now and then some entrepreneur gets lucky. I say “lucky” because there is a randomness in the way these acts are put together: the back pages of music magazines advertise for attractive girls/boys who can dance and sing and look good. Whoever answers these ads, and whether, most importantly, that combination has the right ingredients for the times, the successful impresarios aspiring to such ambitions must have the understanding that the essential ingredients, as well as a special “chemistry”, are the right songs and the right production. The song and the production are the key that unlocks the door to fame and fortune. And then the timing must be right—they must resonate with the zeitgeist. My point is that there is a redeeming quality about popular music: if the market is not moved there is no argument. Music is its own argument.
2 The A&R person
In the structure of the music industry, the usual practice for an A&R person, having signed up their potential next big thing, is to find the right producer. Because very few people really know what happens in the studio, the tendency is to go by form: whoever produced the latest hits in the genre is first on the list. It is in the nature of a record producer’s career that having a hit record creates a demand for the services of that producer from other record companies. A sort of “Catch 22” phenomenon affects producers greatly in that employment follows success, but success can only follow commercial release of a producer’s work. Once a hit is achieved, the calls multiply exponentially, and the opportunity to work with more established artists increases the potential for more hits—and around it goes!
From the producer’s perspective, the process goes like this: a call comes from the A&R person, either directly or through the producer’s manager—for most successful producers have a manager to negotiate terms, and also to field offers. A demo is sent to the producer who then listens and decides whether they like it, or feel they can make a successful recording of the songs. A meeting takes place with the band or artist. Negotiations begin, usually between the producer’s manager and the record company.
Key components of the contract will include the producer’s royalty—typically (at the time of the recordings discussed in this thesis) 3-4% of the recommended retail price—and the advance. This is a payment on account of anticipated royalty income, and is almost always non-recoupable. “Non-recoupable” means that even if the sales of the recordings do not generate enough royalties to cover the advance, no money needs to be refunded to the record company. This arrangement works very well in favour of the record producer, because, even if the producer produces another recording for the same artist, or even another artist on the same label, none of the earlier advances is attached to the later recordings. Hence it is entirely possible—and certainly was the case with Martha and the Muffins, for example—that one recording release can lose money for the label, and another recording of the same artist by the same producer can earn a lot of money, but the producer is paid royalties on the successful release, whilst having no obligation to repay any residual unrecouped advance on the unsuccessful release. Other terms of the contract will define the territory—usually “the World”; accounting periods, which will usually be every six months; and, if it is with a US-based record company, a budget, with penalty clauses for over-shooting, in which case deductions can be made from the advance.
Once the terms have been agreed the producer is, effectively, charged with managing the project. Decisions about which studio to use, a timetable for pre-production, recording and mixing, and which engineer to use are left to the producer, within the agreed budgetary constraints. From this point forward all decisions relating to the recording process are in the producer’s hands. Artists will ask what to do next: which part to record, what will be happening the next day, whether a part is satisfactory—every stage until the recording is mixed and completed. The engineer too will be waiting for instruction, as he or she too needs to know what to set up—which instrument is to be recorded, and so which microphones to get out and how the producer plans to approach the part. Some degree of negotiation, of discussion, both with the artists and with engineer can take place, but it is the producer’s responsibility, according to his or her judgement, to bring the recording to a successful outcome.
At this point, when the recording is mixed and finished, the results are handed over to the A&R person to consider. Quite often there will be requests for a different mix, or some additional parts added to a track, with some discussion about possible alternative mixes—it is quite usual to make mixes with higher vocal levels for a potential single, or club mixes, where the track is deconstructed and played with by adding breakdowns to just the drums, vocals treated with delays, parts isolated for dramatic effect—a whole range of possibilities are possible. The final involvement for the producer is usually the mastering, where the finished mixes are taken to a an engineer whose speciality is adjusting the frequency content of a mix—adding bass, for example, and high frequencies, to compensate for idiosyncrasies of a particular studio. Overall compression is often added at this stage to even out the dynamic range, especially if the track is to be released as a single, because radio adds its own compression and can drastically alter the sound of a recording if it is not compressed first. Mastering is a specialised art in itself and producers often develop a professional relationship with a mastering engineer who is familiar with their style and preferences.
Once a satisfactory master of the recording has been made the contract is considered completed. The balance of the advance is paid (because most record companies will pay half up front and the balance on completion) and the producer’s involvement ends.
It was only years later, when I started my own record label, that I understood what happened next. A producer’s role stops at the studio door in most cases. What happens next is crucial to the commercial success of the project. The record company’s role here is to bring the recordings to the market—to the audience. However well the work of the producer has been done, without the skills of competent marketeers no more will be heard of these efforts. Below I consider several individuals I have had close experience with, whose particular talent is marketing and promoting music, and who, I argue, can justifiably be considered producers as well.
3 The entrepreneurial producer
There is a category of producer often neglected in the study of record production and popular music, which is the entrepreneurial producer. Although more generally considered business executives, I use the term “producer” here in the sense that they initiated, facilitated and inspired the production of a large amount of music and without whose talents the corpus of popular music would be the poorer. Prime examples would include Chris Blackwell (Island Records), Richard Branson (Virgin Records), Clive Calder (Zomba/Jive) and Dave Robinson (Stiff Records). I have worked with all of these in some capacity and make the case that there is a highly creative function they serve. There is a visionary quality in creative business people, whose understanding of an artist’s potential to reach a mass market deserves more than dismissal as “clever” capitalists. Such perspectives miss the point.
Chris Blackwell. Consider, for example, Chris Blackwell, who brought the music of Bob Marley to the world. The impact of Marley’s music was immense and felt in many cultures across the world. Social and cultural studies have treated with some of these effects. More significantly, to me, is the power of his music to succour, to comfort, to inspire millions of individuals. And Island Records was also a vehicle for U2, Stevie Winwood and Traffic, Grace Jones and many more great artists. Blackwell’s particular talent was to be able to treat not only with the complexities and challenges of music marketing and mass distribution, but, simultaneously, to enter into the creative world of the artist and enthuse, inspire and affirm, and especially, facilitate. I worked only briefly with Chris Blackwell, using his Compass Point studios in Nassau, where I caught a glimpse of those skills in play.
Richard Branson. I worked more closely with Richard Branson, who I first met in 1972, before there was a Virgin Records. Branson was not a “music man” in the idiom of the industry—someone whose understanding and love of music informed their choices of artist to sign. For Branson this role was performed by his cousin Simon Draper, who persuaded Branson to sign Mike Oldfield—Tubular Bells was Virgin’s and Oldfield’s first release and sold over 6 million records, setting Virgin in a financially secure position from the outset. Draper was an A&R person, but Branson’s great ability was marketing: to recognise the additional qualities that a musical talent also needs to become a public figure. Branson respected outrage, “chutzpah”, eccentric behaviour, recognising these qualities as essential to stand out in the crowded marketplace. Who else could have coped with the Sex Pistols and their manager, Malcolm McClaren, whose offensive behaviour had already caused EMI and A&M Records to forgo the substantial advances they had paid out, and to drop them without a release?
Whatever else may be thought about Branson’s creative capacities, one of the consequences of his commercial skills was that several unusual and innovative groups were signed to Virgin. Groups such as Hatfield and the North, Henry Cow and Gong, all unlikely prospects for commercial success, were marketed with the same energetic and imaginative approach. The idea to release an album for the price of a single was first tested with the group Gong—a group I played in at the time—which was formed by Australian guitarist and Beat poet, Daevid Allen, who had previously had some success with Soft Machine, another experimental and innovative jazz-rock group, also formed by Allen. The effect was to launch the album into the charts—it reached number 10—and the group was able to fill town halls across the UK. The criteria for sales charts were changed to set a minimum retail price as a consequence of this inventive manipulation of a vulnerability in the system.
Dave Robinson. Inspired by Chris Blackwell’s Island Records, in 1976 Dave Robinson and Andrew Jakeman (known as Jake Riviera) formed Stiff Records. Robinson had managed “pub rock” act Brinsley Schwarz during the early 70’s and had previously worked with Jimi Hendrix in the 60’s. Jake Riviera had managed successful pub rock band Dr Feelgood. The first single they released was by Nick Lowe, former bass guitarist with Brinsley Schwarz and later very successful producer of Elvis Costello. Though not a great success, they followed with a moderately successful single, Between the Lines by The Pink Fairies. This generated enough revenue to fund the recording and release of New Rose by The Damned, generally regarded as the first “punk” single in the UK. Subsequent releases by Ian Dury and the Blockheads and Elvis Costello set the label in the foreground of the UK music scene and brought a renewed sense of vibrancy to the youth culture of the period with an ethos reviving the rebellious spirit of rock’n’roll. A series of madcap bus tours featuring Stiff acts spread the message across the UK and later Europe. These tours were inspired by the Motown and Stax package tours of the 1960’s with half a dozen acts on the same bill—Robinson also cites UK tours "with Hendrix, the Move and Pink Floyd on the same bill in 1968. I always liked package tours, and so did the public" . These tours were primarily a promotional device that used the fame of newly successful artists like Elvis Costello and Ian Dury to introduce newer unknown acts such as Jona Lewie and Lene Lovich, whose careers were launched in this way. Jake Riviera left in 1978, taking artists Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe with him and complaining about the profligacy of Robinson—the tours lost large amounts of money, though their promotional value was arguably justified. Robinson persevered, however, and developed artists such as Devo, Madness, Richard Hell, Motorhead, the Pogues, and Graham Parker, who all launched their careers through Stiff records and Robinson’s gift for marketing.
Although not a producer in the sense of a hands-on involvement in the recording process, Robinson was known for his appearances in the studio. I worked on two acts for Stiff—Any Trouble and Louise Goffin—neither of whom had any great commercial success, but Robinson turned up in the studio on both occasions, when he would immediately generate an atmosphere of fun, and the sense that what we were doing was valuable and important. He was also known to take finished masters of recordings and speed them up to “add energy”. Robinson also decided to direct the videos of some of his artists—he had been a photographer at some point—and carried the same sense of fun into promotional videos by Tracy Ullman and Madness. Robinson told journalist Pierre Perrone: "I did have a bit of a masterplan and a list of people we wanted to sign: Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, or rather Declan McManus as he was then, Mickey Jupp, who we eventually signed, and Nick Lowe kind of came with Jake. We were putting together what I consider to be the best songwriters of the period ."
Clive Calder. Perhaps the most financially successful of these four was Clive Calder, who, in 2002, sold Zomba Music—incorporating Jive Records and Zomba Music Publishing as well as a number of other music-related companies—to Bertelsmann Group for U$2.7 billion . By this time Calder had bought out his partners and was the sole owner. Born in Johannesburg and having started in music as a bass guitarist in a local band, Calder founded Clive Calder Productions, through which vehicle he produced and developed “coloured” artists during the height of the apartheid era. Selling the company to EMI, Calder moved to the UK in 1977, bringing with him former pop artist Robert John “Mutt” Lange. In the UK Calder established Zomba Music Publishing and managed Lange as a producer. By the time he became my manager, in 1980, the company owned a large studio complex in North-West London and had launched his own label, Jive Records. Early releases included Whodini, whose hit Haunted House of Rock was one of the first hip-hop successes in the UK. Other early successes came from Tight Fit, Billy Ocean, and A Flock of Seagulls, which I produced. I also produced Comsat Angels album Land for Jive Records which, though having slight commercial success, is still highly regarded.
Perhaps less creditable, but indicative of Calder’s commercial instincts, is that, in 1986, Jive also signed Samantha Fox. Fox was a pin-up model at the time and Calder told me that he was sitting in the bath one Sunday morning reading the papers and wondered why, with such a high public profile—she had become a minor celebrity—she hadn’t released a record since promotion was the most difficult part of establishing an artist. As it happened, she had released a poorly made single that had flopped. Calder, by now managing a large roster of producers, with a host of songwriters signed to the publishing company, and a first class studio complex, put Fox with various writers and producers and came up with an album which contained her first Top Ten hit Touch Me (I Want Your Body) (1986). Calder explained his vision to me at the time, which was inspired by the Motown Records method of having a string of writers, producers and musicians that turned the studio into a “hit factory”. He was not shy of blatant pop commerciality.
At the same time Calder was aware of the value of hip credibility and started a subsidiary label called Silvertone. First signing to the label was a Manchester group called The Stone Roses. Produced by John Leckie, ‘Fool’s Gold’ (1989) reached number 8 in the UK charts. The Stone Roses are still cited by bands such as The Happy Mondays and many others as being the inspiration for the so-called “Madchester” scene of the 1990’s. Maintaining an eclectic catalogue that included South African artists Ruby Turner and Dudu Pukwana—again credible though commercially unlikely—Jive returned to hip-hop in the 90’s with R Kelly, A Tribe Called Quest and Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. By the late 90’s the labels roster contained pop acts Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and N-Sync, who included Justin Timberlake in the line up. By now Jive was dominating the R’n’B global pop market, which enabled Calder to enforce a clause in a deal he had struck several years earlier with BMG, resulting in the multi-billion dollar sale.
Calder retired from the music business and now lives in the Cayman Islands with his family. He keeps a very low profile, though he is believed to be behind a charity called Reach Music, which funds poverty relief, education and health care programs in Southern Africa. This accords with a remarkable story that was confirmed to me by Stephen Howard, a former executive with Zomba. When the sale to BMG was finalised Calder instructed London City accountants to create a structure that gave a value to all Zomba/Jive employees based on their length of employment and position. Lowly secretaries who had been with the company for five years were given £100,000 each. Middle-ranking management received £500,000 and upper echelon executives several millions. Clive looked after his own. But he was not just a businessman—on a number of occasions when Clive would enter a session I was running, listen to what we were doing, and enthuse with sincerity about the music and the possibilities he saw for bringing it to the market. When he left everyone in the studio would be fired by his enthusiasm and set about the work with renewed vigour.
ConclusionThese entrepreneurial producers I have discussed serve the vital function of bringing musical ideas from a concept to world-reaching musical experience. Without the combination of a love of music and an understanding of the market processes, the music we realise in the studio would remain there.
Notes[1] Demos are artist recordings, usually quite basic, that are sent to record companies by artists, or their managers, looking for a record contract. [2] An amusing and revealing story told to me by Carol Wilson—at the time head of Virgin Music Publishing—concerns a group called Faust. Virgin had released an album by Faust as a promotional device for the price of a single—49p. Although this had sold very well and given the band a prominence in the public arena, the follow up album had flopped. A meeting was arranged with Branson to discuss whether to continue the relationship with the band. In preparation for this meeting the band met up in a pub near to the Virgin offices and developed a strategy which involved consuming a large quantity of beer. As the meeting progressed Branson indicated that he saw no good commercial reason to keep the band on the label. On a pre-agreed signal the band enacted their strategy: they all stood up, unzipped their flies and urinated on Branson’s desk. Branson gave them a new contract, reasoning that such a display of audacity was an indication of marketability. [3] From the BBC documentary “If It Ain’t Stiff…” broadcast on BBC4 in September 2006. [4] From http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/stiff-records-if-it-aint-stiff-it-aint-worth-a-debt-415988.html. Accessed 10/11/08 [5] http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_Clive-Calder_D594.html Accessed 11/11/08
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