There has been a tremendous amount of activity and movement within the A&R community over the last two months. Alex Luke and Michael Howe both join Dan McCarroll’s West Coast A&R team at Capitol while writer/producer Mike Elizondo joins Rob Cavallo’s A&R team at Warner Bros. The other addition to the Warner Bros. A&R team is former Jive A&R veteran Jeff Fenster who is returning to Los Angeles after nearly two decades in New York. Two additional transplants from NYC to LA are former J/Arista Sony Executive Larry Jackson who joins Jimmy Iovine’s team at Interscope and Atlantic’s Sam Riback who moves to the LA office. Meanwhile in NY, Adonis Sutherin joins Jive, Steve Lunt exists Atlantic and Ian Dench exists Epic. Longtime Motown A&R executive Lionel ‘KK’ Rosemond leaves to join indie powerhouse label E1 while in the UK, Mercury A&R executive Thomas Haimovici leaves to join the Warner Bros.-UK team.
 
Looking back at the activity within the A&R/Record Label community this past year, only twenty-three A&R executives were hired in 2010 and only two of those (Mark Williams and Vlad Bar) had ever been in A&R executive jobs before. Compare the twenty-three hired in 2010 to the fifty-eight hired in 2009 or the eighty hired in 2007! Only ten A&R executives in 2010 (compared to fourteen in 2009) were fortunate to leave one A&R job for another. That list includes Jeff Fenster, Larry Jackson, Michael Howe, Chris Anakute, Lionel ‘KK’ Rosemond, Thomas Haimovici, Qiana Conley, Lindsey Cook, Dan McCarroll and Gary Overton (while Dan McCarroll and Gary Overton are the Presidents of Capitol and Sony Music Nashville respectively and are not A&R executives per se, we’re including them because of their leadership role in driving their label’s creative departments and Conley is included since she joins Simon Cowell’s SYCO in an A&R capacity from her creative position at Notting Hill Music Publishing).
 
Sadly, there were 40 A&R executives who exited their A&R positions in 2010 and not one of them has landed another job in the A&R field (we’re including the three Major Label Presidents who have exited from their jobs since October: Tom Whalley from Warner Bros., Amanda Ghost from Epic, and Rob Stevenson from Virgin). While forty exits from A&R in 2010 was less than the fifty-one exits in 2009, the sixty-four A&R exits in 2008 or the one-hundred, twenty nine who exited in 2007, we’re still moved by the sheer numbers and the loss of talent our industry has endured over the last several years. And as we head into 2011, it’s with a sense of sadness that for all intents & purposes EMI will most likely be sold or closed (of course, we realize we’ve been saying this for the last two years). If and when this legendary label falls, it will mean the record industry as we knew it has shrunk by 50% over the last decade. But, the reassuring and enduring aspect of the Music Industry is that it continues to be filled with visionaries, forward-thinkers and immense talent that will always find a way to prevail, inspire and entertain.

Went over to the Home Depot Center to see Coldplay in an outdoor format which was very special… hadn’t seen them in a few years since promoting their show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles for Capitol Records.  They were still very solid as a band with high energy.  They kept things moving with the crowd by releasing yellow baloons during “yellow”, or confetti during “viva la vida”, or doing the wave with cell phones, or walking through the crowd all the way to the back of the arena where a makeshift little stage was made for them, then busting out “billy jean” by Michael Jackson.  While it was a quick set, it was a great performance with very touching lyrics, british wit, complete humbleness and gratitude for the crowd and opening bands, etc.