Auteurs, Svengalis, and Collaborations

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You are the owner of a small record label with an idiosyncratic habit. Every year you sign one band without even listening to their demo tape, on the basis of a short blurb written by your A&R staff (who have weeded out all the real crap). Your goal for the signing is neither simple profit nor critical idealism, but a happy medium of both: a "good" act that will also chart respectably.

You have three choices:
Auteur: A band that is primarily a vehicle for its lead singer (who is also the primary songwriter).
The Puppets: A pop group assembled by a producer who has played a role (songwriter, mixing, production, etc) on a few memorable hits, but who is thus far not a household name himself. A&R tells you this project finds him pulling together what he's learned as a journeyman, using his contacts with top session players and songwriters, to put together a ready-to-blow-up product.
Kollektiv: A five-person band with two strong instrumentalists, three strong singers. And the song that sounds like the sure single is actually the one the drummer wrote!

Who do you sign, and what acts from pop history do you think of when making your decision?

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Friday, 2 June 2006 01:41 (eighteen years ago)

You mean, which type of band-structure do I a priori prefer?

Whichever one has better music - hand over the demo tapes please...

― DougD (DougD), Friday, 2 June 2006 10:51 (eighteen years ago)

Yay! Another stillborn thread.

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:30 (eighteen years ago)

Well, let's see -- not 2, first of all. Even aside from any idealistic concerns, having such a band on one's roster would seriously damage the label's credibility in the eyes of a number of people. Whether they're right or wrong in believing such a thing is another matter; I am not entirely unsympathetic to their concerns. But I certainly do not see myself running a label full of fabricated pop bands to begin with, so 2 would seem incongruous with the rest of my roster.

Which leaves 1 and 3 -- and 3 sounds like the kind of band that is prone to breaking up. If I am going to promote an act, I would prefer if they stuck around long enough to repay my investment. Not an insurmountable problem if they're good, but in the absence of any other information, 1 doesn't have that problem. So I would go with 1.

― Pessimist (Pessimist), Saturday, 3 June 2006 02:47 (eighteen years ago)

#2 God dammit.

Producer-based music > other shit. (As an aspiring producer, I may be biased.)

― Dr. Rodney's Original Savannah Band (R. J. Greene), Saturday, 3 June 2006 03:15 (eighteen years ago)

You'd be amazed at how often Option #3 is really Option #2 in disguise....

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Saturday, 3 June 2006 16:42 (eighteen years ago)

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