The Sound & Music Industry

Roles & Contracts

Record Companies

Plugger

A plugger's main job is to get their clients as much publicity as they can through radio, TV and the internet. They choose their clients very carefully, as they will put their own job and reputation at risk if they recommend a bad track. They will only work for someone if they believe in what the client is doing and sees a future in them. 
It is crucial for a plugger to have a lot of contacts with radio stations, DJ's, producers, music and playlist programmers. Without those contacts he will be as useless as the client. Radio stations etc. trust a plugger they know much more than an unknown person as you will just be one of the many people who try and send their CD's in and the chance is big that the CD doesn't even gets listened to. 
A plugger needs to find out where his best chances are. What I mean is that big radio stations, whom only play commercial music, will never play an unknown band's track, while smaller radio stations might take the risk. And, for example, a rock and roll radio station, will not play an R&B track. It depends on who your client is, what kind of radio station the plugger should approach. That's why it is convenient for a plugger to have a database with all the information about his contacts, such as, what kind of music the contact is into and in what format they like to receive the tracks (MP3, VINYL, CD), to make it as comfortable for the contact as possible. After all, they are the ones deciding whether you earn money or not.
You don't need special education to become a plugger. It is a business where you have to climb your way up to the top by having a good ear for music hits, having the right contacts and being lucky. Once you introduce a track that turns out to be a massive hit, Radio stations etc. will trust your opinion and play your clients tracks more often which means you will get a good name within the music industry and will earn money on a more regular basis. But once your track turns out to be a massive flop, Radio stations etc. won't listen to your advise again so it will be much harder to get clients and earn money. A good way to build op a contact list and to gain experience is to do an internship at a plugger company. those internships are not paid but once you sign a fixed term contract you usually start off with a wage around £15.000 per year, then progress to an average of £25.000 which can lead up to £50.00 or more. With the contract, you work from 9 until 5 to 10 o'clock and go to gigs to look for potential new artists. As a freelancer it depends on how much work you decide to take on, and how much you charge per job.
Just like every job, being a plugger has it's pro's and con's. A big pro is that you get to hang out with musicians, DJ's and other people who run the music industry. Also, if you're doing well, you can earn a lot of money and you can see an unknown band climbing their way to the top because of you. On the other side, you're income can be very low when you're not doing well or just starting off, because you get paid job by job. You might end up doing a lot of other work on the side to prevent going bankrupt. Another con is that it can be very disappointing to put a lot of work in to a client and not getting the wanted attention for their music. You need to get used to being ignored, especially in the beginning, and doing a lot of repetitive work such as sending CD's and phoning the same people to get noticed.
 

A & R

A&R stands for artist and repertoire. This job has changed quite a lot over the past years. 'Back in the days', it was unusual for an artist to write his own songs. That's why A&R people were there to choose songs for the artist that would suit them best and would score them a good hit. As it now is more common for people to write their own songs (not always, unfortunately), their job has been divided in three different levels. First of all there are A&R scouts, which is the lowest level in the A&R department. Chances are big that, as an fixed term A&R scout, you don't get paid a lot or not at all. It is seen as an internship for starters to gain more experience but when you are lucky you can earn between £16,250 and £42,250. The scouts are the people who have to search for bands that have potential by, for example, going to 1 to 4 gigs a night, listening to demos or searching the internet(eg. Soundcloud). When they have found an artist that they think fits the profile, the second level gets involved, the A&R Managers. A&R managers earn between £17.550 and £113.750 annually and mostly are in the office working normal 9-5 hours. They will go to gigs to check out the potential artists but a lot less than A&R scouts.  They have a higher authority and are usually more experienced so the artist needs their approval as well before it goes to the third level, the head of A&R. They are not really involved in finding the artists but they do set the rules on what kind of profile the artist needs to fit in and gives the final nod or shake. The head of A&R is also the contact link between the artist and their management and the rest of the record label. As a heads of A&R you earn a lot of money, between £150.000 and £200.000 for a 9-5 office job and an occasional gig, which is a pretty sweet deal, but you have a lot of responsibility which you can loose in a flash when you mess up a good deal or sign a flop.
Major labels have all three levels, but indie labels tend to have one or two.
A&R freelancers are the same as plugger freelancers, it depends on how much work they take on and what they charge per job.
Dan Keeling, head of A&R at Parlophone Records says: 'you have got to understand the creative process of making a record as well as being aware of what is going on culturally - around the country and the world. A good taste in music is essential and so is good people skills.'-(How to make it in the Music Business) 
You need the artist to trust you and in order for that you need to be friendly and understanding. When you are starting it is very essential to have to right contacts, especially promoters as they can get you in to places for free, which makes it easier when you are starting your own label and don't have a lot of money - and with new artist as you want to be the first to take an artist in before another A&R department does. Once you get higher up you need to have a good understanding of how contracts work which asks for diplomacy skills, but you don't need education.
If you want to work as an A&R you need to be willing to get up early in the morning and go to bed late at night. A&R people have normal office hours but have to go and see gigs in the evening, which means you could end up getting home after midnight.
Just as a plugger, working as an A&R can be an amazing job when you love music as you get to go to gigs, meet potential big artists and might even get paid to do so, you get to listen to music all day and you help setting up a career for an artist that you like. The downsides are that it can be very tiring, standing in a tiny, crowded venue all night and working in an office all day and when you are starting off you'll find that your choice does not matter at all, which can be very frustrating when you really like a certain artist.




Contracts

For both pluggers and A&R people, you can either have a fixed term contract or work as a freelancer. When you have a fixed term contract, you either work for an independent plugger/A&R company or for the plugger/A&R department within a record label. You get offered a contract and get the same amount of money every month. You usually get a one year contract which can be risky when you end up not liking your job or when they decide not to extend your contract after one year and you end up without any job. Your boss decides what kind of work you do and does your taxes. When you do freelance you work for yourself, so you do your own taxes. You get to decide everything on your own, how much work you do, how much you ask per client and who you work for. 
Both fix term and freelance have ups and downs. I reckon it is better to have a fix term contract when you are just starting off. You are assured of a regular income through the company that you work for, which you can not rely on when you are a freelancer because you get paid job by job. As a freelancer people don't really know you yet and as it is just you on your own it is hard to get yourself out there between all the bigger companies. You could end up having some work in one month, and absolutely nothing in the other, which will not be enough money to pay for your expenses. 
Also, you can gain a lot of experience and make a lot of contacts when you work in a company. Your company will make sure you're always busy with clients as they want to make you as efficient for their money as possible, so you'll meet a lot of people and the contacts are mostly already provided by the company. When you freelance you have a harder time meeting all those contacts as you will be representing yourself while you don't have many references yet. People tend to go for the known rather than take a leap of faith and choose someone of whom they don't know will succeed in getting their band out there .
However, when you have a decent contact list, a lot of experience and people know you for your good work, it might be a good time to go freelance. You can earn a lot more money doing freelance when you are secured of a lot of jobs as the entire amount of money will go directly to you and you can charge the clients as much as you desire, while with a fixed term job you could be delivering amazing work but you would still get the same amount of money you earned when you just started off. The most efficient thing to do is to set a basic fee for the artist and set bonuses when a certain result is achieved. Another up side is that you get to make up your own rota and choose everyone who you want to work with. You might come across an amazing artist with a very low budget. As a freelancer you can give him the favor of the doubt and give him a massive discount or offer him a very good deal, which you can recoup later when things start to go well for the artist. You do need good intuition and a good freelance career for that. In a company you will notice that you don't have the liberty to choose who you work with. You can give your opinion but it will always be the boos deciding. They will mostly think about the money so when you come across that amazing artist you would have to let him go. 

One more downside to going freelance as an A&R is that you need to take care and have money of everything else within your label as well, such as press, marketing and organizing distribution but once your label is doing well you can start hiring people for those jobs.

 

What would I do?

Pluggers and A&R people have a quite similar working atmosphere. They work office hours during the day but spend their nights in the music venues listening to gigs. They both look for potential new artists and they both contribute to an artists career, just in slight different ways. Where A&R people offer the artists deals, pluggers try and get them on the radio or TV. The artists that pluggers get to deal with don't necessarily have a record deal, but once pluggers get them on the radio, A&R people will be contacting for them so you could say that pluggers contribute to A&R peoples work, which also works the other way around. When an A&R person signs an artist, it is much more appealing for a plugger to take on the client as chances are big that the record label pays for the costs. In both professions you can have a fixed term contract or go freelancing and you have similar pros and cons.

I reckon my favorite career plan would be starting off as a fixed term plugger and going freelance after a few years. I think being a plugger would suit me well as I love listening to music and going to gigs. It is what I do in my spare time anyway so it would never feel as an obligation to do so. Being able to help people pursue their dreams would be very satisfying and something I would like to put my time in. I'd like to start off with a fixed term contract because I do not have the experience nor the money to be able to go freelance straight away. I'd be able to gain loads of experience and meet a lot of people and create my own contact list. I would also earn money and be able to safe some to go freelance, which I would do in a few years because once you have the contacts and experience, you are able to get much more out of freelancing than fixed term contracts. You get to choose the people you work with, get to fill in your own hours and you're completely in charge of your own life. You do need a lot of responsibility to go freelance as you can loose your contacts very easily once you start getting floppy with your work, but I think I would be able to manage my freelance life.

The reason why I chose plugger over A&R person is because I think that the A&R business is a lot harsher than the plugger business. A lot less people go in and even less people come out successfully and I think I would not like to be part offering someone a dream and leaving them with a massive dept if things don't turn out the way they were supposed to. Also, I like that, even though a plugger can make you a lot of money, your day entirely evolves around listening to music and talking to people, where as an A&R person you get to deal with contracts and loans and depts, which sounds less appealing to me. 

  

Sources:
Internet:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr07/articles/contracts.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/aug/10/musicindustry.careers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/introducing/advice/whatdotheseguysdo/plugger/

http://musicians.about.com/od/musiccareerprofiles/p/radioplugger.htm

http://musicians.about.com/od/musiccareerprofiles/p/aandrprofile.htm
Books:
How To Make It In The Music Business by Sian Pattenden