IF YOU ARE HOT
The day an A&R person can fi nd your name near the top of the Billboard , Music Week , or other national charts, fi nding work becomes easier. They suggest you to their acts and respond to you or your manager’s calls, texts, and e-mails. Part of my motivation for writing the fi rst edition of this book was because producing appears to some as a “black art,” refl ecting a lack of understanding of its diverse permutations.
The possible combinations of qualities that engender success as a music producer approach infi nite and indeterminable complexity. Talent, hard work, experience, education, training, an extensive and well-placed network, prior accom-plishments, and goodwill may be precursory but not reliably causative. Perseverance is necessary, and luck is a factor, but I subscribe to the “you make your own luck”
and “the harder I work, the luckier I get” school of thought. Nonetheless, I have seen excellent work fail, and the converse too. Any measurable success spells oppor-tunity, and it is essential to consolidate it to improve the quality of artists you can access.
Being arrogant may be survivable in the short term, but the notion that “every-one you kick on the way up will kick you twice on the way back down” is worth pondering. Success is a season of indeterminate length, during which you appear to have the Midas touch and everyone wants you to touch his or her project. When you are in such a period, you can negotiate signifi cantly improved terms, and you should, but doing so with humility can help sustain a career when it begins to fl ag.
IF YOU ARE NOT QUITE THERE YET
Production careers, like many creative jobs, seem to observe quantum theory, in which energy is emitted or absorbed in indivisible quanta. By this I mean that careers tend to plateau with no signs of advancement despite relentless hard work, and then they abruptly step up to another level. I was very fortunate in that the fi rst record I produced was a hit. Nevertheless, this “break” came after more than a decade as a studio musician and recording artist. I like to think that the opportu-nity arose because I built a reputation of competence and goodwill in the business.
I worked and networked across many circles with the best people I could fi nd, but I cannot identify the fi nal differentiating factors (outside of hard work and seren-dipity) that led to the success I sought.
You can conserve a lot of energy and time by being strategic, not that I always was. I followed my passions, working for several years in the areas of avant-garde electronic music and free, improvised jazz. I had no illusions that it would lead to a life of opulence in the Hollywood Hills; I did it because it intrigued me. Success came, predictably enough, in commercial music through the major label route.
However, it was those years in noncommercial and avant-garde groups that gave me a fresh perspective in the form of insight into the use of the then-new computer and synthesizer technology that made my work stand apart.
It is fun to work with music you love and useful to be realistic about its poten-tial for success. I found a niche for myself that expanded, in a highly modifi ed form, into the mainstream. A niche area of music can create an advantage, even if it is not unique to you. If fewer people are chasing the same idea, you have a better chance of becoming the acknowledged expert. Niche styles are constantly moving into the mainstream. There are many examples: Punk music was a niche initially, as was new romantic and electronica. Niche genres can take decades to evolve. We printed the letters EDM for “electronic dance music” on our singles in 1980. As it happened, electronic dance music including the various house/techno styles did not signifi cantly penetrate the U.S. pop market for years. At the time of writing, music with a heavy European electronic dance infl uence dominates the U.S. pop charts.
Many of the producers of previous club hits, such as French house music producer and DJ David Guetta (Kelly Rowland, Black Eyed Peas, Nicki Minaj) are now enjoying massive international chart success. Guetta’s productions used the Euro four-to-the-bar bass drum groove and were signifi cantly faster than U.S. hits of the time. A number of industry experts told him that he would never have a hit in the United States with that style. 5
To assess a niche, it is germane to ask yourself why this apparent opportunity exists: “Is it an un-mined vein of gold, or fringe music that may never enter the mainstream?” Trends and movements begin beyond the periphery and are identifi -able far in advance. Yesterday’s alternative styles are often today’s pop vanguard.
Hip hop became huge internationally from small beginnings more than 30 years ago. Alternative rock was on the margins in the ’80s and became mainstream U.S. pop in the ’90s. Even the Beatles were developing in Liverpool and Hamburg for years before they transformed the industry. Nevertheless, some fringe trends never break out. Washington, D.C.’s go-go music has been very popular there since the late 1970s but never expanded into a sustained international movement. Alan Moulder’s opportunity came because of his interest in what was at the time a niche market. He says,
I was very, very lucky that I fell into the alternative market in England at the time when hardly anyone else wanted to do it. Slick records were king at the time, and alternative or indie records were almost like second-rate music. Other engineers thought they sounded awful and trashy. So I didn’t have a lot of competition. A lot of the producers that were doing those records were used to working in cheaper studios with assistants, and they came to me because these records are quite diffi cult to polish up a bit without making them sound slick or smooth. So there weren’t a lot of trained engineers who’d come up through the studio system from assistant to house engineer who wanted to make those records. I could co-produce [with bands] and they would only have to pay one
person instead of both an engineer and a producer. Combined with the fact that I was not that expensive in the beginning, which helped since those records weren’t selling in huge quantities at the time. 6
Usually, there are key people at the core of a new movement who have a conceptual grasp of what is happening and, most important, whether there is an audience.
This was true with the Beatles, punk, hip hop, new romantic, house, grunge, and electronic dance music. A small, passionate (usually young) fan base can become a large and widespread audience.
IF YOU WERE RECENTLY HOT
This is a diffi cult position to be in, when it has been some time since your last suc-cess. If labels offer you work at all, it may be second division projects that are low priority for them. Labels often deny that they prioritize releases, and they hold that information closely, but majors have too many releases each week to promote them equally well, and it becomes a Darwinian battle for survival. A remarkable produc-tion can focus a label’s attenproduc-tion, although they do not always assign their mar-keting and promotion dollars to the best record. Counterintuitive as this is, there are other considerations, such as who signed the act, who the artist’s manager and attorney are, and the label’s history with the artist. The more productions you have that are under-promoted, the more misses you will accumulate, and the time since your last chart showing will increase. This can damage your morale and diminish offers of work.
Creative management can make a difference. In the absence of a good man-ager, producers need to be strategic. Changing industry perception by stepping away from your customary genres can broaden possibilities. Producing hip indie artists where sales expectations are lower can increase credibility, especially with unexpected collaborations, which garner industry attention without the focus being solely on units sold. Danny Saber pointed out that critical acceptance can help. This is consistent with manager Andy Kipnes’s comment to Peter Collins—that being associated with cool projects can keep you in work.
WHEN THE NIGHT’S CLOSING IN
Most artists, musicians, and producers devote years to consummating their dreams.
Having fi nally stepped into a stream of success, it is natural to assume that you can stay there. However, the ancient Greeks understood that “everything fl ows, nothing stands still.” 7 Furthermore, they said, “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually fl owing in.” 8 Although you achieved your objec-tive, the business, trends, and technologies do not stand still. What most of us do is immerse ourselves in the fl ood of work that fl ows from the success. However, in capitalizing on success, it is important to maintain strategic fl exibility and continue
to be forward-thinking. As the river moves, so must you. When my production career began, I saw excellent 1970s producers, who worked only with live musicians, fall away. Some retired happily. Others would have liked to continue producing, but they had no strategy in place and were unable or unwilling to make the shift to the computerized, synthesized ’80s. In the ’90s, the pendulum swung back to live bands;
this, in turn, left some strictly high-tech producers sidelined.
At the turn of the millennium, digital recording techniques became widely accepted and less expensive. Simultaneously, recording budgets dropped, leaving many big team, big budget producers without a means to compete. It is easier to transmogrify a career before the peak of an industry shift than it is to resurrect one afterward. We unwittingly brand or typecast ourselves with every choice we make.
Diversifi cation is not for everyone, but the ideal time to make a change is well before it becomes necessary.
Unlike, say, the sciences or academia—where age, experience, and a long résumé are respected—in the music business, “older” may be (unjustifi ably) equated with “out-of-touch.” A long discography replete with artists from another era rein-forces that notion. There are notable examples of producers, such as Phil Ramone and Arif Mardin, who have sustained lifelong careers. In fact, Mardin is a case in point. He was the victim of a mandatory retirement age limit at Atlantic Records.
The mindlessness of this policy was accentuated when he moved to Blue Note and almost immediately produced Norah Jones’s diamond-certifi ed debut album Come Away with Me .
Most people’s expenses increase as they mature and acquire homes, cars, and families. Younger producers can often afford to take more risks, working for less and going for longer periods without income. It is not a career if you cannot cover the costs of raising a family, college tuition, and so forth. However, success can encourage a more lavish lifestyle. Teddy Riley produced big-selling artists such as Bobby Brown, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, and Heavy D, but in 2002, he fi led for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Among other penalties, the IRS fi led a $1 million lien against him for unpaid taxes. Consequently, he had to sell his house and put his studio up for sale. 9 In chapter 6, I discuss the story of how producer Scott Storch, allegedly, went through $30 million in six months. These may be extreme examples, but once the royalties and big advances slow down, even a slightly excessive over-head rapidly depletes resources and racks up debt. Add another uncontrollable fac-tor or two, such as a serious illness or a divorce, and the proceeds of decades of hard work and success can be obliterated.
When production careers enter a quiet phase, the ability to live as you have become accustomed to will rest on whether you conserved and invested or spent too freely. Experienced producers develop transferable skills, but changing pro-fessions is diffi cult for many after a freewheeling life in music. It is not easy to replace the amount of income a successful producer earns. A cautious approach to personal fi nances pays dividends by allowing experienced producers time to rest between projects, to strategize, search out new talent, and develop new skills and
approaches. Even if you intend to work forever, planning for a forced retirement may be the best hedge against it happening.
WHAT PREVENTS THEM FROM COMING BACK TO YOU?
It can be as simple as habit. You work with a couple of A&R people and they keep coming back to you; some other work comes in from another source, you interrupt the roll, and they fi nd someone else. Once they become comfortable with another producer, it can be years before you work with them again. I did three albums each for two major labels, each album was certifi ed gold, and I had no misses with either label. In each case, there were long periods before those labels offered me work again. Furthermore, in the case of both labels, each request to work with me origi-nated from the artists and/or the artists’ managers. There was no resistance from the labels and relationships with the A&R staff were good. Developing relationships with artists and managers is worthwhile.
If you are dealing with major labels, a lack of chart presence will eliminate a great deal of incoming work requests. As long as you are currently successful, even being somewhat diffi cult to work with or overspending the budget is less likely to create unwanted gaps in your schedule. With independent labels, success is also the primary criterion but, depending on the label, the success is less likely to be tied to the top ten and more likely to a genre chart or lower sales fi gures.
Please bear with my cynicism for a moment. As I see it, rule number one is most people (including A&R people and some producers) do not really under-stand how producers do what they do. This is the “black art syndrome,” which I defi ne as “this producer has the magic wand this week.” That perspective inexo-rably leads to my rule number two: “Success is the primary measure of your abil-ity as a producer.” Exceptions to rule number two might be if you are very young, considered innovative, are inexpensive, if you are managed by the A&R person’s management company, or if you have an enthusiastic fan base of artists who request you.
Cynicism aside, success as a primary criterion has legitimacy. Chart positions refl ect sales, and labels need revenues. Producers have to understand the labels’
objectives, then balance those with the artists’ goals and negotiate to deliver records that are capable of achieving both. The music industry is a labyrinthine series of valves, fi lters, intermediaries, and/or gatekeepers, each of which operates on a knockout basis of pass/no-pass. The fi nal arbiter is the public, but the vast majority of recordings never make it to that court.
When a project of yours fails, analyze what happened—if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. Determine the extent of your responsibility and decide how you can avoid the problem in future. Even the most successful producers make records that fail to sell. Rising above failure requires perseverance, an ability to cor-rect personal imperfections, a belief in yourself, and healthy relationships within the industry.
Privately acknowledging your responsibility is constructive. Attributing blame to the label, artist, or manager’s failings may be cautionary for future dealings, but it serves no other purpose.
Sometimes good records fail. Producers cannot control many of the myriad parameters that lead to commercial success. They do exercise agency over the quality of the recordings and the interpersonal aspects of the process. This is the empowered producer’s ability to choose effectively and transform those choices into achievement. It is the conceit of production and, idealistically, effective choices will guide a project through the industry and media fi lters giving the consumer the opportunity to choose. The more often you can achieve this goal, the more work will come your way.
WITH OR WITHOUT A&R PEOPLE, WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET WORK?
Until you have produced a successful record, perhaps the only way to get work is by networking. This can be online or in person; it can include label people, man-agers, and artists, or friends and neighbors, but the wider the network, the more work will come your way. There will probably always be artists who are techno-phobes, who will need someone else to record their music for them. Depending on the kind of artists they are, you can make a very good-sounding recording with a decent microphone and A-D converter on a laptop with some form of DAW software. Once you have some success, your calling card is each download and CD sold, or track streamed. For this reason, unless you are proud of a work, do not release it to the public under your name. Alan Moulder said he gets his projects from “band requests and previous reputation.” At any point in a career, that really is the best way, and it does not only apply to producers who penetrate the Billboard charts.
Some producers occupy a niche, such as metal, Americana, world, folk, avant-garde, reggae, etc., and artists in that niche will be familiar with and seek out those producers. This can also work geographically. Local and regional producers are able to make a living working with bands from their area. They make good-sounding records for a reasonable price, and the word spreads. It is worth remembering that Sam Phillips discovered Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf, Rufus Thomas, and Carl Perkins, among others, by running his local Memphis Recording Service. Phillips recorded everyone who walked through the door and paid for time, in addition to doing location recording for a fee.
Moses Asch focused on recording artists for release on his Folkways Records and Service Corporation label. This was his third, and fi nally successful, attempt at running a label. Asch built a comprehensive and important collection of world music, spoken word, and children’s music, in addition to recording artists like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, James P. Johnson, Mary Lou Williams, Ella Jenkins, John Cage, and countless others. He released more than an album a
week for nearly 40 years, did not restrict himself by genre, and did it all from his tiny New York City studio with very few staff. Even with the limited independent distribution he mustered, his reputation spread. The label became an outlet for
week for nearly 40 years, did not restrict himself by genre, and did it all from his tiny New York City studio with very few staff. Even with the limited independent distribution he mustered, his reputation spread. The label became an outlet for