Welcome to the New a&r. This is certainly a hit driven industry we live in. In the old days, an a&r guy looked for talented musicians to bring on board and develop them into full fledged stars, worthy and capable of creating continued hit-worthy music. As these transactions became more numerous, the talent became watered down and a record was relegated, so it seemed, to having 2 or 3 hits per album to suffice a radio model. Moreover, the producers became the stars most often crafting the hits using the artist/band as a cool brand to fast track the success of a paycheck. There lies the problem with today’s hit song. There is no formula to emotion. There is no fast track to what is real So how do I “make it” in the music business? Welcome to the new a&r. a&r is dead. Long live a&r.