Major Record labels, deals, contracts and music marketing at A&R Online

About A&R Online

Hi I'm Chris Standring and I run the ship here at A&R Online. The site started back in 2000, making it one of the first music business resources on the internet. Initially the idea was to showcase artists to the industry and I did that successfully for quite a while. When record labels started to tumble and it became more and more difficult to get labels interested to sign, I thought it better to transition away from simply brokering artists to the industry.

Since that time the site has been geared to educating artists in the music business and providing resources so an artist can become truly independent, something much more worthwhile as far as I am concerned.

This is not to say of course that artists can not be signed to record labels any more. But the question now becomes, why? Artists getting signed are usually proving themselves beyond measure, selling gobs of CDs on their own before they attract a label. If this is now the case, why sign at all? Well there may be pros and there will be cons. One question I found myself asking for the last few years is "Is it smart to sign to a label that may very well be out of business next year?".

And with that in mind, I am now much more interested in encouraging artists to pursue things independently and to build their own empire, and that is what I strive to do right here. There are tons of articles (old and new) discussing all aspects of the music business.

For those who are information sponges, I am an affiliate for the Music Business Registry, the best and most trusted source for music business contacts.

I encourage artists also to subscribe to my "7 day wake up e-course". It's absolutely free to sign up and I guarantee you will get an inspirational shot in the arm.

Music business news is updated on the front page constantly so come back often to keep in touch with what's going on! Thanks for dropping by!

All the best.