Customer Reviews

A&R: A Novel by

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

i bought this book for a friend of mine in the music indsutry when it came out just because it had interesting musician reviews on the back. i picked it up a few days later and started reading it. i thought it was a great story, very entertaining especially to someone like myself that knows nothing of the inner workings or of the music industry. but once i picked it up i couldnt stop reading it. i even held off giving it to my friend a day so i could finish it.

I picked this book up after reading great reviews by Lou Reed, Elvis Costello and Tom Petty. While this book was a quick and entertaining read, it lacked substance. The story was a nice take on the current situation of the music industry - profit over talent - and the integrity that is challenged by those involved. The characters were believeable and easy to relate to but there was something ultimately missing. The ending was very anti-climatic and left me a bit dissapointed. The book is a good satire on the current state of the music business. Read this now and you'll understand why the music industry will be completely different in less than 10 years.

It's funny that there's no cussing in this "behind the scenes" novel. It took me a while to realize it, but I can't REALLY believe in characters like a back-stabbing corporate honcho who wheels and deals while saying things like "what the frig does that mean?" Of course, profanity isn't absolutely necessary -- Tom Wolfe can generate a hard-boiled feel without 4-letter words. (Or with! Come on, it's a rock and roll book.) The lack of profanity is merely an indicator -- the tone and subject matter are a little out of alignment. An amusing (cute?) but whitewashed presentation of a harsh reality.

I almost give this clever book on the music industry five stars but held back only because it could use a little more depth. That being said I still think this is a great book, a really fun read. It gives insight into the corporate world of music making with insight and wit.

The knives are out in a big corporate music firm and once started you won't want to put the book down! Besides a behind the scenes look of the music industry this novel has a likable fun side as well, there were passages & lines that made me laugh out loud.

This book didn't have a lot of buzz about it when it got released but now that it's in paperback everyone has a chance to find a real gem of a read and enjoy the story it tells.

A & R is a blast to read. It breaks no new literary ground, but keeps you interested from beginning to end. I've long been fascinated by the entertainment industry (both in fiction and non-fiction form). I had never been much interested in the music industry, but Entertainment Weekly recommended the book and who I am to disagree? More seriously, this comic look at life in the big corporate world of music is really interesting. I'm guessing that Wild Bill is based on Clive Davis or someone like him. Jim, our hero, is a sympathic guy and we pull for him. We also pull for Wild Bill and some of the music acts. The characters are not all that well drawn, but enough so that you are interested. As many satricial novels, that is beyond the point. Flangan casts a critical eye at an ever changing industry and tells a fun story along the way. It won't win any big awards, but is a good read for those who like the entertainment industry.

It was truly enjoyable subject matter that I'm sure only Bill Flanagan (and any other music industry person) could provide. What I could not get past was his ham-handed writing style that led me to think he started a short story for Rolling Stone and then decided to lengthen it to a novel. But maybe I'm not the right person for this book: I've enjoyed reading my entire life, from the classics to contemporary drivel that continously and surprisingly makes Best-Sellers Lists. If I only read Rolling Stone or music biographies, I'm sure this would be one of the best books I've ever read.

I don't, and it wasn't.

Pleasant, feel free to buy my used copy.

This fictional insider look at the music industry is full of adventure, myth, back-stabbing, love, and death -- so where did it go wrong? The story itself is fairly interesting. At it's heart it's about the cold corporate machine that is replacing the soul of record companies: the people that love the music. This issue plays out in various forms, most notably through A&R president of WorldWide Records, protagonist Jim Cantone.

The main flaw is that the characters are sorely underdeveloped. This lack of substance and the resulting lack of sympathy is the death of this novel. There are empty leading characters that do nothing to advance the plot, evoke nothing in the reader, and leave you confused as to why they were there at all. Perhaps the most irritating of the book's flaws, though, is the constant distraction of subplots that lead absolutely nowhere. Unfortunately, the little substance this book does have isn't given any time to shine. What could have been a thoughtful, interesting look at the changing music industry, ends up reading more like a comedy staring Bill Flanagan.

A far better read is "The Mansion on the Hill : Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce" by Fred Goodman.

but I like it.

Although the story is undeniably about the culture of popular music, thankfully the author doesn't go for the usual VHS "Behind the Music" plot of sudden fame/ band breakup amid drug problems and ego conflicts/ then triumphant reunion "for the love of the music." Instead, the main protagonist is an A&R (artist and repertoire) man and the plot is grounded in the business side of show business. Without giving away the plot, the narrative arc of the story follows the transformation of the recording industry from its music-loving visionary founders to the corporate bean counters who dominate it today.

This is not The Great American Novel, but it is an enjoyable read, which as Lou Reed correctly notes on the cover, it is, at times, "laugh-out-loud" funny. Despite the wildness of some of the antics recounted in the story they have an undeniable ring of plausibility, suggesting to me, at least, that this indeed more of a roman a clef than some would allow. Good reading for the airplane or the beach.

A tragi-comedic parable about a well-intentioned, bright-eyed boy scout of a music man who gets lured from his comfortable job at a prestigious independent label (roughly modeled on late-'70s Island?), into a corporate position as the number four man at a mega-label (Sony, perhaps?). Disillusionment and moral compromise ensues. Everything starts off just fine, with our hero club-hopping in an effort to sign his favorite band. Flanagan's real-life experience (as VP of VH-1) lends the right feel to the subterranean backbiting between rival record label execs, and the routine backslapping and insincere ego-stroking that are the industry's life blood are deftly drawn. The book stumbles, though, as Flanagan forces his characters out of New York and into an overdrawn, Hunter S. Thompson-ish romp in Brazil, which ends in tears and provides a flimsy pretext for one character to pursue a corporate coup. Frankly, I would have found it more interesting if he had kept things on a more realistic level, and relied on the petty personality wars of the entertainment industry to propel events... I'm sure there would be enough unbelievable material right there, and it would have been ultimately more rewarding for the reader. All-in-all, though, the book is fine, and for plebes like me who are eager for a glimpse into the world of corporate culture-making this may be an instructive foray. Speaking through his characters, Flanagan gets off a few understated broadsides at the sad state of post-'60s corporate culture-making, and the way in which record producing has become strictly a joylessly cynical, money-making proposition. So is there a happy ending? Hey - read it and find out!

I enjoyed reading this book about a guy who works as an A&R rep for a record company and his life around it. At first he's driven by the love of music, but as he gets promoted it is the buisness ascpect of the job that takes the upper hand over the interest in good music (well, it's not called music business for nothing). This is a great read, although I think three stars is a fair rating as it's a good but not spectacular book. For people that works in the industry or are generally interested in the workings of the music business--pick it up!