A&R: A Novel by - Softcover

Flanagan, Bill

3.46

213 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375758305 ISBN 13: 9780375758300

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001

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The business of A&R (artists and repertoire) people at a record company is to sign new acts and nurture their careers, and lately no one in the industry has been hotter than Jim Cantone. Now the big time calls, and Jim accepts an offer to become head of A&R at industry giant WorldWide Records, founded and still run by the legendary maverick Wild Bill DeGaul. Little by little, though, it dawns on Jim that he has walked into a vipers' nest, and he must choose between picking up a dagger in a bloody palace coup against DeGaul or standing by him and losing everything.

Never before in fiction has the music business been so thoroughly nailed, but A&R is as much Julius Caesar as it is The Player: for all its great wit and dead-on insider texture, it's as wise about human nature as it is about one very dysfunctional industry.

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Review:

One character in Bill Flanagan's sharp, exceedingly funny first novel thinks A&R stands for "Assault and Robbery," but he's wrong. In the music biz, it means "Artists and Repertoire," and an A&R man is a talent scout expected to sign up bands with major record labels, tell them he's protecting their vision, and then rob them blind. The book's protagonist, WorldWide Records A&R man Jim Cantone, is too kind to do this. He sincerely wants the best for his discovery, the vaguely 10,000 Maniacs-like group Jerusalem. His entertainingly sleazy boss, J.B. Booth, prefers the slightly Jewel-like Cokie Shea, a coat-check girl who slipped her demo tape into his jacket and walked off with a contract and his unwanted adulterous paws all over her. The downtrodden A&R girl Zoey Pavlov was about to sign Jerusalem when Cantone beat her to the punch, so she seethes with loathing, misinterpreting his every word in a plausibly paranoid, bitter way. Meanwhile, the millionaire founder of WorldWide, Wild Bill DeGaul, should be paranoid, because his underlings are Machiavellian piranhas, but he's always jolly and full of ganja-scented high spirits. He whisks everybody off to frolic in Brazil and takes Jerusalem to his Caribbean private island to record their debut CD, with idyllic and horrific consequences.

A&R is as witty and knowing about the music world as Primary Colors is about politics, but it's not really a roman � clef. You don't need to guess who WorldWide's bestselling pop diva Lydya Hall might correspond to in real life to savor the drama of her tough-love rescue by Wild Bill when she's "sucking the glass snorkel" (addicted to crack) and unable to deliver her Christmas album. Flanagan (a bigwig at VH1 who wrote superb books about songwriters and touring with U2) makes you more interested in his characters than their counterparts. He nails the self-delusions of music types affectionately, even when they're behaving abominably. Brilliantly, he shows how even the coldest betrayal of friends and principles for cash is cloaked in pious, bogus words. "Moral jujitsu," Cantone calls it. "Doing the right thing gets flipped around to become evidence of selfishness." Flanagan is also good at sussing out people's motives and milking misunderstandings for comedy. When Cokie drunkenly succumbs to her discoverer, J.B. Booth, she's no victim. "While she could resist his love talk and was not bullied by his anger, she could not handle the sound of him whining and begging. So she gave in, as much to be able to lie down as to make him shut up." Afterwards, she knows that "the easiest time to dump a man was right after sex. He'd gotten what he came for and his instincts were telling him to run away." Cokie plays J.B. like a fine violin. And as a satirist, Bill Flanagan has perfect pitch. --Tim Appelo

From the Back Cover:

"Is there a better, funnier, truer novel about the contemporary music business? I don't think so. A&R is that extremely rare, satisfying thing-ferocious satire with a moral compass."
-- Kurt Andersen, author of Turn of the Century

"Bill Flanagan, a senior vice president of VH1 who has written extensively about the music industry, takes to fiction like an old hand. Fast-paced, funny, poignant, and, of course, sharply observed, this is first and foremost an entertainment. But Flanagan's music industry is additionally a legitimate and unsettling metaphor for the way we live now."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"This is a wonderfully written tale, with humour and heart. For record industry readers it's a trip to the funhouse hall of mirrors. If you secretly fear that you look like this, then you probably do. Flatter yourself at your peril. For civilians and other innocent bystanders it's a great day at the Roman Games."
-- Elvis Costello

"You begin with the things you love. You end up with the things you'll do. And one day you find yourself staring at a line on the ground, knowing that if you cross that line you'll never be the same again. A&R is the story of a music junkie's journey to that line, and Bill Flanagan tells it with all the color and authenticity that could only come from years spent on the musical midway. From the musicians, all their dreams and disappointments and the strings from which they dangle, to the men and women who jerk those strings, A&R is a straight-up, high fidelity ride."
-- Adam F. Duritz, Counting Crows

"A beautiful chronicle of what went wrong with rock and pop in recent decades. Flanagan hit me over the head with some profound truths about art and the people who sell it. But most important he enlightens us with a great sense of humor and a thoroughly entertaining read. The perfectly sad story of the folks who picked all the golden apples and never bothered to water the tree."
-- Tom Petty

"Laugh-out-loud funny -- a true hoot."
-- Lou Reed

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