The Next Era of A&R Tools

Chartmetric’s new A&R tools leverage machine learning to shortlist 1.7M musicians into the high-potential artists that interest you the most

The Next Era of A&R Tools
Josh Hayes
Josh Hayes
November 1, 20199 min read
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One of the most inspiring parts of the music industry is when passionate, new artists get their break, make it big, and express their sound. For many industry-people, the joy and excitement around that journey is what got them into the music industry in the first place. For others, that is what fuels them day by day.

The digital streaming era has made it easier than ever for new artists to make and release music. At the same time, it has made it harder than ever for managers, marketers, and A&R scouts to keep track of what is happening across the entire digital music landscape. Increasing amounts of data on unprecedented amounts of aspiring artists make it hard to identify the stand-outs.

Finding a rising star today is like Where’s Waldo on steroids.

Lil Nas X, the quintessential viral star of 2019 (Photo: DiFronzo)

A&R scouts and managers know that identifying the next big artist requires industry savvy, forward thinking, and hard work. Doing so requires skills that cannot be replicated with artificial intelligence (A.I.). We are nowhere near a point where A.I. could replace the talented people in A&R.

But A.I. still has a big role to play. One of the main goals of artificial intelligence is to tackle bogglingly large-scale problems. And a “bogglingly large-scale problem” is exactly what the music industry is facing right now. For example, on Spotify alone 40,000 new tracks are added every single day. That says nothing about the talent emerging on Soundcloud, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, Amazon, Instagram, and TikTok.

Chartmetric’s goal is to build tools to empower A&R scouts, not replace them.
We don’t want to tell you who the next big artist is. We want to help you focus your expertise, time, and energy in the most promising directions.

“What does A&R empowered with machine learning look like?”

Imagine if a tool could help you filter the overwhelming landscape of aspiring artists down to a “short list” of the artists that have what it takes to succeed. Imagine further that you can choose to cast either a wider or a narrower net. You could decide how much of an artist’s history to take into account: Do you look for artists that are literally just starting out? Or do you target musicians that have already started showing a consistent ability to release tracks and gain listeners?

Whatever strategy you favor, our new Predictive A&R tools make that hypothetical a reality, and you can use them right now, over at Chartmetric.com!