Howard Stern Vs Prince

Howard Stern may call himself a Prince fan, but the shock jock wasn't thrilled with His Purpleness kicking Kim Kardashian off the stage at his Madison Square Garden gig Monday night.

On his XM radio show yesterday morning (via E! Online), Stern went straight for Prince's jugular over the stunt. "He seems to be an arrogant asshole lately," he said. "The guy is just weird, he gives concerts with the lights out."
At the show — the final one of his Welcome 2 America Tour — Prince unexpectedly pulled Kardashian on stage to dance, but when the reality show star stood motionless, the singer commanded, "Get off the stage!" (To be fair: Prince pulled a similar move with another female audience member that night.)
But Stern took issue with Prince's spontaneous move: "Apparently, she's supposed to dance like a stripper for him and she just stood there not knowing what to do. He throws her off the stage because she can't read fucking Prince's mind. He's a bullshit artist. I'm done with him."
Still, Prince ultimately made it up to Kardashian: He pulled her on stage once more towards the end of Monday's show. "This time I redeemed myself!" Kardashian Tweeted afterwards. "We all danced while Prince played the piano! Wow! What a night!"

The Truth About A&R's

 My opinion is that the traditional A&R process as we've known it is dying for a few reasons;

(1) The major labels are hiring fewer and fewer A&R executives because the volume of acts, and more importantly the types of acts, being signed have dramatically decreased.

(2) The A&R process used to be about the discovery, signing & nurturing of the act. Not anymore. Nowadays, A&R executives are not looking for talent per se.  They are looking for an ongoing business.

(3) Labels want an artist that has developed some kind of traction and awareness on their own. Today, acts need to be "developed" or at least developing in a business sense for any label to have even the slightest amount of interest.  The idea that today's A&R executives will discover an unknown act / artist and develop that artist is an illusion.  They have neither the desire, time or money for that matter in 2011.

This is why from an A&R perspective, only the most generic, ubiquitous type of acts get any attention from labels today.  There is only a certain type of act these days that major labels are willing to sign.
So if you happen to have those specific skills (mentioned above) these days - great! If not, don't sweat it, indie is the way to go!