Steven J. Gross
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Lots of us here know that A&M Records had an image that made it different. Was it the bands, the graphics, the small company image?
What set A&M Records apart from the rest?
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Captaindave
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IMO, Herb Alpert... He is what all the other companies didn't have. He created something new and different and then marketed it himself. I think what A&M was or became was the result/outcome of who owned it and what that owner was able to do and create, both in business and artistic/musical terms.
Herb was the company - the company was Herb. So, perhaps being a partnership rather than a large corporation make it different.
In a Windplayer magazine interview with Herb in 1986, it is mentioned that Herb and Jerry formed A&M for ownership of the Lonely Bull record. The idea of A&M, according to Herb, was "to make every record, all 12 tunes, count. We didn't want the customer to end up buying just the hit and have 11 throwaway songs as a bonus. We wanted to give people their money's worth."(Quote from the Windplayer interview).
The fact the owner of the company was also the artist with the first hit record on the company label, created to record that particular artist, who happened to be the creator of a new and original sound and style - and having that "magic" formula of "right place at the right time" - all brought it together in a special way, IMO.
So, I think the thing that sets A&M apart from every other record company is Herb Alpert. More so than any other single factor.
Herb was the company - the company was Herb. So, perhaps being a partnership rather than a large corporation make it different.
In a Windplayer magazine interview with Herb in 1986, it is mentioned that Herb and Jerry formed A&M for ownership of the Lonely Bull record. The idea of A&M, according to Herb, was "to make every record, all 12 tunes, count. We didn't want the customer to end up buying just the hit and have 11 throwaway songs as a bonus. We wanted to give people their money's worth."(Quote from the Windplayer interview).
The fact the owner of the company was also the artist with the first hit record on the company label, created to record that particular artist, who happened to be the creator of a new and original sound and style - and having that "magic" formula of "right place at the right time" - all brought it together in a special way, IMO.
So, I think the thing that sets A&M apart from every other record company is Herb Alpert. More so than any other single factor.
I think it was also the family atmosphere that was fostered there, and the fact that Herb would give acts several albums in which to find their "voice."
Wasn't A&M Records the first artist-friendly label in existence? (I could be wrong). Also, Herb Alpert said in 1999, that he didn't really like to judge other artists, and that the purpose of A&M was to independently put his own music out, but that other artists just happened to want to join the label because of the artist-friendly "family" atmosphere, apart from wanting to make it big. He made it sound as if he didn't really want a label with all these artists because he didn't like to judge other people's work. In fact, he was actually hoping that he would be the only one signed to Almo Sounds...then Garbage came along. Because he was an artist, he didn't think like a businessman (that was Jerry Moss's role), but signed people to A&M because as a fellow artist, he liked their work.
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