: the business of finding, marketing, and promoting talented artists for a record label : the business of managing artists and developing their repertoires
From his '90s gig as host of MTV's alt-rock show "120 Minutes" to stints in A&R for Columbia Records and deejaying on WRXP … Chris Erikson, New York Post, 6 Feb. 2012
—often used before another noun
Allen was an A&R man for this record company, Minit Records, in those days and he was still recording people like Ernie K-Doe and Irma Thomas. Aaron Neville, quoted in Billboard, 6 Nov. 2010
In the old days, artists worked in as many venues as they could to get noticed, usually by a manager with connections to an A and R rep who would get them the attention of a record label. Robin Harvey, Kingston Whig-Standard (Ontario), 22 Aug. 2009
the A&R department of a record label
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle English
Adjective suffix
Middle English, from Latin -aris, alteration of -alis -al