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“I've seen it go wrong, even for huge artists who you would think have the ability to self-determine. They're still being over A&R'd by people that are thinking about like commercial performance.”

Aaron Dessner, at 33:11 of “How An Indie Rock Icon Became Pop's Biggest Songwriter” on Rick Beato’s channel.

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32:55 I still think it's important to work with, if you're going to sign to a record label,
33:01 you need to sign in a way that you're being given, ideally you're being given a lot of trust and artistic license to do what you want to do.
33:11 And I've seen it go wrong, even for huge artists who you would think have the ability to self-determine.
33:17 They're still being over A&R'd by people that are thinking about like commercial performance.
33:24 And it often gets in the way of someone's best work, I think, because it's just, it's in the room.
33:29 So maybe that weird, ugly duckling of a song that was going to be the most popular thing is not going to get released,