Meddling, once the closely-guarded secret of major label A&R Research departments, rapidly expands during pandemic

Made by and for A&R professionals, Meddling provides streamlined artist discovery for a suddenly digital-only process

Since 2015, A&R platform Meddling has been an indispensable tool for some of the music industry’s biggest companies. By providing fully customizable, automated analysis of real-time international music consumption, Meddling users are quickly alerted to emerging artists specific to their A&R investment thesis. Due to a sudden and almost complete lack of alternatives, the once maligned process of data mining for talent has gone mainstream across traditional label A&R, publishing, management, agencies, law firms, and concert promoters.

Though many of Meddling’s clients, including Republic, Columbia, and Kobalt, have been users for years, nearly twice as many have joined in the last 12 months. “For the first four or five years,” says founder Travis Rosenblatt, “I figured that everybody who was going to be using it was already: that there wasn’t any room to scale.” A year of cancelled concerts, dinners, and meetings has forced the initially hesitant to realize the value of digital A&R coverage. “Overnight, everyone had to figure out how to do A&R from home.”

While also in use by both major and indie label radio promotion, streaming/sales, and marketing departments, Meddling is purpose-built for A&R. Pending a finalized data partnership, Meddling also has a learning layer that can intelligently “glue” together partial publishing data to automatically surface unpublished songwriters. Over his decade in the business, Rosenblatt has worked in some of the industry’s most influential A&R departments, where he learned, and subsequently built, precisely the discovery and communication tools they need to do their jobs efficiently.

Meddling does not attempt to replace good taste or a clear vision for an artist’s future. Rosenblatt taught himself how to code just to build Meddling and notes that he’s in it for the art: “I started booking concerts in college: LCD Soundsystem on their way to MSG, Dirty Projectors, Matt & Kim, Passion Pit, Dan Deacon, Phantogram...and I’m very proud of the fights I had trying to sign talented artists back in my A&R days. I love music, I love finding new music, and I love the idea of being able to help further an artist’s career.” This excitement has been a powerful motivation for Rosenblatt in driving the music industry forward with Meddling and direct publishing royalty collection platform Signal, another of Rosenblatt’s companies and startup in Techstars’ 2019 Music accelerator.

After years of reluctance, the industry has massively accelerated its adoption of digital A&R coverage. Meddling makes it fast and simple. “The number of new artists has exploded in recent years,” Rosenblatt reflects. “The number of hours in your day has not.”

About Meddling

At the forefront of A&R, Meddling delivers indispensable data and tools to help subscribers turn knowledge into action. Meddling brings together real-time data on global music markets, cutting edge technology like deep learning metadata compilers, powerful analytics, communications tools, and tracking capabilities to ensure total digital A&R coverage.