The largest music company in the world has officially extended its reach into the brave new world of online A&R. At a press conference Tuesday at New York's famed Hit Factory studio, the Universal Music Group unveiled "Jimmy and Doug's Farm Club," a record label and Web site that will enable unsigned artists to submit their digital music directly to A&R reps for consideration for a Universal record deal.|

Farmclub.com, which the major-label conglomerate bills as "a star maker by the people for the people," officially launches on Feb. 1, 2000.

Edgar Bronfman, Jr., president and CEO of Universal's parent company, Seagram, says fans will also play a role in who gets a deal by voting online. "FarmClub will provide young artists a ticket from obscurity," he said, predicting that the site will produce the next Shania Twain, Enrique Inglesias or U2.

Interscope/Geffen/A&M co-chairman Jimmy Iovine, who will head up FarmClub.com (he's the "Jimmy"; Universal chairman and CEO Doug Morris is the "Doug"), compared the site to London's Carnaby Street, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district and the New York's West Village in the Sixties, calling it "the place people will want to go."

Other FarmClub.com players include America Online, MTV and the USA Network. USA will broadcast the weekly show FarmClub.com, which will focus on artists discovered and signed through FarmClub.com.

"This is exactly what we need," added AOL President and CEO Bob Pittman, "a new form for the new medium."

BILL CRANDALL
(November 9, 1999)