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Job of the Month #4 Label Manager

by IDOL

The latest episode of our Job of the Month series looking into the many roles within the music industry. This month, Clément Nicolas talks about his job as a Label Manager - a dream job for many - at IDOL.

Each month, IDOL presents a different job in the music industry. Actually more than a job, a person! Because behind the same job title, different individuals bring their role to life in unique ways according to their qualities, and the scope of their position in the company. For our fourth session, meet Nicolas Clément, Label Manager, who tells us about his daily work accompanying the labels of the IDOL catalog developing their projects and coordinating their releases.

What does a Label Manager do?

The Label Manager is the chosen intermediary for labels at IDOL. His/her role is to accompany them on a daily basis, to help them establish release strategies, choose singles, think about schedules, investments, marketing operations, and more.
Once this work is done, s/he has to coordinate these releases internally with the teams involved in the project, which are mainly the DSP Editorial & Partnerships, Audience Development and Digital Content Operations departments.
The idea is to make sure that everything is done on time and that everyone has the necessary elements to work on the releases in the best conditions. There is also a lot of follow-up work, analysis and sometimes adjustments to be made afterwards.

What are the qualities required for your position?

I would say that one of the main qualities required is organization. There are a lot of outputs to manage, a lot of information to process and transmit, you have to be careful not to forget anything. All the more as most of the time, we have to work in a hurry, which does not make the task any easier. You also need to be good at communicating with others, and not be afraid to take a stand when necessary. Finally, I would say that you have to be curious and open to all styles of music.
At IDOL, the label managers are not specialized by genre, we work on rap, electro, pop, children’s music, jazz or classical music.

Can you tell us a little about your career path?

I joined IDOL right out of business school, as an intern of the Content Management team. I then moved to the Business Administration team for 6 months as a legal and administrative assistant, before joining the Digital Content Operations team again. After one and a half years, I joined the Label Management department, while working with Business Development to sign new projects for IDOL. Today, and for over three years now, I am a full-time Label Manager.

What is a typical day like for you?

There is no real typical day for a Label Manager, the program depends a lot on the releases in progress, the labels’ needs and possible emergencies. We have to share our time between the internal operational work (release validation, presentation of the projects to the internal teams, recovery and transmission of all the essential information…) and the strategic reflection with the labels. We spend a lot of time on the phone or in meetings to discuss these topics. Once the plan is defined, we have to make sure that it is well implemented!

What do you like about your job?

I think what I like the most is the human side, the relationship with the labels or the artists, and all the artistic and strategic discussions we can have together. What is also great is to see the evolution of some artists, to follow their development, their progression, and to grow with them. Finally, there are of course all the concerts and festivals which allow us to have cool moments with the labels/artists, and which are, according to me, the most concrete result of a project’s team effort!

What is the strangest task you ever had to do as a Label Manager?

I don’t think I’ve had any “strange” tasks to do, but there have been some pretty surprising situations or encounters that you don’t necessarily expect to experience when you do this job. For example, I once found myself in a cab with NBA star Serge Ibaka, discussing the concept of reality TV!

Clément's playlist

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