Tom Petty has a song called Into the Great Wide open. I believe it was the title track of his 1991 album.

I've never fully understood one of the last lyrics of the song. The song tells the story of Eddie, a nobody type guy from nowhere, who goes to Hollywood and makes it big. The last lyric is:

His leather jacket had chains that would jingle
They both met movie stars, partied and mingled
Their A&R man said, "I don't hear a single."
The future was wide open

I know that an A&R man means "artist & repertoire" and he works for the record company, but what exactly is an A&R man's job? I presume that him saying "I don't hear a single" is a bad thing, right? Meaning his record sucks and this is the downfall of Eddie. Or does it perhaps mean something good? Basically I'm asking is the song about the rise and suggested fall of a rock star or is it about the rise and further rise of a rock star?

When the A&R man doesn't hear a single, you have to go back and record a catchier track before they'll put out the album. That's how we got both "Hungry Heart" and "Dancing in the Dark" from Springsteen.
I don't think it necessarily means that Eddy's career is over, but shows that he's being guided by the record executives now. At least that's how I interpreted it.

Here's Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway in the incredibly literal video.

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And here's a music video from Dan Deacon that references the Tom Petty video in the chorus....

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Ten thousand eyes and four hundred hands
And all of my arms are made of the sands
And oceans have all been dried up and left
They became the skies and then they all wept
The first time they heard the song from Tom Petty
The one where Johnny Depp plays the rebel named Eddie
The sky was the limit and then it came crashing down


And OP: An A&R guy saying "I don't hear a single" is a bad thing....

It sounds like he made it big, got all the benefits, but now was beholden to the corporate interests.

#firstworldproblems

Eddie is poseur without a personal vision. He's without a clue, he thinks a leather jacket with chains is a fashion statement, and he achieves a minor hit album and mingling with movie stars at Hollywood parties. But when the record company doesn't hear what they want from his second album, they tell him that he has a problem.

The video makes it clear that he's one of those young people that the starmaking system picks up, elevates, and discards.

Also, there was a joke going around just a few years earlier: "What do you get when you cross James Dean with Ronald Reagan? A rebel without a clue."

Warrant's "Cherry Pie" is another example of that:

Petty is well-known for his disdain for record companies.

Definitely. Can't remember if it was Damn The Torpedoes or Hard Promises, the album was being released at the same time MCA was going to raise MSRP across the board from 8.98 to 9.98. In protest Petty threatened to title the album $8.98 so it would be printed on the front cover.

Kathleen Edwards' "One More Song the Radio Won't Like" pretty well explains what happened to Eddie:

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Holy Matt LeBlanc sighting!

I'm not sure, but probably Hard Promises, which cover shows him browsing a record store's aisles.

It was Hard Promises.

Whoa, that's pretty intense.

The A&R person at a record company has two jobs - to find talent, and then to help that talent grow (and make money for the label, presumably). In the first position, he's like a baseball scout, listening to hundreds of demos tapes every year, and going out to the clubs to see bands 7 nights a week, and then trying to convince label heads that they've found the next great act.

Once the act is signed to the label, the A&R person will continue to work with them to nurture their career and give advice. They may help find a producer, book a recording studio, help choose cover songs (if the act doesn't write their own). They're basically the liaison between the band and the label.

So if the "A&R guy" doesn't hear a single, you're in trouble. Theoretically he/she is the band's biggest cheerleader, and will fight to get them dollars/attention/press/etc. But if they lose faith, then it's probably all over.

I guess he was finding a niche in music videos. Before Alanis Morissette got big, she was just "Alanis" and doing pop/dance music - one of which starred Leblanc:

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I wonder who's more embarrassed by that Matt or Alanis. I hope it's Alanis.

Based on the quality of that song, I'm guessing that Rebecca Black is on the cusp of becoming a huge angst-rock star.

That is definitely 1991.

What's the deal with pop culture these days? That video and song are a bit embarrassing but it came from a time when pop culture shifted so drastically that you could tell what year it was made. You can tell that's not 1988 and you can tell it's not 1993. Today everything feels the same every year. Why is that? I'd rather have some embarrassing trends that we immediately regret than have no trends at all.