English to Dutch Other Music

XX wrote the song that would change everything, ‘XXXX’ sat unopened for months in A&R-man bins around New York. Almost instantly, the track blew up everywhere from California to Tokyo and propelled XX straight to number one in the charts.

Can anyone help with this first sentence. It is part of an introduction of a musician who will play at an upcoming event. A quick google search shows me that A&R stands for artist & performance, but I am not quite sure I get the rest of the sentence. Any help would be appreciated as this is quite an urgent project!

Many thanks
Ellemiek