Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The world moves fast. Business moves fast. Digital media moves extremely fast. It is far too easy to allow ourselves to be constantly blown from one trend to the next.
Susan Boyle having a meltdown is not controversial. It's human for a 48-year-old recluse to get a little wigged out when she finds herself on the world stage overnight.
Early 1900s Hollywood was full of farmers battling to hold onto their land against a new influx of filmmakers who dug Hollywood's reliable weather and diverse landscape.
Google+ will never have a user base to rival Facebook's. It just won't. Not even if you include the 'users' who create accounts so that they can use other Google services.
I know plenty of Hollywood kids who still struggle with being whole. Their lives are never fully their own - always in the grip of a parent who put celebrity ahead of them.
In my early performing days, I played gigs under the pseudonym Whitey McFearsun. I painted my face blue, wore crimson lipstick, and strung on some tight silver latex pants.
My father's very public life as Famous Amos was the opposite of that of his ex-wife, my mother Shirley, who was fighting a very private, solitary battle with mental illness.
When I started Amos Content Group in 2009, I made a simple bet: our handmade, contextual, and authentic content will stand out in an increasingly information-saturated world.
Brands' products should be the manifestation of a company's values. Those values should be the subject of all sorts of wonderful stories that comprise your company's narrative.
The Bangles are proof that short skirts and electric guitars go hand-in-hand. They are one of the great all-girl groups, backing up their looks with a serious pop-rock pedigree.
While my six-song EP is unlikely to set any sales records, it's one of my biggest personal achievements - on par with starting my own company. On par with selling my own company.
Protest is patriotic. Since the beginning of musical time, American singers and songwriters have used their talent and bully pulpits to show us America's strengths and shortcomings.
In the '60s, my father, Wally Amos, had been a talent agent and a personal manager before taking a major career detour in 1975, when he opened a store selling chocolate chip cookies.
If you're going to write an anthem for an old man who's up at political bat for the last time, give him a decent song. Send him off with something that creates some chills or something.
Fresh content doesn't exist to game the SEO system. It's the words, images, and stories that truly engage us, make us want to share with others, and creates a bond between us and a brand.
The same basic tools we've used for thousands of years to connect with people, to draw them in and to hold their attention will always work, even if we're telling our stories 140 characters at a time.
Throughout the '50s, tons of unknown locals came through Sun to record their demos. Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis all made their first recordings at the former Memphis Recording Service.
There was a time when a musician was forced to act in a video. Seeing a singer step too far outside of his comfort zone to pour all of his high-school-drama angst into a poorly scripted scenario was a sight to behold.
Like any self-governing group of people, the Recording Academy has made missteps over the years. Still, it has corrected course and done more to open its arms to the future than nearly any other industry group around.
Technology has the benefit of being easily scalable. A few weeks or months of coding can result in solutions that reap huge benefits. The global success of Facebook, Twitter, and Google are all triumphs of technology.
Every major summer blockbuster that is released is essentially a product line being launched across multiple verticals. However, the centerpiece of the product launch is a big, beautiful story whose job is to entertain.
Music and philanthropy have a long, benevolent relationship with one another. Record bins are rife with charity singles, and concert history is filled with benefit shows for every imaginable cause. Musicians like to give back.
Despite all of our technological advances, content creation still requires time, inspiration, and a certain amount of sweat. There aren't any shortcuts. You can't write an algorithm for it. You can't predict it. You can't code it.
Every single tune you know from the 1940s until the 1970s was written, arranged, and demoed in the Brill Building. OK, maybe not every song, but writers from Benny Goodman to Lieber & Stoller to Neil Diamond all kept offices there.
In Los Angeles, parenting is a competitive sport. From Beverly Hills baby boutiques to kids' yoga classes, L.A. fuses high style, industrial-strength materialism, and parental outsourcing into our own unique version of child-rearing.
The blues is deceptively simple. Verse and chorus. Sometimes not even a chorus. Four bars that repeat, no Auto-Tune, electricity optional. It is the most direct, bare-bones of content. There is no interference between the head and heart.
From their '61 Cavern Club debut to their last rooftop concert eight years later, The Beatles gave every serious artist in their wake the songbook and sound for their career. It's the musical trough from which nearly every musician drinks.
Somewhere along the line, a concert became a variety show. It was no longer enough for four dudes to play together in front of some guitar amps. Costume changes, an army of dancers, and Broadway theatrics suddenly became standard for a 'concert.'
We all love to sing along with our favorite songs. We sing in the car, in the shower, and at the karaoke bar. The problem is that half the time we don't know what we're singing. We're making up lyrics as we go along and hoping no one will notice.
My stroller of choice is the Graco Classic. It's the '70s Buick of strollers, bulky with a complete absence of style. There are no good lines on the Graco. Yes, it has cup holders, like any self-respecting car or stroller does these days, but the luxuries stop there.
Schizoaffective disorder is a big mental mash-up of a disease. It combines just about every disorder, from depression, delusions, and paranoia to mania, schizophrenia and hallucinations. My mother bounced between all of these regularly while raising me alone in our Hollywood home.
Year after year, we see a new crop of musicians who do their best to look tough in lipstick and makeup. Maybe it's a cry for help, an admission of their strong feminine side, or the realization that they don't look so good any other way. Whatever the reason, makeup is as rock n' roll as a Marshall stack.