Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The success of the first album was almost an anomaly, and it could remain a fantastic anomaly. It was not crafted for commercial success. I remember meetings with my label saying it had no radio singles. For me, the second album was a gesture of independence.
I know a lot of people feel pressure with their major label sophomore CD and having to follow up their first record real good. Well, we didn't have that pressure, because we have a real loyal fanbase, not a fanbase because we're on the radio, know what I mean?
Occasionally, I will come across something that has lost its label over the years - maybe the client didn't want to declare the dress at customs and took the label out - but I'll recognize it from an image that I've seen in Vogue, or a little thumbnail sketch.
Being on United Artists was almost as bad as not being on any label at all. They were the crappiest in the business. All they did was movie soundtracks. Now, they were making an effort to become much hipper - signing people like Bobby Womack and what have you.
I feel like the expectations have gone up. It's not a complaint, but it's a little intimidating. People are like, 'Oh, you're on Matador. It's kind of a legendary label - you're going to have to live up to all those other bands.' I guess it's not that explicit.
Some people choose to go on 'American Idol' or another singing contest, and some people choose to beat down barrooms before anyone even knows who they are, in order to get a fan base, so when they do get a record deal, they have that to put in front of a label.
Is the 'black designer' label there to warn everyone not to have the same level of expectations for me, or is it some type of prize? I just want to work in an even playing field where I can get press for my work and not just my race and my personal views on it.
Let's just cut a live record with three microphones in four days and talk about lizards and aliens. If I had taken that idea to even an independent label, I don't see a label out there that would've said, 'Oh yeah, that sounds great. We know how to market this.'
I had basically been shelved by the record label for two years and I was writing songs every day. I made two albums that just never came out, and that was just a really big knock to my confidence, because everything I sent seemed like it just wasn't good enough.
I do feel Scottish in some way. Maybe it's to do with visiting my grandparents here every summer as a child, but I am aware of my Scottish ancestry. It's there all right, but it would be pushing it to label me a Scottish painter. Or, indeed, an anywhere painter.
Creativity is much better when it's free. Someone can take it and sell it if that's what it needs, and from that standpoint, you have to have a label. If you could make your music and just give it away and somehow make a living - that would be the best scenario.
Mom+Pop aren't just a label, but they were the group of people that seemed to really care about a long-term relationship. I can be honest with them, like I would with my family, but at the same time, I can expect for them always to be upfront and honest with me.
When you're doing a deal with someone in the southern Sahara, it's a very different way of doing business than in London. You can't sign them in the usual way because they'd end up getting ripped off, which would defeat the object of setting up a label like this.
I am lucky to say now that it is not frightening for me, living in L.A., to be gay. Even when I was in Texas, I wasn't afraid. I was kind of out in high school. I just could never decide on what label. I am glad that I am public about it, and I think I should be.
Mark Ronson was a dear friend through family and through growing up in New York, being in that scene, and Mark came to a show and really liked it and asked us to join his record label Allido records, or 'all I do' records, and that was sort of a development deal.
The only place where any artist feels liberated is doing independent music. I have had great experience making music for The Dewarists and Coke Studio. No actor, producer or label is telling me what to do with my music. I'm the boss. It is my life, my expression.
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.
I love to watch people not care too much about the choreography, or if they sing perfectly, or if the right label people are there to watch them. It's just about letting go and being crazy and engaging people in dance and madness - being a human instead of a doll.
Even though I haven't released a song since 2010, I have still performed, so I don't feel I have been completely away from music. I have been away on a mainstream level, of course. But releasing a single this way - on my own independent record label - is more fun.
I was signed to a record label when I was younger. I was in a group, and I just wasn't - personally, I wasn't ready to get out there. I don't know. It was a pop group. Not like the Spice Girls, but when you don't have any control over anything, it's disheartening.
When I started the label, I stopped racing. Even though I have a better chance of getting hurt walking outside and falling down the stairs, if I had gotten injured on the racetrack, people would be going, 'What is this guy doing?' So I had to grow up a little bit.
We all fight over what the label 'feminism' means but for me it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item.
Brand New Wayo: Funk, Fast Times and Nigerian Boogie Badness 1979-1983' covers a short chunk of time in Nigeria's musical culture - one that might have lasted longer had the label spearheading the movement at the time, Phonodisk, not been so financially mismanaged.
Proponents of same-sex marriage regularly label opponents 'radical' and 'extremist.' However, given that no society in thousands of years has allowed same-sex marriage, it is, by definition, the proponents of same-sex marriage whose position is radical and extreme.
I think social networking is absolutely here to stay. Now, whether or not the label will Facebook forever, depends in part, I think, on whether Facebook wants to try to be less proprietary, be more central to the operation of defining and stewarding identity online.
If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.
I've been an educator all my life pretty much. It's important as a manager and also as a record label, to educate your artists on public speaking, how to build that connection, how to communicate effectively, to have a general working knowledge of the music industry.
I had to fight the intellectual label when I started in television, because, first of all, it's not going to help you commercially, and also, it wasn't particularly true of me. I mean, if anybody thought I was an intellectual, they probably had never really seen one.
As the label has developed over the years, more and more structure and tailored pieces have been added, and so, whilst the core values of the brand have remained, I feel it's important to try new things and add more layers and dimensions to a collection every season.
I'm a big fan of the American Tapes label. But that's very hard to keep a grip on that because you blink your eyes and they've released three records, all of which are limited edition, all sold at one show. So you have to follow in drips and drops on eBay, which I do.
I think, forever, I was trying to figure out maybe... what I am. But I don't think anyone should feel pressured to have any kind of label or tag on them. We should treat everybody the same... Me, I don't like to be put down to a specific thing. We're all human beings.
'Memoryhouse' came out, and there wasn't a single review and zero sales, and after about a year, it was deleted. So I recorded The 'Blue Notebooks' on a little indie label, and my attitude was, 'Well, if nobody is listening, I might as well keep doing what I'm doing'.
Nothing that I've done has been conventional. I didn't go with a major label, I didn't sign up with the bigwig management that basically has everyone but doesn't have time for anyone. I didn't win 'Idol' - I was seventh. I don't do anything how everybody else does it.
No matter what happens to us in life, we tend to think of it as 'good' or 'bad.' And most of us tend to use the 'bad' label three to 10 times as often as the 'good' label. And when we say something is bad, the odds grow overwhelming that we will experience it as such.
I think that it's human nature to categorize and label things. That's generally the way that the medical and psychological professions work. You look at elements of what you have, and you are able to categorize it, and then you can cure it. That's generally what works.
What I do is I really enjoy and appreciate the challenge of songwriting and singing and performing and just being really, really grateful at all times. Also, I have no fear or problems with saying no and setting boundaries, you know, with the label, with my management.
I have hundreds and hundreds of songs waiting to get on albums, but I don't know about the three-month radio tours and if I'll be interested in that. I haven't figured it out, but I will definitely be doing music, whether it is independent or with a major record label.
I think overall, and this isn't specific to Spotify or any streaming service or any label... when you consider the overall value chain of the music industry and how important the songwriter is to the business - I think there needs to be another look at the value chain.
I'm a huge fan of The Chemical Brothers and the Ninja Tune label and a lot of the stuff that they put out like DJ Shadow but I think, out of all of them, Leftism really just excited my musical brain in terms of the way that they mixed real instruments with dance tracks.
One of the main reasons why it didn't work out for me and Aftermath is because I felt my music should sound one way, and they felt it should sound another. But, I learned a lot from watching Dre, and when I left California, I knew it was time for me to get my own label.
It's been awesome going indie. I don't need to be on a major label. I love not having to walk into a specific radio person's office to try to convince someone to play my songs. At the end of the day, it's more work, but I've discovered that I like to get my hands dirty.
I don't like any of the Geto Boys albums at all. Not one. There isn't a Geto Boys album that I like. I didn't learn anything from it, and it was a bad time in life for me too. With the label, with life, whatever... it's a point in my life where I was the most miserable.
Being on a K-pop label and agency, everything's taken care of for you. The music is set up for you. Your food, manager, practice room, recording studios - all these things are in the palm of your hand. However, you know the compromise of what you can actually do or say.
It's not my style to either wear minimum clothes, to strip, or to even be comfortable with a sex-symbol label. I just want to do good work instead of sporting such meaningless tags. Sex sells, but to a small extent, not always. And this is what filmmakers have to accept.
Jimmy Iovine, he pretty much started off as an engineer and a producer, and then he started up a label. Then he built his label to have big artists like Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. Then he started up a headphone company and made it a billion dollar business. He's a genius to me.
If you know people with Type 2 diabetes, there's a high likelihood they will have different medication regimes and different lifestyle options. When we label all these various types as the same thing, we treat them the same way, and they should not be treated the same way.
A label's typical plan would be to put something out that's safer and get fans, and then push buttons, but my idea is to push buttons first, scare off the people who are gonna be scared off, and then the right people will like you for who you really are, and stay with you.
I learned how to take other people's mechanisms of promoting their stuff through me as opposed to promoting my own stuff, as far as getting Snoop DeVilles, SnoopDeGrills, Snoop Doggy Dogg biscuits, Snoop Dogg record label, Snoop Dogg bubble gum, Snoop Youth Football League.
Let's be honest: the label of model-daughter-of-celebrity mother is... you know, I don't want to have that label. It's not who I am. It's not my values to go off someone else's name and to be pigeonholed as that. So in a way, that has really pushed me to be more independent.
I've remixed lots of other people's songs, from Adele to Electric Light Orchestra to Beyonce, so when my record label said, 'Why don't you give 'Ibiza' to someone to remix?' I said, 'Sure,' because I like the idea of people reimagining art and making something new out of it.