You can tell when someone is driven by labels. If something is couture, they think it's important and wear it and sometimes make a terrible fashion mistake. People are shocked that I know so little about designers.

How is it that labels like 'centrist' and 'moderate,' which common sense tells us should reflect the views of a majority of Americans, have come to be applied to those who represent minority interests and opinions?

Designer labels, throughout the history of fashion, have maintained an air of exclusivity around themselves. Call it hype, criticize it if you will. But fashion has used this 'exclusive' tag to make itself coveted.

And since discriminating fans can pick and choose exactly what they want to buy, artists and their labels are more conscious than they've ever been of making sure that every song on a new album is as good as can be.

As we grow up, we're constantly defining ourselves. In my case: Caucasian, male, born in Iowa, live in Boston, Zen Buddhist, good at learning languages. With countless labels, I build up this creation I call my self.

The labels are not getting the returns they want from their PR. Plus, for every Taylor Swift there are a hundred thousand nobodies out there who are probably making better music. Self-releasing is the only way to go.

While Obama, the olive-branch poseur, has called for a restoration of 'civility' in Washington and liberal elites whine and whinny about the need for 'no labels,' class-warfare demagoguery has metastasized unchecked.

Remember the Stax label and how if you liked one record, you liked all the others as well? You don't talk to a lot of people who tell you how much they love their record label. I don't care how many records they sell.

Well, the good news is that there's quite a lot of cynicism about major labels within radio and the press. I think they have been largely disillusioned by the manner in which the record companies have developed music.

I had gotten to a place where I truly believed everything I was called: 'not sexy,' 'not funny,' 'too intense,' desperate.' All those labels they gave me, I took them because there wasn't a trace of my true self left.

It's hard to legislate what people eat. People are getting fed up with being told what they can and can't do. It boils down to personal responsibility. People need to read labels, do their research and act accordingly.

One client's wife managed to steam the labels off all of the several hundred bottles in her husband's prestigious wine collection, so the collection was worthless. The husband hosted 'What's that wine?' dinner parties.

Libertarians are essentially what the Republicans were 30 years ago. Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan. They'd all fit more under the Libertarian label than the modern day Republican label.

People from major labels were afraid to go to Black Flag gigs throughout most of the bands existence. They treated our gigs as something threatening. Im sure that it probably was. They probably had reasons to be scared.

Sometimes I forget that the label's been around so long that some of the bands they're singing now might be influenced by the first wave of Sub Pop bands. Is there anyone on that label that you look up to or borrow from?

Gucci Mane is my brother, Birdman also, we're working together but it is a form of brotherhood. We're friends but there is no need to contract. In a sense, I'm signed on their labels, but there is no lawyer, no contract.

The music business will be revitalized by musicians, not the labels or Live Nation. When the musicians decide to put music first, instead of money, the public will flock to the fruits and the scene will be healthy again.

When one set of Jews labels another set of Jews 'anti-Semitic,' they are trying to monopolize the right to speak in the name of the Jews. So the allegation of anti-Semitism is actually a cover for an intra-Jewish quarrel.

What I've learned is not to take anybody's advice. If you rely solely on your fans, it sets you up for the downfall on the industry side and if you rely on what your label is saying, it will disconnect you from your fans.

And the next album I do is going to be different because I'm going to change. I already did that thing where I had a band - and I had a great time with a band - but it was almost like pandering to get a record label deal.

People from major labels were afraid to go to Black Flag gigs throughout most of the band's existence. They treated our gigs as something threatening. I'm sure that it probably was. They probably had reasons to be scared.

And so many of the kinds of labels you get stuck with don't really tell the story; Progressive, Art Rock, Noise Music, Downtown - it ends up being a struggle to stay out of debates that other people are having around you.

You don't need to be at a major, not at all. Technology being the way it is, and record sales being the way it is, there are not too many things that you need to depend on a label for that you can't go out and do yourself.

I'm sure a majority of farmers do their best to follow safe practices, to read carefully chemical labels, to follow the law, and to try and ensure that they are making both safe and profitable decisions for their business.

I think that music and art and film, at their best, can connect with something that is eternal in human beings, that might not have so many labels on it, something that's ultimately universal and that may just be a feeling.

Since Dominic's been sleeping with me, the mice have been trying various labels on him, looking for one that fits. My personal favorite was the week they spent calling him "the God of Absolutely Never Smiling, No, Not Ever.

Labels bias our perceptions, thinking, and behavior. A label or story can either separate us from, or connect us to, nature. For our health and happiness, we must critically evaluate our labels and stories by their effects.

More than anything, I think everything about appearance is illusory. People see you, and they think they understand what you're projecting, but actually, they have their own interpretation of it, or they put a label on you.

If the label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to sign the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength

Everybody who labels themselves a 'nerd' isn't some giant person locked in a cubbyhole who's never seen the opposite sex. Especially with the way the Internet is now, I think that definition is getting a little more diffuse.

I've had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, 'Your music sucks, you don't know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don't know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'

It's the hardest thing in the world to put yourself in someone else's place, try to really feel what they feel, figure out why they do the things they do. Especially when it's easier to stick a label on something. Or someone.

When we started OD2 in 1999, we were really expecting to work more with independents and so on because the major labels were spending millions on their own Pressplay and equivalents online, which haven't been very successful.

It's crazy how Tech N9ne was back home in L.A. He knew about my situation, what I was doing, trying to find other labels. He used to always call. 'Let me know what's up, man. We got room for you over here.' We appreciated it.

There were a few labels scouting me, but I felt like G.O.O.D. had my best interest at heart. They gave me the freedom to really do what I want, which is to expand my brand, make great music, and find ways to elevate my sound.

I've done well, I've been disappointed, and I think it all goes back to you. Of course the labels are going to be the labels. It's the music business. You are a business. That's what they do. So you've got to protect yourself.

Labels only confuse people. The smarter people recognize artists who transcend categories. But I always try to entertain. It's in my nature; writers are born to entertain. If that means working ostensibly within a genre, fine.

I’ve done well, I’ve been disappointed, and I think it all goes back to you. Of course the labels are going to be the labels. It’s the music business. You are a business. That’s what they do. So you’ve got to protect yourself.

You get dinged for wanting to do a comedy, then wanting to do a big-budget action film, and then wanting to do an indie. But you can't let other people trying to label you get in the way of trying to do something artistically.

Worldwide is an overused word. But it's true that being known has given me new ideas and a chance to get to know new people who think in different ways. I want to hear myself referred to as Elie Saab, without labels or titles.

I like the concept of dressing people. I used to not care whether people bought the clothes or not, but I kind of like it now. I wouldn't label that commercialism; it's more like I do this work because I want people to wear it.

I want to be in control of how my music is released and how I create it. What people don't talk about when they talk about major labels is how many artists get dropped or funding gets dropped when they don't recoup quick enough.

Absolutely, it's a really weird stage because at the minute, I can walk down the street and be unrecognised, lead a normal life, but my label and everybody is warning me that will be changing and I'm in for a rollercoaster ride.

I was seeing on the ground floor that labels weren't investing in females, and it trickled upward because I was in radio with none to play. I know that I can't change today, but what I can do is work on the culture for tomorrow.

The label of liberalism is hardly a sentence to public ignominy: otherwise Bruce Springsteen would still be rehabilitating used Cadillacs in Asbury Park and Jane Fonda, for all we know, would be just another overweight housewife.

I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, 'Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we'll talk.'

My first record wasn't even with the Fugees. I was signed to Big Beat Records, so I was signed back in 1989 to the label that the Knocks are on now. You can always tell which generation had the pulse based on how they see things.

I don't attach any labels to myself and if I can be of any help to Kerala in terms of thinking about some of the economic issues there, provide my input which can be taken or discarded, I thought that would be a good thing to do.

It is remarkable how fast and how effectively you can construct a nationality with a flag , a few speeches, and a national anthem; to this day I avoid the label "Lebanese," preferring the less restrictive "Levantine" designation.

Given that the label "immigrant literature" is already established, unavoidable for anyone with a migrant background and used in any given context, I strongly advocate an absurd amount of specification to go along with the label.

Share This Page