Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I made 'A Few Small Repairs' and it did well, I followed that up with having a baby, and that was not received well at my record company. I was written off, and that had a bearing on my career.
I suddenly realized that in order to do what I wanted to do, I had to become that which I hated - which is the head of a record company or a digital media conglomerate - and just do whatever you want.
Our managers hadn't had that kind of success - the record company hadn't, we hadn't - and the feeling was that the next record had to be even bigger, and if it wasn't it would be some kind of failure.
I had a good record company right from the beginning, and I'm still with them after all these years. I think I may be the only person in the world that's had a tenure this long with any record company.
With technology you can now be your own record company, director, producer, etc. If you have talent, you can display it on the Internet and the world will tell you their thoughts in the matter of seconds!
When I do an album I try to find a producer that's excited about something that they want me to sing, and I check with the record company to find out what they think they can sell - which is their No. 1 priority.
Success came to me in my late 20s. I started touring when I was a teenager, so I had already seen the good, the bad, and the ugly side of the music business. Plus, setting up my own record company taught me a lot.
When a record company looks at me I'm very hard to market, I don't really fit anywhere, It's hard to get me on the air, and I'm hard to demography, but! because of that I'm not subject to trends like you pointed out.
Yes it was we, are a few years back parted from our record company and took the album that we were making with them and released it independently in the United States had a number one Independent debut in the United States.
The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I'm from. Well, I can't write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.
The new artist is meeting the general public before they meet the record company. They're able to put the material on YouTube and have a million views before they even meet an executive at a record company, and get the deal based on that.
The thing that got me started on Twitter was just basically pressure from management and the record company saying, 'Hey, this is what all the other artists are doing. You need to be doing it also.' I didn't really have a clue what is was.
All through the kind of late '80s and '90s, every A&R record company man was saying, 'Now what we want is another record like 'Back in the High Life.' And, of course, that's not the way to make music at all. That's the tail wagging the dog.
If you come from Africa with your economic poverty and your cultural riches, and you meet someone like Peter Gabriel or a person from a big record company, and they tell you that what you are doing is marvelous, that makes you feel powerful.
Sometimes when I have an idea, and I say, 'Okay, let's - it will be great, maybe, if I sing in English, a couple of songs.' Now, the record company and everybody's like, 'No way, you have to sing in Spanish.' And that's, you know, really good for me.
The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it!
It's hard to get people at a record company to talk about music. They don't seem to want to talk about music, it's all marketing, and that's part of a record, you gotta get it out there, people have gotta hear it, but you could do it in a way that's not repulsive.
I certainly have gotten caught up in the music business at various times in my life, mostly because you want to get along with whatever record company you're dealing with. I don't want to be flaky. I don't want to be some temperamental, hard-to-work-with musician.
When it comes to the business side of it, as much as you might hate it, the reality is that you give the record company a sort of ownership of your songs, so you've got to make sure you're getting everything you can out of it now, because if you're not, then who is?
In the mid-1970s, I even decided to make my own country album. I put the idea to my record company, thinking we'd just go into the studio in the U.K. and make a novelty album. But instead, they suggested I go to Nashville. I was flabbergasted. I hadn't expected that at all.
That's my favorite subject because it really levels the playing field for artists these days. You don't have to sell out to the record company. You don't have to get a five hundred thousand dollars, or whatever, and pay them back for the rest of your life to record a record.
I've never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I'd be left with the record company. And then - because they got fired - the record company wouldn't do anything for me.
Whether they run a record company or a grocery store, every boss will tell you you're in big trouble if you're borrowing more than you can ever afford to pay back. Delaying the pain for future generations is suicidal. We've got to start getting the deficit down right now, not next year.
The power of your audience is in the hand of the artist now via all the media - Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all of them - all of the new available techniques to get to people. I think that you are your best publicist and record company and everything right now when starting out.
A lot of people thought my career was over. If you're not releasing records, then something must be wrong. Either the record company doesn't like your music, or you've been dropped. It has to something negative. It's not like you wanted to take a break, or want some balance, or smell the roses.
The Internet has been a blessing and a curse. The curse we know: A lot of people appropriating your intellectual property without paying for it. But I think it's important to realize the blessing of the Internet, which is that everybody has a voice and you can break through, even without a record company.
I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep. I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down.
I always say this to people: 'If Shaq can be in the NBA for 19 years and dominate for 19 years using his body, why can't I be in the music industry for 50 years using my brain when my brain is way stronger than anyone's body?' I have to have a successful record company, more hit records. I want to dominate the game.
When I did 'Frankenstein,' the record company said, 'Now you can do 'Dracula' and 'Wolf Man' and we'll call the whole thing Monster Rock!' and I said, 'No, that's not going to happen, I'm not going to do that.' I kind of enjoy defying categorization. I love music in and of itself. I love the beauty of harmony and rhythm.
My whole team, it wasn't about putting the album out, it was about getting off the record company and going independent or going to another label. To the point we were like, 'Listen, just take 'Lasers.' You can have whatever percentage off the next ten records I do for the rest of my life. I just do not want to be here anymore.'