Penn Jillette Quotes

I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace.

We knew we were making records for a certain demographic. We didn't look outside of that.

Hip hop is a multi-billion dollar business, and it was built off an opportunity that nobody else saw because they didn't understand the culture.

We have a very loyal fan base, the kind tat buys the record the day it comes out, sees every show, and that's fantastic, but what about the people who would never hear about our band?

Commercial music, for the most part, is popular music and you always have to keep that in mind.

So So Def has been one of the most successful and consistent labels in the game in the last 10 years.

When I put out my first mixtape, '50 Cent is the Future,' it was the first tape where an artist did the entire tape in song format.

Radio is aimed at the 30-year-old market, so you have to have great music and appeal to get that age group. And you need a record company to believe in you. It's like a bit of the perfect storm.

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

D.C. is one my largest audiences. They buy tons of records of mine in Washington, D.C.

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility.'

There's one place that I've always known I wanted to be, and that is on country radio.

When I hear other artists talk, they talk about 'How come radio's not playing my song?' Well, you have to look at it under a microscope and know that each station is just trying to do what's right for their market, and it's scary for a radio station to add a song that they don't know how well it's gonna do for them.

The music industry used to be able to control a single dance on the very smallest level of when people are supposed to hear it, and when they're supposed to start liking it, and when they're supposed to start buying it. And that's trashed, you know, that big machine that takes control and works albums for a long period.

The biggest problem is always getting hits. That's the one thing that has never changed. The way of delivering music has changed, the way of listening to it has changed, the way of distributing it has changed, but it's always the music.

You have record companies that sign acts that they think are great, and then they never do anything. Acts that they don't think are really going to do much end up having a career. I don't think anyone really knows what it is that drives somebody to get on their computer and want to download a song.

Hopefully it will be possible to get all our other albums in American shops one day so if people are interested they can hear it but I'm hoping that people are going to be interested in what we are going to do, not just what we've done.

I'm making music for the people. If y'all love the music, y'all gonna buy the music.

I would sell 2 million records, a million went to teenagers and a million went to the adults. So, when The Beatles became so popular, I lost a million to the teenagers, but I was still selling a million to the adults.

There's probably a bunch of Power Stripe floating through the Def Jam offices right now.

If I have a hit, then I hope the people who like the hit song go out and buy my album so they can hear it all.

It's like, on my solo stuff, every single person who buys the record, gets it. On the other stuff, the masses... when you have a hit on the radio, not everyone's going to get it. They are going to buy it for the hit.

I remember the first time I saw the 'Sugarhill Gang' on Soul Train. I was 11 or 12. I was like, 'What's going on? How did those guys get on national TV?' And then, when I was a little older, a rapper from the neighborhood got a record deal. I was shocked.

I've tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I'll try to tailor-make it.

There's not a great danger in releasing the first single from an album without a video because the momentum from the last album will cause large numbers of fans to buy it.