Aimee Mann Quotes

Am I R&B because I'm black? Am I pop because I have a song called 'Milkshake'? Or can I just be who the hell I am? Good Lord, people make it seem like we're doing heart transplants here, but we're just making music!

Then little writings and recordings that thankfully continue to come up. I'm in this kind of wonderful, kind of awkward, off-putting, and strange position where there's nothing I want to do more than continue to make music, but the ways that I do things are not in tune with how I can do them commercially.

I'm constantly being courted by labels and their backing. Obviously the market is there when you talk about the economics and the numbers, but it's hard to give up the freedom of being able to do whatever you want.

At a major label you can start to feel that you're working for them, and that any work you do, you're never going to see any benefit.

I put out records to this day that are not necessarily in a sequence of anything. Some could be written a while back, some not. There is no set pattern.

I've never worried about how a new release will be received. I simply try to do the best I can and leave the rest to the gods. The music industry in those terms is something I loathe and detest. It conjures up images of a gigantic factory spewing out parts of the machine.

I know there are some labels that put out music for art's sake, but I don't know which ones.

For a long time, censors have been cutting my works. This makes me so sad, because many times they will tell me, 'Television won't like, so we have to cut, cut, cut!'

Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity.

Senator Helms might very well do that. I would point out to him that we in the art world are not necessarily in the business of making controversial art.

I've made money, and I've been ripped off. I've had creative freedom, and I've been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will.

In general, I don't feel artists should need producers.

The most important thing about intellectual property vs. creative expression is that copyright law was created not to stifle creativity but to encourage creativity.

I don't suffer the decisions the studio world makes.

I wanted to stay independent because I figured there was no way I was going to be able to have control to create the type of music I want. I was basically ignoring a lot of labels.

In a time of fractured politics, our need for unifying cultural events is more acute, and particularly our need for creators who do not deny the people their art because of the votes they cast.

One consistent good thing I can say about the music industry is that at least I can make music freely now, and I don't have to do it when I'm off of a nine to five shift or something.

I think artists throughout the history of time have always been controversial and have been a voice to speak to public culture in a way that a politician can't because they'll lose their constituency.

We went through an era of big dance records, an era of hip-hop being the biggest thing on the planet. The people who really break through are the people who are not afraid to express themselves in how they feel.

There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard, like Chuck D said.

It's the obvious thing to say but artists want to be able to tell all kinds of stories and tear down every kind of wall, to look at ourselves and examine who we are and just get deeper insights into what makes us human beings. Anything that could possibly prevent that in our near future horrifies me to no end.

I believe that the problem of how you depict something is a formal problem. It's an interesting one and it's a permanent one; there's no solution to it. There are a thousand and one ways you can go about it. There's no set rule.

In the late 80s, artists could be signed to labels and be nurtured. It wasn't, "We're going to give you one shot, and if you don't measure up, you're gone".

If I had interesting things to say, I would have been a speechwriter. I think it gets to musicians' heads a lot of the time. Just because people like your records doesn't mean what you have to say is going to be interesting.

I always want to sing, but I don't always want to be trying to have No. 1 records. I don't think you can do it forever. I don't know what the time span of that is going to be. I want to sing because I want to sing.