When you do mixtapes, a lot of times your fanbase can say, 'We've been getting this for free for so many years, his new album is about to drop, we've listened to it, and we're not going to buy it. We'll download it for free.'
I've only had one platinum album, and it's 'Red River Blue'.
The Band never really played big concert tours. We never sold millions and millions of albums.
Back in the day, the album was king in many ways. And, of course, we were very tied in with the birth of FM/college radio in the States, and what we were doing suited the format of those young radio stations.
MTV made a huge impact. Heavy rotation took you from selling 1m albums to 20m albums, and that meant a lot of dough.
My most successful album happened back in the mid-'90s, pre-Internet times, with 'Songs For A Blue Guitar.' We were supported by Island Records; we toured a lot. Songs were licensed to TV commercials and movies.
I want to build a fanbase. I want people to like my albums even more so than singles.
First of all, I've been having a wonderful run of luck with cover albums, songs I didn't write. I had five pop cover albums and two Christmas albums, and they were all very successful.
We don't go around the world counting ticket and record sales, nor do we glue our ears to the radio to hear what's trendy at the moment - we're not that type of band.
When you're releasing an album, you never know how it's going to go. You never know how a critic is going to receive it or how much it's going to sell.
Look at Macklemore! Perfect comparison, we're two artists from the same city who both had meteoric rises at different periods. I probably sold more albums, because in that era you couldn't steal them; you had to go to a record store to buy them. But Macklemore had more power.
If a few people decide not to buy my album it's really not going to change my life that much.
Record sales don't really mean anything. For us, the pressure is imagining some 15-year-old kid in Cincinnati who buys our album and doesn't feel like he wasted his pocket money.
I think it would be nice to sell 15 million albums as a solo artist. I'd have to deal with all the repercussions of that, but that wouldn't be too bad.
Xscape never had a flop album as a group. The reason we broke up never had anything to do with sales.
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 not essential for me to have a big debut week; it's not essential for me to have big radio records.
I'd never been paid for the first Roses LP - it was 2002 before we received any royalties.
In 1975 I had the award for the top male artist, the award for top single, the award for top album.
Taylor's first four albums have been certified platinum a combined 21 times, but despite her unprecedented success in country music, '1989' is strictly pop.
I drop free music because I want people to know I'm still working. I want people to know I'm working and making my money independently. I don't want to charge for a mixtape; I'd rather charge for an album and really give something to my fans.
A lot of times with artists from back in the day, they do a new album and they don't sell as much. People say they love them, and it doesn't always translate to new music.
You could be Top 5 on iTunes, but for people to buy an album, they've got to have a connection with an artist. Every time I bought someone's album, it was about the connection. I was loving everything, from their raps to their style. I wanted to meet them.
The way I feel today, as long as my health is good and I can handle myself well and people still come to my concerts, still buy my CDs, I'll keep playing until I feel like I can't.
I genuinely don't know how many albums I'm going to sell when the new album comes out, because I honestly don't know how many fans I've actually got at the moment.
