Record Industry Quotes

They say the music you listen to in your formative years stays with you and leaves an impression for the rest of your life. For me, the things that I fell in love with happened in the '70s, when artists were nurtured by record companies and it wasn't about singles.

Our society and media have lost touch with the job of the artist. The job of the artist has been subordinated to the job of the record seller.

I've watched the world crash and burn in every sense. I've watched the record industry crash and burn; politically I've watched it crash and burn, financially crash and burn.

When you think about it, we sold about 120 million records, which relates to about £1.2 billion in the U.K. economy. We've seen very little of that.

You know you're getting older when the record executives start getting younger.

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 was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.

A lot of people that buy vinyl today don’t realise that they’re listening to CD masters on vinyl and that’s because the record companies have figured out that people want vinyl, And they're only making CD masters in digital, so all the new products that come out on vinyl are actually CDs on vinyl, which is really nothing but a fashion statement.

You could have a zillion Facebook followers. Those people don't buy records. It's about a hundred to one...Record companies, they don't have any money, so they see social media as the free marketing... So... 'Billy, light yourself on fire and stand upside down, and that'll market the record.'

Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.

I remember the first time I saw a CD, a technology guy brought one to my house and said we will be able to sell millions and millions of players, and people will have to restock their record collections. It was all about money. It was all about how much money we would make, "we" being "him."

Every business is there to make money, and making a record is business. This tends to be forgotten by many.

China's got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain't right.

How about no one's ever going to outsell Michael Jackson at selling records because the record industry is over. Game over. There's no more record stores. With no more record stores there's no more pressing plants. With no more pressing plants, there's no more charts.

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.

America stopped making vinyl and phased out the single but Germany held out and refused. Warner's never phased out vinyl in Germany. Now America imports it!

No, my step-daughter just opened a theatre school for children, I have another daughter who works in the record industry and another who is going back to collage and I have two little ones at home.

We'd been noticing how much more important the internet had become - once information is out there in the world now, anyone can get it. Since that was beginning to happen with the record anyway, we figured, OK, let's just stream it for free ourselves.

I think the record industry, by and large what's left of it, is still totally homophobic. I think it's much less so in the film industry now, but the record industry, it's always been a man's world.

People are scrambling to figure out how they can prolong the life of an album. But as long as the shelf space continues to shrink at retail, there's just no room for them anymore... which is fine with me! I would love to be the next person in country to just release digital singles, but I think we're probably a little ways from that.

There aren't enough people who are scaring the kind of people who work at these record companies.

I don't get into record beef. That's the wackest beef. That's not even a beef; that's entertainment. Might as well be a wrestler or something.

In my career, people in the record business have been rockin' in the same ol' boat. They all crooks - I'll say it clear and loud - especially the big ones.

For a long time, it was all about chart position. 'If my record doesn't come in at No. 1, I'm a failure.' I cared too much about what people thought of me, and that was symptomatic of the trauma from my childhood.

While I used to make my living principally as a record producer, as time went on, I had to depend more and more on my live performances because of the evolution of the record industry, which has de-emphasized what made it possible to make a living.