Music And Business Quotes

#1. As an artist, I feel that my father's biggest influence is me realizing that music has a purpose and it's not just for business and that music is spiritual. I get that from him that music is a spiritual thing.

Ziggy Marley

#2. The music business would be much better, for the youth and the kids, if they start hiring employees that understand the kids.

Suge Knight

#3. The music business has changed incredibly. There used to be 50 record companies. Now there's only three, and it's just getting smaller and smaller. But then again, you have the Internet, so anybody who has music can get it out there.

Joey McIntyre

#4. If everyone in the music business were brutally honest about what their intentions were then you could sort things out, but it's all smoke and mirrors.

Noel Gallagher

#5. The music business can be very cold. And it doesn't honor its elders.

Brenda Lee

#6. I got into the music business thinking it was really radical, that it wasn't really a business at all, that it was a lot of people being artistic and creative. Not true, and it made me very
depressed.

Thom Yorke

#7. Hollywood is about playing the game, and I can't think of any successful actresses who didn't play the game. There's a lot more renegades in the music business, from Patti Smith to Janis Joplin.

Madonna Ciccone

#8. Try not to sound like those singer-songwriters that go on and on with ten-minute, barely intelligible stories that everyone endures until the next song starts.

Loren Weisman

#9. Music business is hard. It's very difficult. And it's not for everyone. Even if you can sing or even if you can write a song, it takes a lot of determination, it takes some kind of thick skin.

John Legend

#10. Harmony that would fittingly imitate the utterances and accents of a brave man who is engaged in warfare or in any enforced business, and who, when he has failed [ ... ] confronts fortune with steadfast endurance and repels her strokes

Plato

#11. Music has become a bigger business, and with that there is more pressure to succeed; I think that it creates a negative pressure for being creative.

Jerry Harrison

#12. The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

Taylor Swift

#13. I finished high school, moved to Nashville for college, and set out to break into the music business. Every night when I called home with news of my experiences, my mom and dad would encourage me to keep taking those small steps.

Trisha Yearwood

#14. Sometimes, I think the way the music business has been destructive and the way the fans are been put through it and try to navigate through it, so much is so foreign to what musicians would actually want to do or what would be natural to them.

Beck

#15. The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.'

Daryl Hall

#16. There are few words in the music business or in art that I'll say people or some writers are overgenerous with words like 'legend' or 'genius', 'he's a pioneer' and all of that.

Stanley Clarke

#17. You just plant a few seeds, cultivate the shoots, and watch your career grow and branch out. It takes time and dedication. There are no overnight success stories in the music business!

Christopher Tin

#18. I'm a good listener, you know. My gran used to say that's why you've got two ears and one mouth. I just truly love what I do and treat it with a lot of respect and all these relationships in the music business that people talk about.

Johnny Reid

#19. 'The bigtime for you is just around the corner.' They told me that first in 1952 - boy, it's been a long corner. If I don't hit the bigtime in the next 25 or 30 years, I'm gonna pack in the music business and become a full-time gigolo.

Ronnie Hawkins

#20. I understand that music is a business, but for people who have control of their stuff, like little Taylor and other artists, I think you'll find them standing up for their music every chance they get.

Garth Brooks

#21. I initially wanted to work in the music industry more on the A&R side. While I was in school, I began working in the New Business department of an advertising firm, and very quickly I was responsible for roughly 70% of their business, so you could say I had a natural knack for the advertising world.

Adam Kluger

#22. Now, the good of business is put above anything else, as corporations have become the new ruling body. Most decisions seem to be made like ones of a medieval king: whatever makes profit while ignoring and repressing the truth about whatever suffering it may cause (like pop music, for that matter).

Julian Casablancas

#23. You're a musician and you live and die by people responding to your music. It's a business just like anything else and if people don't like your music, that's kind of your problem.

Marc Martel

#24. I'm an indie artist with major distribution, so one foot in the extreme major music business and one foot in the abyss of indie artists.

John Oates

#25. People are people, and I get a bit annoyed that the music business only focuses in on the big metropolises. I find that people that don't live in big cities are just as likely to enjoy music as people that do live in big cities.

Eddi Reader

#26. The music business is very hard on women over 22. You really have to prove yourself every time you make a record. Are you as vibrant as you used to be? Are you as sexy? So I really want to prove that a woman in her 30s can be all those things and more.

Jody Watley

#27. Music is what I must do, business is what I need to do and politics is what I have to do.

Bob Geldof

#28. The things Elvis has done during his career and the things he has contributed and created are really something very important to the music business.

Bing Crosby

#29. As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

Tom Jones

#30. It wasn't so much that I had to leave to make it in the music business as I was curious to be out on my own and sort of explore. I never felt that where I was ever influenced my songwriting.

Matthew Sweet

#31. Working on a play is a vibrant and collaborative business. Everyone from the choreographer to the music director to the director to the writers work together toward the same goal, and everyone chimes in on everything.

Trey Anastasio

#32. We're not uncomfortable with it, and we've already been through enough of the music business where I'm not really worried that commercial success is going to in some way - we're already past saving, you know what I mean? It's too late for us.

Jerry Garcia

#33. One of the central flaws in the state of contemporary music is that the major record companies have failed to incorporate that simple fact into their business plans. They've come into an industry that's based on idiosyncratic artists and tried to erase every idiosyncratic aspect out of it.

Moby

#34. Nashville was totally different than I ever dreamed. I had only seen the music business on television and been to a couple of concerts. I had no clue.

Faith Hill

#35. I still have a lot to learn - about the business, about music, and about myself. Its exciting.

Britney Spears

#36. Unfortunately, music devolved instead of evolved. The music business got into the hands of lawyers and accountants rather than the entrepreneurial creative people, and that's when the beginning of the end started. It's all based on money instead of art and creativity.

Gary Wright

#37. I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate.

Joni Mitchell

#38. Music and woman I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.

Samuel Pepys

#39. Music licensing is a strange business to navigate, and all kinds of little things can drive a price up or down. It's completely fluid, it constantly changes, and there's no list of prices on a menu. Everything is negotiable in every way.

Liza Richardson

#40. In the music business I am surrounded by people who don't view music as a sacred voice. They view music as something that they can use and exploit, often times lazily. They have no sense of the tradition, they have no sense of honor about those who came before and charted the path.

Billy Corgan

#41. Books are so cheap and easy to get that people don't bother stealing them, which is the essential rule of piracy that the music business learned much too late.

Tucker Max

#42. That's one of the problems with making music your business, it becomes a business. You're no longer just this kid who is a fan and going to see every show. I've been in a bar every night for the last 15 years. Going to see bands for me is work.

Mojo Nixon

#43. Music is kind of a strange business, and it's too weird of a job to have mean, conniving people around.

Annie E. Clark

#44. The nature of the music business is such that it's better to have a few chances for some things to be successful than just one, and that's kind of been my attitude all along.

Adam Schlesinger

#45. I'm all for sharing music, but when people can download a whole record and pay nothing for it and then they share it with 100,000 other people, it's breaking down the whole business.

Richie Sambora

#46. No, I mean we'd all definitely involved in the music business someway or another, because we're all living with it, and in it, and also we've got all sorts of things we would like to do.

John Deacon

#47. We were friends for a year before we started playing music together. We both think it's pretty important. Tyler's my friend before he's a guy in my band, and when we talk to each other about things, it comes from a friend standpoint, not just a business standpoint.

Josh Dun

#48. The biggest deal for me was that all 24 winners are placed on the Billboard CD of the Year, which went out to 500 of the biggest Music Reps in the business, from radio and press to management and booking.

Arthur Godfrey

#49. It might take some here and there, but Apple's market share in the global computer business has really shrunk pretty far, and where they've been making success recently is not in the computer business but in the iPod music business.

Kevin Rollins

#50. The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

Hunter S. Thompson

#51. When I was CEO, and I'd listen to music, a lot of people listen to music and you get inspiration from it. And a lot of things in hip hop are very instructive for being in business. Particularly, hip hop is a lot about business, and so it was very useful for me in any job.

Ben Horowitz

#52. Kitty Wells was the first and only Queen of Country Music, no matter what they call the rest of us. She was a great inspiration to me as well as every other female singer in the country music business. In addition to being a wonderful asset to country music, she was a wonderful woman.

Dolly Parton

#53. Our house is a constant mayhem of music, noise, socializing and business. It vibrates life, as a house should.

Dan Hill

#54. Playing music has always felt very natural. You know, you do try to do other things, and you do learn lessons that way, but, eventually - well ... if your dad is a plumber, you become a plumber. It's the family business, and I felt like I was taking over the family business.

Dhani Harrison

#55. Coming to a place like Nashville, which is just music music music, it's always been such an influence on me. And there are so many interesting songwriters out there, and it's such a crazy business and so many people are trying to do it, and it's all right there in Nashville.

Sandra Bernhard

#56. I am very aware now that music is a business, but there is also a way to go about making music that is true to yourself as opposed to doing, you know, just going through the motions and making things that would just be commercially successful.

Ronnie Montrose

#57. I had no idea that I could sustain a career as an artist. But, I loved music and wanted to be in the music business.

Ray Stevens

#58. I wish the music business was a much easier thing, but you know what? Nothing easy is worth anything. So it is what it is. There comes a time when things can work out and everybody can be happy. And that's what it's all about in the end - everybody being happy and working it out.

Nas

#59. To come out in the music business, you only really get one shot. A lot of people get to play small gigs first, and build up that way, without anyone really seeing them.

Dhani Harrison

#60. One of the best things about Kickstarter and crowdfunding and the collapse of the music business is a lot of artists like me have been forced to face our own weird mess about ourselves and what we thought it meant to become musicians.

Amanda Palmer

#61. Creating art (music, books, films, etc.) can be beautiful and liberating, but trying to sell art, well, that is the movie business. There are few winners, and lots and lots of losers.

Ronnie Apteker

#62. We are at a crossroads in the music business: with the rise of the internet, the world we live in has changed, and the past is not coming back. But I see the glass as half-full: the internet and social networking are new avenues for the next Bob Dylan to be born on.

Jon Bon Jovi

#63. I can honestly say my music is always going to be greater than my business side. Because I'm naturally a musician. And I don't have to get paid, I don't even have to have businesses. Business is business. And music is life.

Lil' Wayne

#64. I can give you my personal opinion: love the music, hate the business. It's a screwball business, and there are a lot of players who will straight-up lie to you.

Justin Timberlake

#65. It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style.

Gordon Getty

#66. I have to take time occasionally to get away from the pressures of this business. If I don't, I think I would get stale, and that would show in my music.

Andy Gibb

#67. When I graduated from college in early 2010, I decided that I needed to create a calling card, some kind of business card that people can link to my name and face. So I did this 'Mad Men Theme Song ... With a Twist' music video. I released it just as I moved to L.A.

Allison Williams

#68. I'd say we [Apple Inc.] are the most creative of the technology companies and definitely the most artist-friendly. Almost everyone in the music business uses a Mac and everyone has an iPod.

Steve Jobs

#69. Without music I wouldn't have the ability to be in business. The opportunity to be in business came with the finances from music and the notoriety that comes with being successful as an artist. So I see myself as an artist first, but I'm absolutely conscious of business.

Curtis Jackson

#70. In the world of Big Macks Starbucks coffee and oversized SUVS it was business as usual snort and go

Saira Viola

#71. Lots of people, from what I can see, just want to get into the music business for the glamour of it. But there isn't any, really. It's so up and down this industry, but if you really love it, nothing can stop you.

Eliza Doolittle

#72. I used to go with him and I'd sometimes play, take over from him. That was my first taste of the music business, I suppose, but I was also in the youth orchestra at Johnston Grammar.

Trevor Horn

#73. Inside, I've got a real purist desire and dream about the music. I like the idea of being able to carve out a kind of magical, colourful, artistic, inspirational life. And the reality just turns out to be quite different, working with the business to bring this thing you have created into the world.

Damien Rice

#74. The secret to longevity in the music business is to change, and to be able to change. An actor has to assume other people's identities. A rock star doesn't need to do that. But change is important.

Nick Cave

#75. I am right at the bottom compared to everybody else with press kits and demos and trying to get meetings. That's what I love about music and hate about it. That's why I respect people that are successful in the music business because you really have to build it from the ground up.

Drake

#76. I'm just trying to survive and stay relevant! That's all anyone in the music business can ask for.

Christopher Tin

#77. The daily mindfulness, consistency, and discipline is ultimately more important than the amount of time. In other words, it's more about quality than quantity. If you use 15 minutes effectively, you'll accomplish more than you would be able to with two hours of unfocused, random actions.

Simon S. Tam

#78. Actually, I have another record I made with them in 1976, but I've had such a bad experience with record companies, because I keep my head so much in music and not in business.

Ornette Coleman

#79. Music and the music business are two different things.

Erykah Badu

#80. The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible. So I'll play in bands and record and play songs with other people, but for me it's a form of expression that all I need is me. I don't need cameras or agents, I can just have a piano and sing and feel totally verified.

Jeremy Renner

#81. The Beach Boys have always been a part of the '60s spectrum, with The Beatles and that kind of thing. They were a part of the music business like everyone else. And they did quite well as a singing group, and I finished a lot of good records, and I'm very proud of them.

Brian Wilson

#82. That's always stuck with me, with music. I've never really gotten jaded about it. I've always loved music for the sake of doing it, and the longer I do it, the more I like it. Hopefully, I'll be able to have that same point of view in this business, or at least with doing this.

Slash

#83. The music we made then was so amateurish, compared to the rest of mainstream pop or rock and roll. But what differentiated us from what everybody else was doing in the business was the fact that you could tell that these people came from different reference areas.

Kevin Ayers

#84. My life is about politics, a lot of about music, and a lot about things other than acting. I like traveling the world. But, what makes me want to stay in this business and keep doing this are movies when it's a true labor of love.

Olivia Wilde

#85. Napster has pointed the way for a new direction for music distribution, and we believe it will form the basis of important and exciting new business models for the future of the music industry.

Barry Diller

#86. When I first started recording, I was told by all of the experts in the business that the kind of music that I was doing was never going to sell. That disco was the coming thing and it was going to take over and what I was interested in was a minor sideline.

Tom Scholz

#87. Bread and beauty grow best together. Their harmonious integration can make farming not only a business but an art; the land not only a food-factory but an instrument for self-expression, on which each can play music to his own choosing.

Aldo Leopold

#88. I love what I do. I made my first record in '57. I don't think I'll ever get tired of making records and writing songs and singing and being in the music business.

Ray Stevens

#89. I don't relate to what's left of the music business. There doesn't seem to be any point to it anymore. The business that I grew up in and loved, we made records a different way - there were record companies, there were stores where you could buy albums.

Don McLean

#90. I'd just like to inspire people to be themselves and do what they want and not conform to the rigid guidelines of the music or entertainment business.

Juliana Hatfield

#91. We're the McDonalds of rock. Were always there to satisfy, and a billion served.

Paul Stanley

#92. I think the music business is changing. Artists that don't want to tour and just want to collect royalty checks and stay home are not going to be able to do that.

Steve Earle

#93. Not since the steam engine has any invention disrupted business models like the Internet. Whole industries including music distribution, yellow-pages directories, landline telephones, and fax machines have been radically reordered by the digital revolution.

John Sununu

#94. It's weird because music is this thing that you love doing, and it comes completely from a place of creativity, and then that transfers into having to manage a business and make decisions and figure out what is the best route to go in terms of getting your product to as many people as possible.

Macklemore

#95. I worked hard all my life as far as this music business. I dreamed of the day when I could go to New York and feel comfortable and they could come out here and be comfortable.

Tupac Shakur

#96. There's also, I think more so in the music business and especially for women, this ceiling that people put on you if you have children or a family and decide to spend time with them.

Juice Newton

#97. Everybody knows in the business how I feel about country music. I'm an old traditionalist. Then they just call me an old man and stuck in my old ways, but with all the fans I've got out there, I can't be all that wrong. I do love traditional country music. I love the good stuff.

George Jones

#98. I decided to come back and teach goodness in this business. To teach love, because music is the universal language. We are God's bouquet, and through music we become one.

Little Richard

#99. Los Angeles and New York are the big centers of the music industry worldwide so of course it can be hard for newcomers who don't know what to expect from the music business.

Ville Valo

#100. You can't be in the music business as long as "Steve and Edie" have, if you stink ..

Steve Lawrence