Music Label Quotes

#1. I've always been a fan of Nigerian artist D'banj. He's now signed to Kanye West's Good Music label.

Estelle

#2. I've always tried to stay clear of being labeled, putting a label on what type of music that I make.

Chino Moreno

#3. I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say "rock". Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him "soul". They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap.

Miles Davis

#4. You have to change musically. Bubble gum pop was good for the first time you have sex. They didn't want to give the OK on some really good music. It was the frustration of being signed to that label. I was depressed.

Leif Garrett

#5. I have hundreds and hundreds of songs waiting to get on albums, but I don't know about the three-month radio tours and if I'll be interested in that. I haven't figured it out, but I will definitely be doing music, whether it is independent or with a major record label.

Jewel

#6. At the end of the day, Fool's Gold is a label that, when I hear something I like, I try to grab it for the label. There's a ton of great music coming out.

A-Trak

#7. I get bored easily, so I need to do a lot. I've started a record label, so I get to nurture new talent and talk about music, which is a passion of mine. I've written another book. And I get to come to work and do the TV show, which is always really fun.

Ellen DeGeneres

#8. I find anonymous music frees me best. Chinese pop can be perfect. I can't decipher anything on the CD label; there is nothing I can hang on to.

Romesh Gunesekera

#9. When I first started out in the music industry and went to Elektra Records, I didn't go to be an artist, I went to get a record label started. And they said in order to have a label deal, I had to be an artist - so that's what I did.

Missy Elliott

#10. What does New York sound like? For me, the Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost recordings on the Savoy label are the total embodiment of the New York music experience.

Henry Rollins

#11. I had received some minor indie label interest when I was 14 after I was in a schools music competition thing in NZ called 'Rockquest', but I knew it wasn't the right time and that I wasn't good enough and needed to concentrate on school.

Brooke Fraser

#12. I will never sign to a major record label again. If, by some mega fluke, a record of mine looked like it might break big, I'd try and do it via an indie or somehow license it. I'm not having my music owned by those corporate bastards again.

Malcolm Wilson

#13. I feel that I want what allows me to reach the largest number of people as possible, and I don't feel ashamed of that. I think I'm the kind of artist that's meant to be on a major label because my music is different.

Jon Crosby

#14. I have a day job Monday to Friday. I work at a record label in Brooklyn called Ba Da Bing. It's a great indie label and I listen to music all day. I meet people online and find out about the cool new music blogs.

Sharon Van Etten

#15. After coming from a major label, I realized the entire business has been decimated, and you can't look to labels to try to figure it out because they don't even use the technology, and they're oblivious to how people consume music these days.

Trent Reznor

#16. Most girls my age don't appreciate this kind of music. In my opinion, this is real music. It's haunting, poetic, and carefully-crafted. Not that techno teeny bopper crap that only sounds good because of all the machines the record label uses to make it.

Lauren Hammond

#17. I can't believe I got a major-label record deal. My music was quirky, and my voice was so odd and high and girlish, it was like a weird novelty act.

Juliana Hatfield

#18. You don't want the biggest record deal as far as money goes, you just want to make sure that the people at the label really support your band and the music and stuff.

Adam Rich

#19. I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.

Neko Case

#20. The reason I never wanted to sign with a big label was because I didn't want no one telling me how to make my music.

Danny Brown

#21. I think that every band is different, and in fact that's one of the biggest problems with the old-school music industry is that ... one band would be successful according to a certain approach, and then every other band in the label gets sent down the same tube.

Emily Haines

#22. I just initiated the project where I write music for somebody else to write the lyrics and also for the orchestra to perform. I've just initiated the project. That leads the project into creating an independent label outside of game music.

Nobuo Uematsu

#23. Basically we just created our own label, but again we just did it to document our own music and create our own thing, so the major labels were just always out of our picture, we're not interested.

Ian MacKaye

#24. Even though I am signed to an American label, I want Australia to fall in love with my music because if it doesn't work here, it won't work anywhere.

Conrad Sewell

#25. People who cost too much: manager, lawyer, publicist, label, music publisher.

Roger McNamee

#26. Before I'd even started doing music or having opportunities with my own music, I was studying production and business and stuff anyway. I knew there were so many jobs within the music industry - songwriting or session playing or working at a label - and I was really interested in how it all works.

Gabrielle Aplin

#27. When you don't have a record label and you have been on your own as we have, you can look at all these other ways you can get in touch with other people and get music out there again.

Andy Taylor

#28. I just wanted to make music, and grime wasn't exactly the path that I took naturally. It was something that was put on me as a label.

Lady Sovereign

#29. Obviously, as the music business has suffered tremendously, with being able to illegally download everything, it's also become amazingly easy to find new bands, because everyone can put their stuff online. Even if you can't find a record label, you can find these awesome bands, all over the world.

Jorma Taccone

#30. We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran away from that and started making indie-rock.

Nate Ruess

#31. As a new artist there are so many new ways to put music out there where you don't necessarily need a label because now labels will have their hands in your pocket and leave you with less control.

Ashanti

#32. With the new ways of getting music out, you don't need a label if you're a legacy artist.

Bonnie Raitt

#33. The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made.

Kina Grannis

#34. I didn't think it was fair to my music to label me as the daughter of somebody - I didn't think it described me very well and I didn't think it had anything to do with my music.

Norah Jones

#35. I once worked at a record label called London Records. The company was owned by Roger Ames, one of the most successful figures in the British music industry. Roger always placed a value on loafing, on holidays, on not being in the office all the time.

John Niven

#36. Music is music; you don't have to put a label on it.

Joe Perry

#37. If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.

John Lydon

#38. People are like, 'Wow you started your own record label,' and treat me like I'm some sort of innovative genius, when I'm not at all. You've got the Internet and music - you put them together, and people hear your music.

Courtney Barnett

#39. I'm really inspired by the interplay of visual art and music, a total artistic environment where there's sound and visuals. When I think about that I get stimulated and excited. It's a feeling that you can't label with words.

Black Francis

#40. The problem with working under an outside label is that your music never seems to reach the right people.

Kailash Kher

#41. There's this idea of a star, and this person is very aloof and writes all the music, and they don't talk to anyone unless they go through the record label. And I always felt very uncomfortable about that.

Imogen Heap

#42. I've had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, 'Your music sucks, you don't know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don't know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'

Bruno Mars

#43. I tried to work with a record label; I tried to work with a booking agency, variety shows. I went to Vegas. I just tried everything I could think of, and nothing took. No one thought there was a place for my style and my music; it was just too different.

Lindsey Stirling

#44. I've made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I'm allowed to write my own music.

Taylor Swift

#45. That's kind of the mission statement for the label: to try to do great music that touches people's hearts.

Ricky Skaggs

#46. I decided to start my own label because so many people with talent come to me wanting to know how they can get in the music business.

Mary J. Blige

#47. I just try to make the best music that I can. People are going to label it whatever they're going to label it.

Chris Stapleton

#48. I'd like to make music for a long time, and all different types of music. Maybe I'll start my own label to get other artists off the ground.

Jamie Cullum

#49. Creativity is much better when it's free. Someone can take it and sell it if that's what it needs, and from that standpoint, you have to have a label. If you could make your music and just give it away and somehow make a living - that would be the best scenario.

Matthew Sweet

#50. I think pure country music includes rock and roll .. I've never been able to get into the further label of country-rock .. how can you define something like that ? - I just say this: It's music. Either it's good or it's bad; either you like it or you don't

Gram Parsons

#51. Well, when you're recording an album, artists have what they feel like is good music, and the label, they're trying to sell the album. So those two ideas clash sometimes, but in the end it always works out. When you put the two together, that's a good thing.

Kris Allen

#52. New Amsterdam Records, a new label run by composers, has begun documenting this hybrid music, with invigorating discs by the band itsnotyouitsme and the composers Corey Dargel and William Brittelle.

Allan Kozinn

#53. I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

Taylor Swift

#54. When I signed that major-label contract when I was 20 years old. I did it because I wanted to play music for the rest of my life. That's every 20-year-old's dream - to do whatever the hell you want.

Billie Joe Armstrong

#55. They told me that they are starting a classic label, and wanted me to be the first artist. So I signed, and am producing myself, and writing my own music, but I'm their first artist on their classic label. And I have creative control.

Teena Marie

#56. When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

Matthew Sweet

#57. My world is much bigger than music, and that's why I always fight the 'rock' label.

Anton Corbijn

#58. I was pretty sheltered growing up. I just started getting into heavier music with the Tooth & Nail/Solid State era, which really kind of brought this whole thing to life for me, so I am really thankful for that label.

Matty Mullins

#59. The new independent spirit at Warner Music is a perfect fit for a stand-alone label like Maverick.

Guy Oseary

#60. The band has always been such a huge part of my life and it kept me very busy. That, in combination with something like running a record label, just means my whole life revolves completely around metal music and I can't do that anymore.

Blake Judd

#61. It's magazines like HITS that have to label things.

Nina Gordon

#62. Sometimes you can just tell there's something unique about it, but you can never really truly tell until you show it to a third party - you show it to you friends, or you show it to people you know that know about music like my label or those kinda people.

Flume

#63. I mean I like pop music, and I like heavy music and, stuff that I like ... the band I've signed on to our label right now; they're called The Sounds. They're kind of like a new-wave pop band.

James Iha

#64. I want longevity; I love music, being a musician is the greatest gift in the world to me, and if I were to get signed to a label, my family and team around me are always gonna be there to make sure they want the very best for me. My fans are what it's all about ...

Christina Grimmie