Music Record Quotes

#1. I usually disliked whatever was being played on a music store's speakers. It spoiled the pleasure of thinking about other music. Record shops, I felt, should be silent spaces; there, more than anywhere else, the mind needed to be clear.

Teju Cole

#2. 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

#3. There's a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence. We crossed it on the Passengers record.

Larry Mullen Jr.

#4. 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

#5. My little brother and I took piano lessons at a young age and played music together later on in life just to play around at home until we decided to make a record. Eventually we started having more and more songs.

Josephine De La Baume

#6. My parents were big music fans, and my dad plays music, so I grew up with Madonna, Frank Zappa, the Beatles, Alice In Chains ... it was all over the place. I had a Third Eye Blind record, but I also had Korn, Courtney Love, and Shania Twain.

Madi Diaz

#7. 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

#8. 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

#9. If you are a musician who has released albums, it would perhaps be morbidly interesting to know how much you would be owed if everyone who now has your music had actually bought your record.

Henry Rollins

#10. I used to be with a publishing house called Roosevelt Music. A gentleman there told me he had seen Peggy Lee perform Fever in Las Vegas and I found out later she wanted to record it.

Otis Blackwell

#11. I still felt we had some really good music on that record, but it's a shame that we couldn't make it better. And the tour was a total mess. We just had no life, no energy, and I felt we were going through the motions.

Matt Cameron

#12. I am not a composer of music; I sing pieces which have been written for me which gives me bigger freedom to search for pieces I want to record.

Sarah Brightman

#13. I was really amazed when I started hearing 'Songbird' on the radio. I couldn't believe that the record company promotion department had actually convinced radio music directors to play it -because there wasn't anything like it on the radio at the time.

Kenny G

#14. 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

#15. 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

#16. Look at music for what it's worth around the world and not just America. In other countries, people are still buying CDs and going to record stores. But in America, it's all about digital. The game is breaking down. But, look at me, you need to know how to play the game the right way.

Snoop Dogg

#17. I think the record industry has gotten to be more about labels wondering what the new single is rather than labels nurturing artists. It's gotten away from making a full album of music that someone would want to listen to all the way through.

John Varvatos

#18. The idea of the record is that it's a statement for working with a group, of a collaborative work. That should be visible in the music.

Pantha Du Prince

#19. Influences come from everywhere. I don't really feel like I had too many influences for the first record because I grew up listening to music in church, and that was pretty much it. I didn't really grow up listening to AC/DC and all those bands.

Avril Lavigne

#20. I find the songs I want to record by listening to as much music as I can. 'When I hear things I really like, I ask the writers to send me a tape of everything they've ever written.

Alison Krauss

#21. So many of my friends are still trying to get record deals, and I've had one for 10 years now, where my only goal is to make the best music I can make. I've been very lucky. I have great faith that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and whatever happens is going to be absolutely right for me.

Jane Siberry

#22. Because of things like iTunes and streaming and social networking, it's destroyed music. It's destroyed the motivation to go out there and really make the best record possible. It's a shame.

Kirk Hammett

#23. Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

Glenn Danzig

#24. The record producer is the music world's equivalent of a film director.

Phil Ramone

#25. I picked songs that I've been singing my whole life that stuck with me. I tried to pick stuff that was a variety. And I think the same way I always imagine that people are going to play the record at their house and I imagine them doing stuff with music on, like the way I am.

Chris Isaak

#26. If we look at the fact that record covers are essentially advertisements for the music, we acknowledge a function and purpose to draw in the prospective buyer.

Beck

#27. Well, the good news is that there's quite a lot of cynicism about major labels within radio and the press. I think they have been largely disillusioned by the manner in which the record companies have developed music.

Mick Hucknall

#28. It's important to keep indie record stores alive because their unique environments introduce music lovers to things in a very personal way.

Norah Jones

#29. He helped make Living Things even more crazy than I wanted it to be. He added old-fashioned piano and classical folk music - that weird otherworldly vibe - all these elements got onto the record.

Matthew Sweet

#30. Record stores are great because it's good to physically get your hands on the music instead of downloading. It's always better to get the artwork too.

Nathan Followill

#31. It's really interesting to go back to '93 or '94 and listen to that music, like the I'll Lead You Home record.

Michael W. Smith

#32. DJ Sliink is amazing, and his production is on the next level. There are a lot of EDM producers that I'd like to work with, not for the sake of having an engineered record, but for the fact that I love their production and music.

Travie McCoy

#33. Writing more and more to the sound of music, writing more and more like music. Sitting in my studio tonight, playing record after record, writing, music a stimulant of the highest order, far more potent than wine.

Anais Nin

#34. Well, I think the first piece of music I ever heard that I really loved was 'Salome's Dances' by Richard Strauss. I played that 12-inch, 78 record, and I stood up on an ottoman to play it on a big Victrola and I'd just keep playing it and playing it.

Mike Stoller

#35. Having solidarity is important and having conviction and sticking with it and also consistency. You can't just have one good record, or a couple of good singles, you have to continue making good music to be considered to be a great band. Having some degree of integrity, that's it in one word.

Ryan Jarman

#36. I would have loved to record with Paul McCartney on some of his early solo recordings, wonderful music. Playing some lovely organ, perhaps. I would have loved to record with John Lennon. He was a dear friend. I had lunch with him just two days before he died.

Rick Wakeman

#37. I don't think that TV on the Radio is some dark mysterious band that no one can know about. We write music because it's an immediate form of communication. We're able to put on record what's happening in our times, and we want that message to be heard by the most amount of people.

Dave Sitek

#38. I had a portable 8-track player under all my ramps, cranking one of my four 8-tracks - Cars/'Candy-O,' Ramones/'Road To Ruin,' Cheap Trick/'Heaven Tonight' and the first Devo record. I don't remember skating without music.

Jeff Ament

#39. Any real record person knows that the number one most powerful marketing tool when it comes to music is repetition.

Nile Rodgers

#40. Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.

Tom Petty

#41. People don't appreciate music any more. They don't adore it. They don't buy vinyl and just love it. They love their laptops like their best friend, but they don't love a record for its sound quality and its artwork.

Laura Marling

#42. There is no kind of music I don't listen to. Everything good is interesting. I am as happy with a Bach fugue as I am with a record by Thelonious Monk.

Maira Kalman

#43. Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive

Chuck Berry

#44. 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

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

Taylor Swift

#46. Half the time I feel like I'm appealing to the downer freaks out there. We start to play one downer record after another until I begin to get down myself. Give me something from 1960 or something; let me get up again. The music of today is for downer freaks, and I'm an upper.

Wolfman Jack

#47. It comes back to the same old question people are always asking me: 'When are you going to do a solo record?' Well, if I did, it would probably be similar to 'Baluchitherium,' meaning it would be Van Halen music - which I write anyway - but without singing.

Eddie Van Halen

#48. I am not immune to the lure of a signed record, flier or set list. The fact that your music heroes potentially had, in their own hands, the record you now have in yours is kind of cool. When the musician has departed, it can give the thing a unique power.

Henry Rollins

#49. I was sick of fast, aggressive music; I felt like I needed to make a poppy thing. But, right now, I feel like I need to make a Hawkwind/Sabbath record. It gets boring if you just do the same thing all the time.

Ty Segall

#50. I make music that makes you dance, so I mean, it's appropriate, you know what I'm saying? I make the kind of music that DJs can grab a hold of and spin the record and people just love rocking out to the big Snoop D O double G.

Snoop Dogg

#51. There's just no telling what I'll do. But I can say for certain I will continue to play, record, and put out music.

Edgar Winter

#52. I have been playing acoustic music for a very long time, and it's something that I am very comfortable doing, so if I made a record, it would probably be a mixture of that and some other things that I'm interested in.

Oscar Isaac

#53. Before the Internet, we were in a different sort of dark age. We had to wait to hear news on TV at night or in print the next day. We had to go to record stores to find new music. Cocktail party debates couldn't be settled on the spot.

Marvin Ammori

#54. Those albums are so important to me because, for the first time, I was making my own music, paying for it, finding strengths in it, and going through the process of finding the right music for the record.

Randy Bachman

#55. For the record, folks; I never took a shit on stage and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973.

Frank Zappa

#56. When I started working on my own music, I didn't have the chance to record in a big music studio, so I had to record everything myself.

Agnes Obel

#57. I tried to bring in the live orchestra like Bjork does. I love the feeling that that music gives me when I just listen to it. I mean it would be awesome to do an entire record like that. But unfortunately that's not my style. So rather than do a record like that I just got inspired by it.

Willa Ford

#58. Record company execs eat their young, I swear to God.

Linda Barnes

#59. It's one of my short-term goals, to be able to actually record music and release it simultaneously and not just hold on to it.

Joe Budden

#60. If it weren't for Criminal Records, Wax-n-facts and other indie record stores I could have only sold my CD's at my shows and by mail order as an independent artist. The greatest stores that have character and include a much wider range of music of music are all independent, mom and pop stores.

Shawn Mullins

#61. Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music.

Conor Oberst

#62. A guitar can be so human, so sorrowful, so angry, and I wanted to figure out how to achieve that vibe without having to actually use guitars, because 'Badlands' is a very futuristic record - and making it that in an era of futuristic music is a really hard thing to do!

Halsey

#63. When I first tried to get a record deal for my original music, labels didn't understand what these instruments were meant to be doing

Suzanne Ciani

#64. And I know [other] faces aren't this colorful, this vivid, this lived-in, this superbly off-site, this brimming with dark unpredictable music. NOT THAT I EFFING NOTICE ... For the record, breathing is overrated.

Jandy Nelson

#65. 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

#66. (for a while, I regarded just about any song in which somebody had lost somebody else as spookily relevant, which, as that covers the whole of pop music, and as I worked in a record shop, meant I felt pretty spooked more or less the whole time),

Nick Hornby

#67. My mother was an opera singer and my grandmother a concert pianist, and they only liked classical music. If I put on a pop record, they would tell me to turn it off, so I only listen to classical.

Amanda Eliasch

#68. Music is the most powerful form of communication in the world. It brings us all together. Even religion separates us, but a hit record unites us across religious beliefs, race, politics.

Sean Combs

#69. I didn't want to make a record that's just drones or completely experimental. A lot of the time bands that make this psychedelic style of music are just a bunch of dudes hanging out together and jamming.

Tamaryn

#70. What makes that record special is something that is gone from music today - it's called a rhythm section.

Jim Dickinson

#71. I always had a standard of, back when I was doing the country music I always told people I would never record a song that I wouldn't sit down and sing in front of my mom and dad.

Ricky Skaggs

#72. Country music is some of the best-written music in the world, so yeah, one day, I would keep my mind open to doing a country record.

Ed Sheeran

#73. The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world's popular music is a good thing, for the most part.

David Byrne

#74. Puffy's contribution to hip-hop culture was the remix. He offered us the music that his mom played in front of him, with newer drums and younger artists. That worked, and will consistently be there. The remix comes right after the original record, that's something Puffy did to influence the culture.

Curtis Jackson

#75. I wanted out of my record deal with EMI. They wanted me to record one type of album; I wanted to record the type of music I wanted to make.

Joss Stone

#76. 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

#77. It is, we wanted to make a record that reflected our love of Hard-Rock music and it is sort of Metal though we don't really describe ourselves as Metal.

Adam Rich

#78. Mostly I've never let record companies become involved with my music, which was a very smart thing that my first manager Dave Robinson did, to keep them out of it.

Graham Parker

#79. I healed people, emotionally and physically, through my music. I get a lot of e-mails from people who are suffering through a lot of problems. They tell me they put on a Neil Sedaka record, and it's like medicine. It picks them up, and gets them out of their unfortunate situations.

Neil Sedaka

#80. We both young what made you grow younger."
"The music?"
He nodded and whispered. "You don't have to go back to being old. We'll practice all the time. We'll record albums and we'll tour.

David Agranoff

#81. 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

#82. I often find myself listening to a record because a lot of people or magazines have told me it's good and I'm supposed to like it, and I try to stay in touch with what's happening and I'm also a fan of music. I find myself trying to like something that I really don't think is that great.

Trent Reznor

#83. I remember that first week at the Whisky and the gigs we (The Buffalo Springfield) did with the Byrds, We could really smoke ! That band never got on record as bad, and as hard as we were. Live we sounded like the Rolling Stones ...

Stephen Stills

#84. I love indie record stores, man. I love anything that's about independence and preserving the brand of good music.

Raheem Devaughn

#85. I'm very particular about the kind of music that I record and sing, and it would be the same way about the kind of movies that I would do.

Jason Aldean

#86. I would. I'm just too, I'm kind of, a pussy, I guess. That's the problem. But, no, I'd love to. I think everybody should do open mics. I think it's very healthy for your soul. So yeah, I'd love to do it again, but I don't know. It's like I'm cutting a record if I do open mic now, so, I don't know.

Robert Pattinson

#87. The situation is not good with the record companies. It's just not working out, so I don't plan to record until it's straightened out. In the meantime I'm happy doing my movies and writing the music for the theme songs, whether I sing them or not.

Irene Cara

#88. My personal take on politics is I deal with social situations and cultural situations in my music and in my life. I have said on record many times that I haven't voted. I'm not the type of person who says, 'I'm never going to vote.' I think it's clear to me that our system has failed us.

Talib Kweli

#89. You don't have to wait for a record company to tell you that you're good or to sign you. You can put your music out on itunes, youtube, soundcloud, so it's kind of a plus, I think.

Shanice

#90. I'm the youngest of five - three girls and two boys. There was one record player for the seven of us. It was good for me, because I got to hear everyone else's music.

Imelda May

#91. I was writing music when we finished the last Walkmen record, Heaven, and a few of these songs may have even been started before Heaven was done. With The Walkmen we all wrote a lot of stuff alone, but then we'd start collaborating with each other.

Hamilton Leithauser

#92. I'm really excited about the remixes. I've always been a fan of electronic music and I'm thinking about that very seriously for the next record as well.

Matt Tong

#93. I wanted to put jazz on the record, all the loves of music that I had on the record, so I could show people I was ahead of my 19 years. It may have been over the heads of some people.

Brian McKnight

#94. I'm fairly tired of hipsters. They have terrible taste in music. These kids come in and say, 'You don't have anything that was released this year?' That makes me crazy. We don't need anything from this year! (Bob Diener, owner of Record Swap in Champaign, IL)

Eric Spitznagel

#95. And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.

Joan Jett

#96. I can't imagine how people will react to my music. For me, it's a really fluid process from one record to the next, but it's really up to the listener.

Jenny Lewis

#97. You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process. You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.

Wale

#98. My house was full of music. My main memories are of the record player at home: it was all Beatles and Rolling Stones, and we danced around the living room; that started me off on instruments, and I've done nothing else ever since.

Steven Price

#99. As Eric Dolphy said 'Once you play the music, it's in the air. It's gone'. And that's true. But when you record it, it comes back to haunt you sometimes.

John Abercrombie

#100. In general when you fall in love with an artist and their music, the plan is a fairly simple one.. get people to go and see them, and make a record that you think properly presents their music to the public and some of which you can get on the radio.

Peter Asher