Music Career Quotes & Sayings

Only Getting the A and Z with out the B through Y, leaves you SOL. — Loren Weisman

I'm not really good at writing sad sappy ballads. In terms of the lyrics not matching the vibe of the music, that's kind of the way my career has gone; everyone is a little confused about it all the time. — Mac DeMarco

Dick Clark was a really great influence in my career; he helped me a lot with his whole organization, and they were awesome to me at all different points - but one thing that I really disagreed with him on was when he said that what I do, pop music, is a disposable art form. — Cyndi Lauper

I do know that there is a difference between artists who are career-driven and artists who have a calling and are just compelled to make music, compelled to perform live, and the business isn't the reason they're doing it. In fact, there isn't really a reason. You just do it. — Ian Astbury

Country music in the mid-'90s was a big influence on my career, and I played all the songs that are referenced in '94' back in my club days. Joe Diffie was rocking a sick mullet, and he was hotter than ever ... just putting out monster hit after monster hit. It totally takes me back to those days, and it makes me smile every time I hear it. — Jason Aldean

As a child, I was always very interested in music and had friends who were in the music business. I kind of accidentally fell into it and loved it. There was no reason not to - it was a great career. — Hooman Majd

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse. — Cassandra Wilson

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music, and to paint when I feel like it. — Saul Leiter

Let's pretend my career in music is a bell. Whether you like my music or not is up to you. But you've got to admit I rang that bell pretty hard and pretty often. — Henry Rollins

There were a lot of R&B groups that were my heroes, but the funny thing about my career and the way it went and where it went, at first I didn't really want to do pop music. I was a little bit more into jazz and R&B. — Frankie Valli

It's different now but I enjoy it more than I did then. I think I appreciate it more now and I love playing acoustically. This is the way I started. Herb and I met each other forty years ago when we were both eighteen years old, playing bluegrass, and that's what drew me into music, and I enjoyed every particular part of my career. But now I enjoy it because it's the twilight of my career, where I can play what I want and I can play when I want and where I want. And that's the greatest part it all. So it's sort of a right that I've earned. I can record records the way I want to. — Chris Hillman

I want a long career in music, so you've gotta keep trying things out; it's gotta get progressively better. — Gin Wigmore

When I talk about music in Memphis, it's a place you can go if you are a beginning artist or anywhere in your career, and you can incubate. — Valerie June

I started acting almost on a whim to help my music career. — Lance Reddick

There weren't a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn't have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends. — Dave Grohl

Being Bob Marley's son has done many things for me, in terms of having a career in music. I'm very proud of my music, and I'm very proud of where I'm from. People hear that I'm Bob Marley's son, and they turn on my music to listen just out of curiosity. — Damian Marley

As far as my New York influence, one thing I'm proud of in my career is, I rep Brooklyn, New York all day. But people don't look at my music as New York music. People consider my music underground music. — Talib Kweli

We are devastated to learn of the death of Alexander McQueen, one of the greatest talents of his generation. He brought a uniquely British sense of daring and aesthetic fearlessness to the global stage of fashion. In such a short career, Alexander McQueen's influence was astonishing - from street style, to music culture and the world's museums. His passing marks an insurmountable loss. — Anna Wintour

Someone's career that I admire would have to be Justin Timberlake's because he started off on Disney and he made this huge film career and huge solo music career. I really respect him as an artist. — Victoria Justice

I have to say I owe my career to the master composers of the Great American Songbook who have written such high-quality songs - the best popular music ever composed. — Tony Bennett

As for documentary, it was a natural progression from my earlier career in journalism. The two media are connected, but of course making films is much more complicated, because you have image, sound and music to work with, not simply words. — Nancy Kates

I guess now I view music as my career. I want to do it forever, regardless of whether or not it's my means of living. — Kevin Morby

Sixties folk rock was my original muse and the folk audience-people who listen to music off the beaten track-fostered my career. I definitely don't want to abandon the genre but I also need to make sure I'm Dar Williams first. — Dar Williams

Well, we spent enough on gymnastics.'
'Christ, did we,' said Maureen. 'So many lessons.'
So many lessons, it was true: art and music and ice-skating; Lily's every fleeting interest enthusiastically, abundantly indulged. Not to mention the many more practical investments
chemistry tutoring when she struggled, English enrichment when she excelled, SAT courses to propel her to the school and then, presumably, the career of her dreams. What costs had been sunk, what objections had been suppressed, to deliver their daughter into the open and waiting arms of her beautiful life. — Jennifer DuBois

I always wanted to play music and have it be my career and knew this by the age of 12. — Johnny Winter

I think I gave indications early on that mine wasn't just going to be a commercial, er, career. If that were the case, then the first record would have been 10 versions of 'Loser.' I always thought it would be interesting if there was no such thing as gold and platinum records, or record deals, and people were just making music. What would the music sound like? — Beck

I am kind of a private person, so I don't miss that part of show business at all. Looking back on my career in television and making a movie like 'The Sound of Music' from an adult point of view, it actually seems kind of unreal. I was involved in shows that people grew up with - that hold memories for them - and it's a cool feeling. — Angela Cartwright

The band projects just took natural priority. I didn't really have a solo career, just wanted to share the music in another way and to learn more about writing, recording, etcetera. — Ken Hensley

Actually, I would love to make a music video. Maybe it would finally put to rest those persistent rumours that have followed me throughout my career - particularly when I was on camera performing - that I had died. — Perry Como

That pesky acting career has always gotten in the way of me doing something with music. — Michael Chiklis

Rather than listening to music while you paint, listen to the sort of wisdom that can help grow your career. — Cory Trepanier

One thing is certain: for many of those who came back from WWII, the music of Frank Sinatra was no consolation for their losses. Some had lost friends. Some had lost wives and lovers. All had lost portions of their youth. More important to the Sinatra career the girls started marrying the men who came home. Bobby socks vanished from many closets. The girls who wore them had no need anymore for imaginary lovers; they had husbands. Nothing is more embarrassing to grownups than the passions of adolescence, and for many, Frank Sinatra was the passion. — Pete Hamill

I played the guitar and thought that was what I was going to do as a career. I still record music that is played in my restaurants. — Graham Elliot

I don't want to sound arrogant or anything, but I just always knew that my career would be playing music. — Jonny Lang

BMG has been an awesome partner throughout my career, and with New London, we plan to continue bridging the gap between soul, pop, London, and New York - uniting them through music. — Estelle

I was raised playing music in coffeehouses and I feel that was the foundation for my career. I think it is important that we remember where we came from. — Jason Mraz

Throughout my career, nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at, I feel as bad as I did the very first time. — Pablo Casals

Whether it's just the career path of doing independent music, being an artist, however you want to pigeon-hole it, it creates a certain type of character. — Doseone

I used to play a few instruments including guitar and snare drums, but I think a musical background is an important part of a career. If you start out playing instruments you create a better instinct and feeling for music. — Nicky Romero

I try to look at this music career thing as the means to an end. And really, at the end of it, I see myself on a sailboat, sailing off the edge of the world. — Michelle Shocked

I've been playing videogames since before my career in this business, but what happened is several videogame companies were recruiting students back then and I applied with barely any hope of getting accepted to any of the companies. However, I got accepted! Although my path was already set to become a piano instructor, I chose the path of videogames instead. My parents cried, my friends were worried and my teacher was stunned (we're talking about way back when game music wasn't as popular as it is these days). — Yoko Shimomura

We did not undertake systematic interviews with people now below the age of thirty-five, but in many of the interviews with their parents' generation we heard a bemused recognition that younger people who did not experience these events have very little interest in what happened in that long-ago time; and may even express hostility toward parents who dreamed of a new society. They are interested in the same activities and ideas as young people the world over - dancing, loving, listening to (mostly American) music, dressing in fashion, buying the latest gadgets, attending school and developing career ambitions. The past - even though it is the immediate past of their parents - holds for them no appeal, and they have little sympathy for its victims. Consumerism, not politics, is their passion; consumption, not citizenship, motivates them. — Patricia Marchak

I would be involved with music whether I had a career or not. I'm always going to be writing songs and recording them. — Tom Scholz

I've been singing my whole life, since I was a kid; but never formally as a career. I did it in plays when I was younger, and I sang all styles of music: everything from Italian opera to blues. — Brittany Murphy

My whole career began because I was always putting my music on the Internet. By the time I had my first tour, I had an audience everywhere I went, because people were listening online. — Jason Mraz

I started piano lessons at age six but didn't take music seriously until I was a teenager, when I thought about a career in music. I studied classical music, and my instruments were guitar and piano. I played keyboards in bands, and after high school I went to Vienna to study at the Academy of Music. I also became a session player, which culminated in my work with Tangerine Dream. — Paul Haslinger

I first heard Laura Branigan sing live in my brother Nesuhi's apartment, where we had gone because he had a very good piano. I immediately realized that she had a great pop voice, in the classical sense. Laura had an instinctive feel for music and melody, and her delivery was sensational. Everybody at Atlantic knew that we had a winner in this young lady, and she came through with great hits that will be remembered for many years to come. I consider Laura to be one of my best signings, and I am proud to have had such a great singer in my career in the record business. We miss her dearly. — Ahmet Ertegun

My parents were both very musically inclined, they were both songwriters and musicians, so we grew up in the house singing music together, and R&B had a huge strong arm in the foundation of my career. — Jesse McCartney

He knew how the audition was going to affect their lives for the next ten weeks as she slowly lost her mind from nerves and the strain of trying to scrounge precious practice time from an already jam-packed life. No matter how much time poor Sam gave her, it would never be quite enough, because what she actually needed was for him and the kids to just temporarily not exist. She needed to slip into another dimension where she was a single, childless person. Just between now and the audition. She needed to go to a mountain chalet (somewhere with good acoustics) and live and breathe nothing but music. Go for walks. Meditate. Eat well. Do all those positive-visualization exercises young musicians did these days. She had an awful suspicion that if she were to do this in reality, she might not even miss Sam and the children that much, or if she did miss them, it would be quite bearable. — Liane Moriarty

Music will always be my No. 1 passion, but I don't have to be doing it professionally. It's not really about that for me anymore. I feel like I don't have to look at it as a career. I can just rest in it and just be. — Jessica Simpson

I enjoyed singing and playing guitar but didn't have the stamina to make music-making a career. In reality, writing was my real gift, and as soon as I figured that out I never looked back. — Ann Powers

It took me a couple years to get over the stereotype I was letting myself get caught up on, being a football player trying to start a career in music. — Sam Hunt

I exercise; I have a big career. I'm a parent, and I run a music school. — Flea

I've been on a major label for 14 years. I've always wanted as many people as possible to hear my music, and it definitely made sense for the majority of my career to be on a major label, on a distribution level, to be in people's faces and be out there, and have access to major labels' incredible machine, even though they have not understood or haven't been invested in what I was doing. — DJ Shadow

There are definitely things about 'Legendary Child' that echo the music we did earlier in our career. It's got the right stuff. — Joe Perry

I was involved in music, acting, and some running, but my firm wish was to become a doctor. That was the formative age when I had decided on the pattern of my career. — Roger Bannister

Most people like me are having a tough time. But it's fine. I don't really think about it as a career. I don't need to have a million bucks, but it keeps me in music and without a day job, so it's working out fine. — Freedy Johnston

I don't believe in competing, because there's room for everyone. You have to compete with yourself, because your duty to grow as a human being and keeping your humility is much more important than your music career. You can get money, women, travels, but all that's an illusion. — Juan Gabriel

Music is the career I'm lucky enough to get paid for, but I have other desires and passions. — Layne Staley

In the beginning of my career, I wanted to be chased by girls more than anything - that's why I got the guitar. By the time we were in ABBA, the music was the only important thing. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

Loving music had pushed all of us off the track- away from the normal pursuit of career, mate, and family, on an endless quest for that vibrating high, the plunge beyond time that comes only when you submerge yourself beneath the waterline of amplified sound. We were addicts, in a way, but also adept, enlightened by a noise most people considered no more than a pleasant distraction. What was left for us but to practice our art of listening? — Ann Powers

Anyone that has a music career and an acting career I think is pretty fantastic. — Brittany Murphy

The worst frustration for a singer is choosing a career in making music and then not being able to make music because you're always giving interviews. — Shakira

The odds are so stacked against you to have a music career in a place where there's virtually no music industry. So I always attribute it to God. — Pharrell Williams

Other people want a career or success because they think that will help them find their personal life somewhere. I've done it the other way around. What I have is what everybody else is looking for. I know I've got it made. I know I'm a very lucky man. That came first. Then the music and the career just kind of took care of themselves. — John Fogerty

I was fortunate enough to hook up with Quincy Jones and had a lot of success. But the music of the '80s really changed when the '90s hit. For me to chase that dream or career of music, I started a family, started on 'Melrose Place,' so it was something I didn't have the time or energy. — Jack Wagner

Over my career, I'd say the last 25 years; we've gone from music and computer being for 10 people in the world to having personal computers, to now being able to do amazing things on your iPhone, or with Rock Band. So, right now there's enormous capability with technology in our devices that everybody has access to. — Tod Machover

I would love to be able to pursue music as a career but honestly, I'm just not good enough. — Shawn Ashmore

I don't know if it's my music, my lyrics, my sound, and knowing the music business the way I do-all I can say is, my career has lasted way longer than I expected. — Barry White

I guess my music career is my personal life. You know, I've always been a writer who wants to write about my experiences. And so this experience being added to that, I - I want to live extraordinary experiences. And when I give advice to people, I want it to be sage advice. — Jason Mraz

I definitely want my career to continue to branch out. I've had the pleasure of working in different areas of entertainment, from being in the music business as a teenager in a girl group to doing Broadway. — Naturi Naughton

Without a doubt, because now in the music business talent and hard work isn't enough. There is just a lot of luck and marketing money involved in making any artist break. "Fall Down" is about a relationship, but you could certainly apply it to the relationship we've had with each other and throughout our career. — Jason C. Miller

Law became boring, but like every job I've done, it helped prepare me for a career in music. — Estelle

Of course, literature is the only spiritual and humane career. Even painting tends to dumness, and music turns people erotic, whereas the more you write the nicer you become. — Virginia Woolf

I believe I could have had a career in the music industry without 'X Factor,' but it was an amazing platform that propelled me to where I am now. — Leona Lewis

The only thing that was economic, I might say, about my music career, aside from the fact that I did everybody's tax returns in the band, was the decision I made to leave the music business on economic grounds. — Alan Greenspan

Jazz is so difficult. A lot of people think once they've learned these licks they can get up and play them for the rest of their life. But that's not being truthful to the music 'cause it's not developing. Cats you hear that don't make no mistakes? They ain't trying to do nothing. everything they hear is on the mark, but they've played it so many times ... I've built a whole career out of making mistakes! — Lester Bowie

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

Duke Ellington's career traces the entire history of jazz. The repertoire associated with him contains the most important elements in the music and provides concrete examples of some of the best ways to present the music in the widest variety of settings-radio, TV, recordings, movies, concert halls, festivals, solo, small ensemble, big band, symphony orchestra, opera, Broadway shows ... You name it, he did it! — Billy Taylor

I've built a solid career there, but America's ten times the size. Now that we're onto the third record, I feel like the stars have aligned and American audiences are embracing my music even more. — Chantal Kreviazuk

I was always going to make music, but I cleaned up my act a lot just to be a good dad and a husband. That sort of changed my career professionally, too. — Randy Houser

My parents always knew that I loved music. They just didn't think I'd try to make it a career. They thought I'd be a painter or an art teacher or something like that. — Benmont Tench

My career? I never think of it as a 'career.' Art and music and all those things that I'm creating are just part of me. — Yoko Ono

For music, I always just played music myself - and, I had rock bands and wrote songs and put bands together that were loud, but not especially good. That was sort of the place music had in my career. — Michael Cerveris

I've done choir since I was tiny, and I've always tried to get into plays. They all just meshed together. Now with my career, especially with music, people are like, "Which one do you pick?" I don't pick either. They're just different expressions of who I am. — Tinsel Korey

I hope to have a long career, and I don't want to be defined by things that aren't the music. — James Bay

I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the theater the minute I graduated from college having not pursued it! So I went back to school and got a degree in music and began working in musical theater. — Nancy Allen

About 13-14 years ago, I went back to my alma mater, Fairfax High School, and ran into the music teacher. She invited me to come speak to the kids about the viability of a music career. When I went into the room where I used to play every day in a big orchestra, they had nothing! — Flea

When I was writing songs, I always thought I'd make more of a career out of the drawings, the comics even more than the music. — Daniel Johnston

I basically taught myself how to DJ, but I've been inspired by DJs throughout my whole career. I have some good friends that would hook us up with music. You learn some little things here and there from each DJ and you just take it and put your own style into to it. — Pauly D

No one can discover you until you do. Exploit your talents, skills and strengths and make the world sit up and take notice. — Rob Liano

Other than a few years of piano as a kid, I don't have all that much musical training. I played piano for all the musicals in high school and was in a few bands, but never really considered music as a viable career until I was in college. — John Keltonic

I wake up every day and think about what I am to other people. What I am to the people I employ, who depend on me to wake up and do my job that day and keep this career going? I think about what I am to the kids who listen to my music and all the other people involved in this project. — Halsey

Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things. — Ice Cube

I've broken a cardinal rule of art, music, and career paths: actors are supposed to act, and musicians are supposed to music. That's how it works. You don't buy fish from a dentist, or ask a plumber for financial advice, so why listen to an actor's music? — Hugh Jackman

I'm fascinated with the attitude of younger rock bands, even ones that are making money at it. I don't ever hear them talk about it as a "career." It almost makes me think there isn't even a music industry anymore, like an atom bomb fell and it was just eradicated forever. — Travis Morrison

Way back in the day, when I first started and had delusions of adequacy as a cartoonist, I would listen to music. When I switched to a career as a writer, I would try to listen to music, but if the songs had lyrics they would get in the way of the words I was trying to write. So I switched to listening to purely instrumental pieces. — Alan Moore

Music has been a huge passion of mine ever since I started playing the piano at age 3. Going to concerts, performing on my own, and listening to my favorite artists growing up confirmed that love for music and made me want to pursue it as a career. — Daya

Music has always been a big part of Cheech & Chong's career, so it's just natural. You know, I was a musician before I met Cheech and had a record with Motown, and so I've got the cred. — Tommy Chong

During the time that my recording career seemed to be in a slump a music called disco came on the scene and literally took over radio stations as well as having radio stations created to play it which sort of negated my music as well as that of some of my peers. — Dionne Warwick