Quotes & Sayings About Record Companies

In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies. — Sam Altman

The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it! — Gunther Schuller

Most of my relationships have been like that - with record companies. I've never had a legitimate business relationship with a company. I've always had a personal relationship with someone in the company. — Ornette Coleman

At the beginning, at my shows, there were a lot of press and people from record companies. Now there are people who are there to just listen to the music and are genuine fans. — Seinabo Sey

(About Pop Idols) Obviously, it's designed by record company executives who want a cheap success, and they don't want to give money to anybody and they don't want to give contracts, so they've created this world of very bubbly teenagers who want to be "idols" and they think all they have to do is mime quite well and they've made it ... But it's not the problem of the kids, it's the problem of the record companies, because it's just an inexpensive way for them to have so-called, I won't say "artists", but erm ... You're nodding, you know what I mean. — Steven Morrissey

I applied for three jobs in record companies and was offered all of them. I took the most glamorous-sounding job in the promotions department and it began my love affair with the music industry. — Nicki Chapman

Artists were nurtured back in the '70s. Their music was developed by the record companies. — Gary Wright

'Love Tattoo' I recorded without a record company. I'd gotten turned down by the record companies - they said they didn't get me, which is fine, I suppose. — Imelda May

I'm confused that there is a lack of faith in listening to and deciding what is a great song and instead going for these formulaic, bad songs over and over again. But that's what happened when people from beverage companies bought record labels and radio stations as opposed to people who love music owning record labels. — Patty Griffin

I wouldn't say that we're proactively out there hunting down brands to try to fulfill some piece of a larger battle plan or something. If they have things they want to get to us, we're somewhat easily accessible through our managers and record companies. — Lars Ulrich

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

The record companies are interested in the kind of sales they can get from the rock groups. — Norman Granz

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

Between the record companies being the way they are and the fact that people can just download one song instead of buying a whole album, it's hard to make a good living nowadays. — Dimebag Darrell

If you are a superstar, or whatever you want to call yourself, a person who's had outrageous success, and you decide to go indie and tell the record companies to screw themselves? That takes a certain amount of courage. And bullheadedness, really. — Daryl Hall

And looking at today's music scene, I think it's cool that there are a lot of consumers and fans not limited by what radio and the record companies tell them to buy. — Juice Newton

The only thing the record companies put out now is 'Best of,' — Elton John

Today's consumer is less interested in possessing things and more in experiencing them. That's something the music industry needs to get its head around. Do we even need record companies any more? — Jimmy Chamberlin

If I had to spend equal time doing paintings, and equal time going to galleries and doing art business, and equal time making music, and equal time going to record companies, or to the publicist or to the lawyer, forget it. It would take four times as long to do all that stuff. Unless I had a patron. That's why Leonardo da Vinci was successful. He had the Medicis, right? — Debbie Harry

It's always very special for me to work Chicago. Both of the record companies I was with, early on, were based in Chicago. The music was always huge there. — Frankie Valli

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

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

Pop was initially ignored as a moneymaker by the recording industry. In the seventies they were still relying on Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett for their big hits. You know, most of the budget for the record companies in those days went to the classical department - and those were big budget albums. — Tony Visconti

Finally, I would like to remind record companies that they have a cultural responsibility to give the buying public great music. Milking a trend to death is not contributing to culture and is ultimately not profitable. — Tony Visconti

We've managed to have a long career that is still quite vibrant, yet we've never had to kow-tow to record companies who said we weren't commercial enough. — Alex Lifeson

I'm really lucky that my record companies have been patient with me and leave me alone and give me the time to make it right in my mind. — Sarah McLachlan

The music pot is broad. It's just unfortunate that the record companies cry the blues as frequently as they do. — Vance Gilbert

My audience is the baby-boomers, the bulk of the population. This is also a group that is being ignored by most record companies because they're not the Top 40 hit singles market. They forget these people still listen to music. — Helen Reddy

I was always told that I was too strange or that I was too cheesy by different groups of people, like the record companies said I was way too weird and the indie people wouldn't even let me in their band. — Mika.

Everything about my life was culturally rich, and all the people I met sort of reinforced the wackiness that was normally inside of me. No one said, 'You can't do that,' until I got to real record companies, that is. — Nile Rodgers

A respectable-sized audience hasn't really been able to follow developments in jazz since the free jazz movement in the '60s. Some of them can't even get with John Coltrane. Audiences are diminishing more and more rapidly. Some of the top young musicians with something new to say can't get record companies to put out their stuff. — Harvey Pekar

People weren't buying as many records. My record company did not want me. I went through three record companies, went on tour at the wrong time. It destroyed me. — Adam Ant

I find it ironic that now water is more expensive than music. On the one hand, record companies can't go crying when they've gouged consumers for decades, charging exorbitant prices for CDs that cost 29 cents to make. On the other hand, when music is free, musicians starve. — Tom Morello

Borderline means you're one of those girls ...
... who walk around wearing long sleeves in the summer because you've carved up your forearms over your boyfriend. You make pathetic suicidal gestures and write bad poetry about them, listen to Ani DiFranco albums on endless repeat, end up in the emergency room for overdoses, scare off boyfriends by insisting they tell you that they love you five hundred times a day and hacking into their email to make sure they're not lying, have a police record for shoplifting, and your tooth enamel is eroded from purging. You've had five addresses and eight jobs in three years, your friends are avoiding your phone calls, you're questioning your sexuality, and the credit card companies are after you. It took a lot of years to admit that I was exactly that girl, and that the diagnostic criteria for the disorder were essentially an outline of my life. — Stacy Pershall

I'm introverted, and I pay attention to my muse ... Record companies used to go mad and say 'We don't know the deal with you. You have no continuity at all. You give us 'Addicted to Love,' and you're a rock n' roll star, then you give us 'She Makes My Day,' and what's that?' But that was a hit, too. It either gets across or it doesn't. — Robert Palmer

The cash held by US companies are hitting all time records. Companies are using some of this money to buy back their own stock at record rates. When a company is doing this it is saying to it's investors: We don't have any good ideas what to do with this, so here--maybe you do. — Geoff Colvin

Stop doing what the record companies are doing and do what's in your heart. — Leif Garrett

If you get rid of a lot of the poseurs by destroying record companies, maybe it's a good trade-off. — Mark Mothersbaugh

This constant pressure from record companies to come up with a hit single or something like that, I find completely tiresome. — Robert Wyatt

Indeed one streak in our economy, we're missing the big oil companies. We're missing other big energy companies. We're missing the big picture, and I have a record of trying to go at the problems that actually exist, and I will continue to do that. — Hillary Clinton

Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big. — David Crosby

Western record companies haven't always dealt with African musicians in the best way. Giving them a lot of money and telling them they're going to be bigger than Phil Collins is the wrong way to do it! — Youssou N'Dour

I don't think that old-fashioned idea of record companies exists any more. — Sophie Ellis-Bextor

First of all, you needed a budget to do the video. The record companies would pick and choose who got videos. — Nina Blackwood

I've been wanting to sing for a long time. I've been singing all my life, and I've tried different record companies, but it seemed like - it was such a struggle and so hard to get out there. So, I said, 'I'm gonna go on American Idol and see how far it takes me.' — Fantasia Barrino

Why don't these companies making big profits just pay people better than $14 an hour? It's kind of simple. When you're making record profits, why not? I don't get it. — Mika Brzezinski

I always thought that if record companies didn't understand me, fine - I'd go and do it by myself. — Estelle

A lot of very popular mainstream artists are products of record companies and marketing companies, and any time anyone can stand outside of that, that's interesting. — Marco Brambilla

You have record companies that sign acts that they think are great, and then they never do anything. Acts that they don't think are really going to do much end up having a career. I don't think anyone really knows what it is that drives somebody to get on their computer and want to download a song. — Jason Aldean

I think record companies are criminals. — Jon Bon Jovi

I think I'm just trying to show a more mature side of the band and I think we've really come into the sound of our band. With every album we've grown, but I think this is just a really good picture of where we are right now and how we feel our music represents us. Under the thumb of other record companies we haven't had as much creative control and I think with this record we really did our own thing. — Jason C. Miller

Oh, you know record companies ... at the end of the day, it's business. If you analyse it, you're just a piece of meat. The minute you go bad, it's: 'Next!'. — Enrique Iglesias

I put 'Ghost' online hoping to make a couple hundred bucks, but then the next day, I took meetings with five different record companies. — Halsey

I think the good thing about the Internet is to give something away and to sell something else. Get a business model like that because the old brick and mortar record stores are falling apart, and the big record companies are collapsing under their own weight. — Roger McGuinn

I thought I'd be wasting my time to go to commercial record companies and make demos for them, because don't forget, I was doing what I was doing and nobody understood what I was doing. — John Fahey

All the things I used to count on to get my music out there - record companies, they're all gone. And radio stations, they're gone - they're completely controlled by the government. If they're not controlled by the government, they're controlled by a programmer who's controlled by the government. Mainstream radio is suspect. You can't trust it. — Neil Young

When Phil and I started out, everyone hated rock n' roll. The record companies didn't like it at all - felt it was an unnecessary evil. And the press: interviewers were always older than us, and they let you know they didn't like your music, they were just doing the interview because it was their job. — Don Everly

There are a lot of people, especially the younger generation who don't feel that they need to support the artists by buying their music because they grew up learning that record companies are evil. — Bob Mould

I left the entertainment industry part of my life behind in 1983, when we decided not to work with major record companies anymore. — Arlo Guthrie

The only thing I have no control over is the politics that goes on within the record company. It's always been the same, but it's far tougher now, because record companies are run by financial people; before, they were run by creative people. — Enrique Iglesias

But overall, Obama's record on the environment has been uninspired - and that's putting it kindly. He hasn't stopped coal companies from blowing up mountaintops and devastating large regions of Appalachia. — Jeff Goodell

We can't allow multinational oil companies boasting of record profits to gouge consumers ... We must do what we can to fix this problem. — Stephanie Herseth

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

Make a record in your bedroom on a cheap computer, play it on pirate radio, and that's what's it's all about. You can do something really exciting and you don't need any record companies. The way I do everything comes from that, the impact of those two things. — Kieran Hebden

I challenge record companies to show me evidence of a single penny they've lost due to Napster. — Dave Rowntree

I used to run record companies, and I went to the advertising business at 29 years old. — Steve Stoute

There's this thing called compulsory licensing law that allows artists through the record companies to take your music at will without your permission. — Prince

We are beginning to see a fundamental outrage at the whole interconnected mess of a system: at energy companies who record massive profits, yet allow pensioners to struggle to stay warm in winter; at CEOs who can earn up to a 1,000 times the salary of their average worker; and soon, any day now, at those politicians who allowed this to happen. — Noreena Hertz

In most companies, the formal hierarchy is a matter of public record - it's easy to discover who's in charge of what. By contrast, natural leaders don't appear on any organization chart. — Gary Hamel

I think the consumption of music is at an all-time high. But I think the ways that record companies are trying to monetize it is just all over the place. At the end of the day, music is in the clouds. Before, you could hold it, look at it, turn it around. Now, it's just in the air. — Jay-Z

During the 1999 debate over Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China President Bill Clinton said, 'In opening the economy of China, the agreement will create unprecedented opportunities for American farmers, workers and companies to compete successfully in China's market. WRONG: Our trade deficit with China has increased from $83 billion in 2001 to a record breaking $342 billion in 2014. — Bernie Sanders

Record companies would rather you stay dumb, not even think of it as a business, so they can either rip you off or get you out of the way in five years to make way for the new groups. — George Clinton

I think bands will actually make more money without record companies; a much bigger share of the money will go to the bands. You won't have record shops taking 40 percent of the money. You won't have record labels taking 40 percent of the money. So they don't have to sell as many albums as they used to in the past. So it's not necessarily a bad thing if record companies disappear. — Richard Branson

I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs. — Tony Bennett

From the age of 14 to about 20, I bombarded record companies and DJs with my demos. I was desperate to get it out there. Most of the time, I got nothing back. — Calvin Harris

Record companies, I found out, can put out compilations without your permission. — Pink

I got out of the music industry many years ago. I had a charlatan for a producer who I wanted nothing to do with. He's dead now, so I guess I can't beat that horse any more. It left a very bad taste in my mouth, so I just went on about my business doing what I do and not involving myself with record companies, except for distribution. — Leon Redbone

There are no record companies in Waikiki. — Bruno Mars

This is business: they don't care about your lyrics;
The better you sell, the better future for their children.
Controversy sells, so they support conflict,
Makes more progress, means more profit.
An artist gets killed, they say they're 'so sorry,'
Meanwhile, they tell you the date of his next project.
What a life ... death made them more profit:
Record companies get paid for your drama. — Cormega

When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music. — David Crosby

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.' — Billy Corgan

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. — Neil Young

Like, when we did Parliament and Funkadelic and Bootsy, it was actually one thing. But there were so many people that you could split them up into different groups. And then, when we went out on tour and they [the record companies] would see us all up there together - we had five, six guitars playing at one time, not including the bass! -, they said: "Wait a minute, that's just one whole group, selling different names!" But it wasn't - we had enough people in the group that each member would have a section to be another group. So now we're finally starting to get them to understand that. — Gary Snyder

You have to be talented and you have to be lucky. Record companies are not signing classic rock groups anymore. — Leslie West

In reality, there's a limit to putting a record out yourself. When it comes to working with major record companies in the context of them owning anything, though, that will never happen. Ever. In my life. — Kevin Shields

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

I understand quarterly billing, how the record companies run. — Nikki Sixx

Those record companies don't know what's happening at all. — Ritchie Blackmore

Kids are taking music for free all the time. They have Spotify, Pandora ... The record companies aren't making the kind of music that they used to make. Artists make their money on tours, not from album sales. — Malcolm D. Lee

It's typical of record companies. They sign you because you're unique, and then they want to put you in a mold so they can sell records. — Al Jourgensen

Money don't rule me, record companies don't rule me. — Link Wray

What record companies do these days is drain the blood dry of an album, take six singles off it, and harm the longevity of artists' careers by doing it. — Elton John

I think all record companies should be run by a musician. Just as you wouldn't trust your health to an electrician. — Paul Bley

I like Rick Ross as a person. I like Jay-Z and Kanye West as people. But I hate the companies that they record for. — Chuck D

Rock 'n' roll started to make so much money and generated so much income for the record companies that suddenly it was no longer evil. — John Landis

When radio stations started playing music the record companies started suing radio stations. They thought now that people could listen to music for free, who would want to buy a record in a record shop? But I think we all agree that radio stations are good stuff. — Niklas Zennstrom

The record companies fell apart - quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop. — John Lydon

This morning, prompted by increasing concerns about terrorism, oil prices reached a record high as the cost of a barrel of crude is a whopping $44.34. Wow, it seems shocking that a product of finite supply gets more expensive the more we use it. Now the terror alert means higher oil prices, which oddly enough means higher profits for oil companies giving them more money to give to politicians whose policies may favor the oil companies such as raising the terror alert level. As Simba once told us: "It's the circle of life." — Jon Stewart

Albums aren't even selling anymore and there's a reason for that. Record companies are just signing single and ring tone deals and it doesn't seem like they're focusing on albums. — Rahki

The intentions of record companies are not good, from the musician's perspective. — Melissa Auf Der Maur