Recording Artist Quotes & Sayings

I never really listen to what people say. My thing is that my favorite artists are artists that are theatrical. Obviously when you are doing a recording, things aren't gonna translate as over-the-top. — Adam Lambert

I've never been the big recording star I'd love to be some day. I've had lots of hits off and on through the years but I've never had the success of other artists - one hit after another back-to-back-to-back and big hits, where every song is going to be number one. I'm not greedy or nothing. I just want everything. Is there something wrong with that? — Dolly Parton

So how does Liz Phair feel about Lana Del Rey? Well, as a recording artist, I've been hated, I've been ridiculed, and conversely, hailed as the second coming. All that matters in the end is that I've been heard. — Liz Phair

In the recording process I do listen to other artists a lot and other albums and albums I am loving lately, or ones that I still love that came out in the 80s or 70s. — William Beckett

I think that it's much easier for a recording artist to become an actor than for an actor to become a recording artist. — Zachary Levi

My first song was Hula Hoop Song, in 1955. It was a novelty song. I had to find someway to reach out and it was with a novelty song. Now, all of my recording obligations have been taken care of. I made 14 albums for Warner Brothers. Five for United Artist before that. — Gordon Lightfoot

I hadn't been a recording artist all that long when albums came on the scene, and I was one of the first singers to point the way to how varied an album's contents could be. — Mel Torme

Believe it or not, most people think of me as a recording artist, but actually the way I think of myself and the way I earn my living is as a performing artist. — Helen Reddy

I hope someone thinks I sing good. I'm always working hard to sing better. I sound the way I sound, but I can always be better. I work hard at singing and being a better recording artist. — Luke Bryan

The modern recording studio, with its well-trained engineers, 24-track machines and shiny new recording consoles, encourages the artist to get involved with sound. And there have always been artists who could make the equipment serve their needs in a highly personal way - I would single out the Beatles, Phil Spector, the Beach Boys and Thom Bell. — Jon Landau

I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar, but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it, and you've got to be a businessman. But then again, you have to be true to yourself as an artist. — Donny Osmond

I did my thing with Jive. I was a national recording artist, but I had run into a wall. — Mystikal

Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists. — Daniel Ek

I felt that, in retrospect, there was a time in the late Seventies, after I had a string of hits and successes, as a performer and a recording artist, that I wasn't saying anything. — Boz Scaggs

Traditionally, photography has dealt with recording the world as it is found. Before photography appeared the fine artists of the time, the painters and sculptors, concerned themselves with rendering reality with as much likeness as their skill enabled. Photography, however, made artistic reality much more available, more quickly and on a much broader scale. — Ralph Gibson

Just because I'm a recording artist doesn't mean I'm not an artist. Because I had to grow. — Lizz Wright

I wear a lot of different hats - from writer to producer and artist. We all do 5 or 6 jobs, everything from creating our own graphic design to actually recording and the whole bit. — William Bell

Being a recording artist and having thousands of people listening to your music and singing your songs, and paying for it? It feels great! — PJ Harvey

I've been recording audiobooks for more than 30 years. I've recorded over 500 titles on all sort of things. I'm a sort of genre-free recording artist - classics and romances, I just finished a sci-fi book, self help ... just all kinds of things. — Barbara Rosenblat

Please welcome our hometown girl, a Winsor Cougar, a world-famous recording artist. Please welcome Chanin Anne. — Tim Mettey

My intention when I came into this industry was to be a musician, not necessarily a recording artist, just a musician in general. And that's the reason I went to college and got my degree, which has been great for me. It's helped me a lot with my career. — Jon Secada

I am not a natural singer, but I can sing, and probably the way I sing is more imitative than from myself, which is why I am never going to be an amazing recording artist. — Tim Blake Nelson

I'm in a position I never imagined I'd be in as a musician. Bob Dylan built an audience through recording and live shows. The opportunities for an artist today are totally different. — Ben Sollee

You can choose not to be a performing musician. You can choose to just be a recording artist. But then you run into the problem of trying to earn a living and balancing the time that you spend working on your creative efforts to just getting the bills paid. You can go off the grid and live in a cabin and make whatever art you want and also provide all the sustenance you need and not interact with anybody else. — Mirah

The main reason he wanted to be a recording artist was because it gives you much more freedom in your writing. You only have to please the artist and the artist is you so you can be more daring and experimental. — Cynthia Weil

I want to be a recording artist for my whole entire life. But Broadway is something I would come back to at any given moment. I love, love, love doing theater. — Ariana Grande

New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it. — Jon Bon Jovi

Unnur Birna is a Reykjavik-based violinist and singer. She has performed as a session musician with countless Icelandic and international artists while recording and appearing as a solo artist as well. Unnur has joined me as an unpaid guest on a few Icelandic shows in recent years, so it is a great pleasure to return the favour and appear on one of her songs at last. This new track, Sunshine, came about in Italy, written as an ode to sunlight and happiness after fleeing the dark winter in Iceland — Ian Anderson

Due to my work as a musician, songwriter, recording artist and author, hundreds of people stream in and out of my basement studio to help me with my creative projects. — Dan Hill

One of the main things that differentiates them [artists of 70s] from artists before is that they made albums based on the fact that they didn't care about the band as a thing in its own right. They cared about manipulating the recording and that became the album. — DJ Spooky

I have to prioritize: father first, and then a pastor and a recording artist and entrepreneur. I try to put everything in proper perspective, and then the proper priority. — Marvin Sapp

You have hundreds of artists you're dealing with across the world and the scale of this movie [Kung Fu Panda] was insane - we had a parallel pipeline going on where you had two versions recording Mandarin voice actors, getting it to be funny for Mandarin audiences going beyond a straight translation, and then animating it and lighting it, it's a lot of work. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

I took guitar lessons and recorded the song in New York. It was kind of a dream. I got to pretend I was a recording artist for a couple days. — Kristen Wiig

The biggest challenge is self-financing 100% of everything. Recording costs, studio time, engineer fees, travel costs are all a part of the creation process. Then after the creation, there are producer fees, mixing, mastering, photo shoots, artwork, packaging, artist feature fees, legal fees, clearances, and so on that must be covered before any music can officially be released to the public. — Mya

The look that one directs at things, both outward and inward, as an artist, is not the same as that with which one would regard the same as a man, but at once colder and more passionate. As a man, you might be well-disposed, patient, loving, positive, and have a wholly uncritical inclination to look upon everything as all right, but as an artist your daemon constrains you to "observe", to take note, lightning fast and with hurtful malice, of every detail that in the literary sense would be characteristic, distinctive, significant, opening insights, typifying the race, the social or the psychological mode, recording all as mercilessly as though you had no human relationship to the observed object whatever. — Joseph Campbell

I knew what I wanted to do, which was to become a recording artist, so I definitely felt like I had a calling. The performing part was the part that I wasn't sure about. — Ariel Pink

I'm a binge writer. I work in the music business fulltime, in artist management and developing songwriters and recording artists, and so juggling my job I carve out as much time as I can on the weekends. — Ruta Sepetys

It wasn't not being famous any more, or even not being a recording artist. It was having nobody who needed me, no phones ringing, nothing to do. Because I'm still too young to do nothing. I was only 24 when all that happened. Now, at 40, I feel I've got more to give than I ever have. — Gary Barlow

No one likes to work for free. To copy an artist's work and download it free is stealing. It's hard work writing and recording music, and it's morally wrong to steal it. — Gary Wright

It's time for a streaming service that is centred around and driven by the artist community directly. Artists are prolific beyond a new recording every two years. They perform, tour, record, and collaborate constantly. Uprise.fm will not only make these rare and unique recordings available, we will ensure that the artists are fairly compensated for this work. — Daniel Lanois

I actually quite like promo, which is quite odd for an artist, but recording's not the easiest thing. — Marina And The Diamonds

I'm a multi-platinum recording artist; my passion is food. — Kelis

Any artist is insulted by the suggestion that art is merely a matter of recording reality, and knows that it is impossible to explain how imagination can transform not only events and people, but the artist as well, into quite different "realities". — Joan Lindsay

You continue to evolve with each album that goes by and, as an artist, you continue to expand with every recording project. — Randy Travis

The old music industry is dead. We're standing in the ruins of a business built on private jets, Cristal, $18 CDs and million-dollar recording budgets. We're in the midst of the greatest music industry disruption of the past 100 years. A fundamental shift has occurred - a shift that Millennials are driving. For the first time, record sales aren't enough to make an artist's career, and they certainly aren't enough to ensure success. The old music industry clung desperately to sales to survive, but that model is long gone.2 - Honeyman — Larry Wacholtz

I'm hoping to become a recording artist and make albums and go on tour. — Skylar Laine

I want to learn - there's so much I have to learn about what it takes to be a recording artist, about what it takes to go on tour. — James Wolpert

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records. — Chuck D

I'm a performance artist first; I'm a recording artist second. — Erykah Badu

I'm trying to satirize what it's like to be a recording artist in 2011. I realize that standing on a soap box and ranting and raving about my opinions on the digital age and its effect on music is only going to get you so far. — DJ Shadow

I don't think I want to transition into being a recording artist for the rest of my life or anything like that, but it's something I'd like to try. — Laura Osnes

I want to do musician things and start making this my life. I want to learn - there's so much I have to learn about what it takes to be a recording artist, about what it takes to go on tour. I want to take this time and be a sponge and start meeting people and start - just start. — James Wolpert

Even before I became a recording artist, I did other things in music. I was a teacher, I did studio work, and I was an arranger and a producer. — Jon Secada

Music was my life ... It was everything to me, even though I was in school majoring in English. I was still very focused on music and always finding ways to perform, so that was what set me up to want to become a recording artist. — John Legend