Top 100 Record Company Quotes

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.

The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I’m from. Well, I can’t write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.

No record company in the world would say, ‘We’re not promoting if you keep calling somebody a snitch.’ They know what makes money. A record company would never be that stupid. Ever.

I’m developing a record company. I’m learning how to supervise music on a film.

Blackheart Records being 25 years old represents staying power and the fact that we weren’t able to get a record out through conventional means, so we had to create this record company to put out our records if we wanted to be a band that had records to give out to their fans.

The record company didn’t know what we looked like at first. They were all excited about our tapes.

People thought we were crazy for starting a record company. They really thought I was shooting myself in the foot.

I don’t see people. I don’t see men and women at all. When I see them, I see… their mothers and fathers. I see how old they are inside. Like when I look at the president, or anybody in a record company, or a store owner, I may see a little boy behind the counter with the face of an old man. And that’s who I talk to.

Missing You’ almost didn’t get on the No Brakes’ album, because the record company said, ‘The album’s finished. We don’t need any more songs.’

I learned how difficult it is to be an artist. There are always compromises. The record company wants you to do this, your fans want you to do this, your family – you can’t concentrate on your work.

I didn’t need to depend on the record company to publish my records.

Being a pop-leaning, female artist, you’d think that I’d have my record company breathing down my neck and trying to control everything I’m doing. Actually, they’ve just kind of let me take the wheel.

There’s a guy at the record company who’s 30, and he says, I would not listen to these songs except in this context. Somehow the recording process, the arrangements, make it more accessible.

There’s the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: He’s supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs you’ve been recording and then say, ‘Guys, I don’t hear any singles.’ And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one.

Obviously given good health, and a continuing audience and a record company that allows me to do music. So given those things yes, I’m introducing some new music that people haven’t really heard me do in quite this fashion.

You got to understand: when you go into a record company and give them a something that doesn’t sound like what’s on the radio, it’s hard to sell it.

When you get to a point where you’re not beholden to a record company, then it’s up to you to say, ‘OK, enough knob-turning. We’re done.’

If I was to spend time working out what the record company got – and those in that team of people around us – I would lose my mind.

In those days it was pretty cut and dry. If you had a record company believing in you enough to cut an album then you had better have the ability to work the album on the road.

My record company had to beg me to stop filmin’ music videos in the projects. No matter what the song was about, I had ’em out there.

The power of your audience is in the hand of the artist now via all the media – Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all of them – all of the new available techniques to get to people. I think that you are your best publicist and record company and everything right now when starting out.

I’m not interested in gigs unless I really want to do them. I walked away from music in 1997, and then there was a greatest hits in 2002. Thank God, it didn’t do too well because the record company wouldn’t promote it.

Radio is aimed at the 30-year-old market, so you have to have great music and appeal to get that age group. And you need a record company to believe in you. It’s like a bit of the perfect storm.

I’m pushing ahead on my own – you no longer need a large record company to make you a star.

Obviously given good health, and a continuing audience and a record company that allows me to do music. So given those things yes, I’m introducing some new music that people haven’t really heard me do in quite this fashion.

I always say this to people: ‘If Shaq can be in the NBA for 19 years and dominate for 19 years using his body, why can’t I be in the music industry for 50 years using my brain when my brain is way stronger than anyone’s body?’ I have to have a successful record company, more hit records. I want to dominate the game.

When I made ‘A Few Small Repairs’ and it did well, I followed that up with having a baby, and that was not received well at my record company. I was written off, and that had a bearing on my career.

You’re just one of the guys who fills a suit, and that’s what’s drilled into you by the record company and the management – ‘You’re lucky to have it. Now shut your mouth.’ I get where that comes from, but it takes time to shake it off.

I had always thought of starting my own record company. I haven’t regretted the decision – yet!

When I made ‘A Few Small Repairs’ and it did well, I followed that up with having a baby, and that was not received well at my record company. I was written off, and that had a bearing on my career.

It took so long to make it in America. The year I arrived was a bad year for women singers, the record company told me. So I starved. I lived in a hotel so dreadful I can’t even talk about it.

If a film is not doing well, a record company will not take a chance with the score.

I never had many problems to do my music and to give it to a record company. Rarely do they try to argue with me about my music, probably because it’s still too far-out.

I started writing music when I was around twelve. My current record company saw a video of me performing at my school’s talent show.

I love doing third albums. A group makes its first album, and then the record company rushes them into the studio to make their second album. After that, they go, ‘Whoa, wait a second.’ They get a little more confident. They step back and say, ‘Okay, now we’re gonna do it.’

My record company had to beg me to stop filmin’ music videos in the projects. No matter what the song was about, I had ’em out there.

In the early Nineties, after my first round of financial problems, I started a studio in Kensal Road in London right at the time when no record company wanted to hear anything from Leo Sayer.

I’ve never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I’d be left with the record company. And then – because they got fired – the record company wouldn’t do anything for me.

The thing that got me started on Twitter was just basically pressure from management and the record company saying, ‘Hey, this is what all the other artists are doing. You need to be doing it also.’ I didn’t really have a clue what is was.

The record company didn’t know what we looked like at first. They were all excited about our tapes.

If you come from Africa with your economic poverty and your cultural riches, and you meet someone like Peter Gabriel or a person from a big record company, and they tell you that what you are doing is marvelous, that makes you feel powerful.

I don’t think the record company is aware of it. Because they just bury my albums and don’t release them.

I am not going to be dictated to by fans, certainly. I am dictated enough to by my record company to last me a million years.

Don’t give up, be positive and if you know someone who knows someone at a record company don’t stop beating down their door till you get heard. Don’t ever say it’ll never happen or it’ll never happen.

We’d just signed with Arista, the record company. Arista was freaking about the phenomenon of tapers showing up at our shows. They were insisting that we put an end to this. And we just didn’t want to do that.

A record company used to be a very good thing, but they ended up soul-destroyingly trapping people in the accounting department. And you couldn’t get any further, and the heads of each department were changing all the time, so you couldn’t have any permanent relationship within the corporation.

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.

When Alcatrazz played in Japan in early ’84, the record label offered me the opportunity to do a solo album while continuing to play in the band. I wanted the whole album to have vocals, but the record company didn’t want that. Initially, the album was released solely in Japan.

I’m not the guy to get big record company budgets. My budget is Britney Spears’ catering money.