Nickolas Ashford Quotes

All of the sudden the audiences started getting younger and the spread of the attendance was really wide. I think it's as a result of the records selling more that they started following our careers.

Every generation of rock musician will understand that we wouldn't be anywhere without the support of teenagers buying the records.

Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized and there's just no outlet, there's no venue for it, in terms of media.

I think it's OK if somebody likes my music and likes Sam Hunt's music, too. And I think if we're both selling records, it's good for everybody. I think it allows other records to get made.

What Nirvana's success means is that certain radio stations now have their ear more cocked to bands like us; they're more open to playing more stuff.

Commercial music, for the most part, is popular music and you always have to keep that in mind.

My retirement, back in 1976, began as a one-year boycott to challenge the media on that question. I refused to return until the media, and radio stations in particular, got a hold on identifiably Canadian songs.

Music changes every three months. There's always new artists coming out. There's always new sounds. There is always a new hit coming out. You gotta stay relevant as much as you can and feed your fans as much as you can.

I mean that'd be great if we could continue to be staples of alt-rock radio. I don't take that for granted.

There is a lot of music in the world that I love that does not always get the appropriate exposure.

D.C. is one my largest audiences. They buy tons of records of mine in Washington, D.C.

I still listen to a lot of the classics from Bob Dylan and John Martin, but I love electronic music as well. I'm a big fan of an Australian DJ and producer called Flume, who I think is incredible. He should be more successful in the U.K.!

It's one thing to be a fan and it's another thing to be a label.

I have hundreds and hundreds of people from Brazil, Chile, Columbia and Argentina, every day, buying my music and telling me about it online.

People's musical tastes are fickle, and music can be a fashion.

If people stop being interested, it's because you haven't written a good enough album. Music will always be the most powerful thing. It doesn't matter what record labels or journalists say. It's the song.

I just cut songs I love and that represent what I want to say. And if it crosses over, that's very flattering. It's cool to know that with people listening to rock and rap, I'm sitting on their iPods along with that stuff.

I think if we keep on doing good music and people like us and they buy the magazine because we are in the magazine then they cant basically hate us hopefully.

As long as someone wants to hear my music, I don't care if it's a ringtone or the album or whatever.

Back in the day, the album was king in many ways. And, of course, we were very tied in with the birth of FM/college radio in the States, and what we were doing suited the format of those young radio stations.

I'm one of those firm believers that good music will prevail.

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.

And in an era where radio stations that are inclined to play Styx music are your classic rock stations and the stations that play current music look at us as dinosaurs - the only way we could reach people with our new music, generally, is to perform live.

But these days, I get a lot more attention and airplay from the Adult Contemporary and country radio stations, and I feel comfortable saying I'm a part of that.

Music is the one part of the entertainment business where you can't fool anybody into buying a record.