Sufjan Stevens Quotes

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

I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records, maybe you're meant to cater to another market.

I think there is something to be said for churning things out. Motown churned out hits and there is nothing wrong with that.

I enjoy touring. I enjoy recording the music, I enjoy dreaming it and I enjoy performing it. I also definitely enjoy selling it, because I like to eat.

If people knew what made hits they'd make more of them, so to have the illusion of control over one's career isn't something I can even pretend to have.

I don't really set out to please anybody, and I don't think I ever have. I have occasionally been encouraged to try to write something specifically for the purpose of releasing it as a single to get radio play. Those are not my best songs, as a rule.

If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.

Music is my hustle.

I follow a simple formula when I compose. I ask myself, 'What would the audience want to hear?' and 'Why would they buy my CDs?' And the process of answering these questions through music follows. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it backfires.

I think that music is still art, even if it's commercialised.

I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear.

Pop music I have always loved best. But the more extreme, fascist-led examples of the music business I tend to detest the most.

I have always made commercial music. The people who vote for the Grammy nominees are mostly in their 40s and have other jobs or are musicians themselves. They like music that they can relate to - they like commercial music.

Yeah; I'm a much better blues player than anybody knows, but being in the kind of group I'm in, we were always trying to make popular records.

If I spent my time wondering about what genre I wanted to be in or where I was on the charts, I wouldn't be able to write these kinds of song. I'd be too busy doing other things.

I was a rapper. The reason I stopped rapping was because I realized that people wanted guys like Puff Daddy. That's not what I do. I quit. That was it. I had to sacrifice for my choice. I said, 'Forget it. I'll be a producer.' Nobody was going to make me do anything.

As a producer putting up music, I wasn't dropping a project to do this much numbers or make this amount of money, I really just dropped a project for the streets and the culture of music.

I was someone who knew what they wanted to do for so long. I was always fascinated by music, always a student of pop.

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.

Musicians do music for the girls. We do music for the money. We do music for the recognition, for the rock and roll history. But we also do it because it's fun.

Record companies tell me to play something more commercial, but I don't want to do anything else.

I'm trying to write songs to appeal to everybody.

I guess if I'd have more of a producer attitude, maybe I'd sell more records. But I'm basically a songwriter.

I think people sometimes confuse 'catchy' with something that should automatically be a hit in today's world. I mean, obviously we write a lot of stuff that's catchy, that sticks in your head. But that doesn't necessarily mean that middle-school kids are going to want to listen to a song about a lawyer or a Subaru or whatever.

There is music out there that is commercially driven, whether you like it or not. That's a peculiarly American innovation. We innovated the commercial music business.