Amanda Palmer Quotes

I think for us, we don't feel like the future of music is in the act of being a record company. We feel like the future of the music business is in empowering artists to have better and better tools to communicate with their fans. We want to be people who are saying to artists, "Look, you don't need that company over there to release your album. You can do it this way." Almost more of a band partnership than a label-artist relationship. Not about ownership of content, but about empowerment.

I truly believe, as an institution, most major labels should just die.

You have major labels that are willing to take unconventional approaches because the old model is crumbling in front of us.

I have no problem with bands using participant financing schemes like Kickstarter and such. I've said many times that I think they're part of the new way bands and their audience interact and they can be a fantastic resource, enabling bands to do things essentially in cooperation with their audience. It's pretty amazing, actually.

Ultimately, our goal is to provide all artists with the opportunity to make a living on MySpace.

If you're on an indie label, you're not getting enough money. And if you're on a major, you're not getting enough support.

That's what I love about the Internet - instead of having to wait on radio to play your song or TV to play your video, I can use the Internet as a tool to get my music out earlier.

You've got major artists releasing albums on their own and eschewing the major system. I think that breeds excitement and creativity.

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.

I understand that music is a business, but for people who have control of their stuff, like little Taylor and other artists, I think you'll find them standing up for their music every chance they get.

I think we're just a garage band that got lucky. It's the enthusiasm from the audience that keeps it going.

I think what's happenin' is that, with the overflow of music, it's been diluted. There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio.

I was fortunate enough to have gone through the major label process and kind of have the inside scoop on some things, some information I wouldn't have normally had. To go from a major to an independent, I don't think it's an easy transition.

I'll say about Fueled By Ramen is, I don't know what anyone else's experience has been, but we signed to them as Fun. We already had a fanbase, we already had music out there so when they signed us they were signing our vision. I always think it's so weird when people think that Fueled By Raman are trying to change us or mould us into something else, as we weren't a bunch of kids playing in a garage who joined a label and then collectively worked on a vision, like, they signed us with the intention of letting us be Fun.

I guarantee if people keep mm..supportin' me....Just buying my records, goin to my concerts, just supporting me..I'ma keep givin' money....Like Makaveli, every time it go platinum, I'm putting money up for community centers.

I think there are some good players coming up. I think we are at a point where people can swallow a guitar solo in a pop rock record again.

I think the Ambitious Lovers never got their due- we had terrible management and at that point, we were on major labels and we didn't have any music business savvy which we could have used. We made a series of hilarious mistakes not in terms of music but in terms of making it happen.

There are so many rappers now that it's cluttering our culture. 90% of the time at a show there are more artists in the crowd than there are fans - it's too much. Too many people try to give you CD's.

You can always pound out demos and send them to record companies, but most of the successful bands I've seen are the ones that can sustain themselves.

I think these things social networks are going to have some legs,and yet there's a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.

Here's the tragedy of the modern record business: It's radio. If you're not on radio, nobody really is going to hear you or see you or care about you.

I don't think that the real enemy of the music industry is illegal downloading; I think the real enemy of the music industry is radio.

Nowadays, [young musicians] are so quick to be like, "OK, fine, I'll take the cheque, or I'll get the stamp from XYZ, and I'm expanding my brand," rather than thinking, "I'm part of this space over here, and in order for it to grow, you can't have it assimilated by this bigger bubble or corporate brand."

There aren't many other labels who I can say are that successful, and can give me as much as 4AD gives me, and still have such a great roster.

The record business is changing a lot, and I don't think to the detriment of music - I think, if anything, it's helping music. It's to the detriment of the business in some aspects. In many ways, you might say this is not the time to be going back to the majors, it's the time to be leaving them, which is a good point.