Deke Richards Quotes

I started recording in '67. In the first part of '68, my first single was 'Backup Train.' That was success to a degree. Four years have passed by since then, and I have managed to come up with a few measly sellers.

Obviously Hall & Oates wasn't overlooked by the masses in terms of the record sales.

From all the years that I've been in the business, you know that ballads are what impact. Mid-tempos are great, you can sell some records on 'em, but when it comes down to it, ballads are the meat-and-potatoes on the album.

All of our early hits, 'Danke Schoen' and 'Red Roses,' were produced by Bobby Darin.

I just want to keep saturating the market and radio with as many hit records as I can.

I've just been fortunate to havehad a lot of hit records, though Human Wheels doesn't qualify as a hit record-but it's really the best single I've ever had.

My first two albums, 'Silverbird and 'Just a Boy,' which had the single 'Long Tall Glasses' on it, were very well received. Then I did another one, 'Another Year,' which did miserably.

I want to be able to take singles, serve them up to radio on a silver platter and just have them smoke - just obvious great-sounding, great-feeling radio singles.

Truth is, you make albums, and some of those songs are hits, and some of the greatest hits albums have songs that weren't hits. You have a career, the reason why we're still around 10 years is that we do have successful songs.

I come from a time when pop music was the coin of the cultural realm and in a certain way was the only coin of the realm; movies didn't matter as much, and not TV - it was all about pop music. In the era when I started - which was the early '60s - it was all about singles leading to albums.

There are so many things to think about when you make an album. Like, who am I trying to impress? Am I going to get respect, critical acclaim? Or am I going to sell lots of records?

I feel like I'd like to continue putting out records and start putting them out more rapidly than I have until now and for me if I can keep selling the records to the fans that already like me that's fine.

Dance music is Madonna's base. It's what she likes, it's what she listens to. It's not anything other than that. She doesn't read what's on the charts. And if it's on time, great. This is who she is.

Nowadays people sell millions of records that can't sing.

My first record came out in 1961 and then I had one come out in 1962 and then I had two that came out in 1964.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

I mean in recent years, I think you've only got to sell thirty or forty thousand to get a #1.

Our managers hadn't had that kind of success - the record company hadn't, we hadn't - and the feeling was that the next record had to be even bigger, and if it wasn't it would be some kind of failure.

My hits are not hits.

As long as you're giving up quality records and you're makin' hit records, people are always gonna want to hear a hit, and they'll always want to be attached to something that's doin' great.

In the '80s, the way radio was programmed, if you didn't have a hit record you weren't going to be able to make any more records. That was it, period.

I have sold 120 million records. Half of those could be in Europe.

A lot of my die-hard fans think I have a lot of hits, but I don't.

When I started playing music, people weren't selling 5 million records. That was not the standard; that was not the focus.

The only thing I think of is the next hit record.