Mark Ronson Quotes

I was kicked off a record label and didn't get picked up again. It was devastating at first because I thought, 'Oh my God. My career is over. What's gonna happen? What am I going to do?' Once I got that I could have a career, a very good career, without having a hit record, then I changed.

I feel confident that the work I've put in will make people see me as a music artist before anything else.

My stage name has always been 'Armin van Buuren.' When I really started DJ'ing professionally, I already had a few U.K. hits under my belt under the name 'Armin', so I couldn't really change that anymore.

I've been working in the music industry since I was 15 years old, and I feel like I've always been ahead of my time.

It only took me six months to get a record deal, but it took me 20 years to have a hit.

Even before I got the record deal, I never really used singing to get girls. I always felt weird about that.

When the 'greats of all-time' put out their first albums, it wasn't a thousand features on it. And I'm one of the greats in my eyes.

All I can say is that I've had too many people in the hip-hop industry really like what I'm doing. I know where I'm coming from, and the album speaks for itself.

So there was a way for you to get promoted and survive as an artist without worrying about AM radio hits.

I guess I've been making records since I was 16, and even when 50 people bought them, I thought that was amazing.

I've only had one platinum album, and it's 'Red River Blue'.

First of all, I've been having a wonderful run of luck with cover albums, songs I didn't write. I had five pop cover albums and two Christmas albums, and they were all very successful.

With the 'Silly Boy' track, I mean, people knew about it, but it wasn't really like, 'oh that's Eva Simons.' But when 'Take Over Control' came out, that's when people started to get interested in me personally, which is great because it was something I really believed in.

YouTube was really good for building a kind of core, loyal fanbase. I didn't want to be a YouTube artist as such. I mean, there are people who are able to release albums and live off YouTube, but I felt - and not in an arrogant way - that I could be commercial and credible if I really put my mind to it.

When I was 13, I told my dad I needed to record myself because I sounded awesome, even though I didn't. By 18, I was a lot better. Then I got a publishing deal, so I was writing songs for other people professionally.

I'm never doing a new album. I'll probably do nothing but singles. I'm as good as anybody out there lyrically and conceptually and can go toe to toe with the best of them throughout history. But I don't know how much longer I'll be doing it. It's not really fun anymore.

A song is a song and a hit record can change a life.

It is never easy for anyone to have success in music.

When you are in your 20's and 30's, you just want a hit record and you don't really care how it happens.

I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.

It's funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: 'So, what does it take to make it?' Well, first explain to me what you mean by 'making it': Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?

Bad Religion took a long time to develop into gold-record-status artists. Along the way we learned and applied our knowledge, and Atlantic helped us every step of the way, since 1993.

After two years in the songwriting world, I wrote 'All About That Bass.' L.A. Reid heard it and signed me as an artist.

We had this budding baby band going and we hadn't reached that development we wanted to reach before we got signed to a major label.