Charles Bradley Quotes

What we do is wake up every morning and think about how we get more music out to people; how do we get better music? We breathe, eat, and sleep music.

I may just keep releasing singles 'til I run out of music, which is kind of cool in a way - as long as people don't go, 'Oh my God, not another one!'

I feel that when I listen to music - not that it's bad - it's not emotional. It has a gimmick to it. It's selling something: the artist, the producer, something. The emotional capacity is very small, for the listener as well.

People aren't taking their time with the music no more. There's less quality in the records.

A lot of people were getting million-dollar deals from music I felt was trash, because their videos were going viral. I wanted to put out music that had soul, because that's what was missing.

My advice to young people wanting to make music and to be in this industry is to really spend your time making music. Make so much music you have no friends. Make music. Figure out what it is you love, and... because if you're making cool art, then everything else will fall into line.

Sometimes you get so jaded, you don't have those initial connections and emotions with music, because you are promoting your own.

Because of things like iTunes and streaming and social networking, it's destroyed music. It's destroyed the motivation to go out there and really make the best record possible. It's a shame.

The more people who come from musical backgrounds and go into promotion, production, songwriting, A&R, plus get their business head together, the better. They'll not only understand the business aspect, they'll also have a true passion and ear for how quality is represented musically.

You can't just release double albums and expect people to sit there and devote their time to it.

There are certainly good examples of incredibly brilliant, beautiful music that has been made commercially available and sold everywhere. But I would say that, for the most part, quantity certainly does not speak well for quality.

Music is always going to be only as sophisticated as the culture that consumes it.

The music business is really a spiritual business whether we know it or not.

A lot of pop music is based on trying to make people remember it so that they'll buy it. To me, it was not about that.

Finally, I would like to remind record companies that they have a cultural responsibility to give the buying public great music. Milking a trend to death is not contributing to culture and is ultimately not profitable.

I'm a lot less precious than I used to be about putting things out, for better or for worse. The result of a public that has a very high consumption rate and turnover rate is people listen to more music but spend less time with individual bits of music.

The iPod has taken away the whole platinum record sales prospect. Sincerity and specificity are going to be the hot commodities in music. Everybody can have anything that they want, so now it gets into what specifically you have to give.

TLC was so real and authentic. And that's music as a whole. When it's an artist, and it comes from the heart, and that's really who you are, the fans attach to that.

I guess I would definitely feel a bit of a void in what people are getting from music these days. And I think that the problem lies not so much on the listener. People kind of listen to what is presented to them, whether it be on the radio or at a local venue.

I think people were just starving for good material because they just weren't getting it on the radio.

I don't need a sensationalized headline to sell music or to bring attention to my music. It's the music and it's always been about the music.

Have you listened to the radio lately? Have you heard the canned, frozen and processed product being dished up to the world as American popular music today?

I once wrote on my MySpace profile that music is never authentic. It was a reaction to constantly reading the word 'authentic' in connection with bands. But what does that mean? A baby crying after being pushed out of its mother's womb, now that's what I'd call authentic.

I'm confused that there is a lack of faith in listening to and deciding what is a great song and instead going for these formulaic, bad songs over and over again. But that's what happened when people from beverage companies bought record labels and radio stations as opposed to people who love music owning record labels.

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