Win Butler Quotes

The fact that people still know us is, in my opinion, a result of our music and of the big money that runs the music industry today. The people who control the industry are accountants who recycle everything in new, nostalgic packages, and everything else, to make more money.

Major labels didn't start showing up really until they smelled money, and that's all they're ever going to be attracted to is money-that's the business they're in- making money.

Pop music is created by repression - and then the system takes it and makes even more money with it!

Gone are the days when Virgin Records was owned by Richard Branson, a fan of music. Now they're all owned by some guy who bought it off some guy who bought it off some guy who wants a return on his investment.

It's unfortunate that music has become such big business.

Unfortunately, music devolved instead of evolved. The music business got into the hands of lawyers and accountants rather than the entrepreneurial creative people, and that's when the beginning of the end started. It's all based on money instead of art and creativity.

What happened in the '70s was albums and concerts began making a hell of a lot more money, and then the suits got involved.

When no one's buying your records, it's easy to justify selling a song. But once you start selling records, you can't really justify having two songs in Cadillac commercials. It looks greedy. And it is greedy. This whole music thing should be about music.

I hate the industry even more now, no bands get nurtured anymore. Labels only spend money promoting acts they know will be Top Ten. I find it offensive spending $2 million on a video.

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

In my career, people in the record business have been rockin' in the same ol' boat. They all crooks - I'll say it clear and loud - especially the big ones.

If you earned money listening to music, I'd be a millionaire.

The bricks and mortar of the music business, they don't exist any longer.

I've never worried about how a new release will be received. I simply try to do the best I can and leave the rest to the gods. The music industry in those terms is something I loathe and detest. It conjures up images of a gigantic factory spewing out parts of the machine.

As music became more profitable in the 1990s, it seemed like it attracted a lot of people who were just interested in the financial aspect of it, which is depressing.

By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum.

The music business used to carry a certain amount of brotherly love, but it isn't that way now.

The Philadelphia/New York world of the music business is a tough place to be.

Kids are taking music for free all the time. They have Spotify, Pandora... The record companies aren't making the kind of music that they used to make. Artists make their money on tours, not from album sales.

Music is so hard. It's a struggle to get people to care. It's hard to make an impact in today's world because people aren't buying records anymore.

When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music... Now, record companies are run by lawyers and accountants.

I think the record industry has gotten to be more about labels wondering what the new single is rather than labels nurturing artists. It's gotten away from making a full album of music that someone would want to listen to all the way through.

A lot of record company people, even though they're our age, want to be perceived as young hip guys, and they're hurting the business.

Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big.

I think too much of the music industry is for the lawyer and accountant mentality.