John Oates Quotes

I don't feel like the album format is sacred anymore, and things have got to change. I don't listen to music in terms of albums anymore. I've got a short attention span.

Apple, iTunes, and streaming services have made the single a more easy thing to access. What that's done has made the album as a collection of songs almost meaningless. But an album that has a concept or story or reason to be an album, if anything, has more meaning now than it ever has.

People say, 'How's the record doing?' In the old days you'd say, 'We're at 600,000, it's doing great.' You don't say those things anymore. Those numbers are gone.

Our business has changed so much. Do people even want albums, or do they just buy singles now? You sort of feel like you're the last guy manufacturing VCRs... but I really like albums, and so I like doing them. I'll be the last one making them, even when no one's buying them.

I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs. Today, record companies are failing because they are putting their accent just on the young, and I think that's rather silly.

You used to make records, record companies sold them, and people went to record stores and bought them. That's all gone now.

The music industry is transforming fairly rapidly.

People who buy my records don't go into music stores - music stores which are fading before our very eyes.

The business has changed dramatically from what it was even just a few years ago. Music isn't even distributed the same way anymore. Even CDs are becoming a thing of the past. The Internet has made it easier to get my music out to anyone who wants it, but at the same time, I feel like we're losing the mystique.

Selling MP3s or physical copies, it's still cool, but I think it's slowly becoming outdated to where people just want to build a culture. The culture's what you're selling at this point.

I never thought radio would fizzle out.

Today's consumer is less interested in possessing things and more in experiencing them. That's something the music industry needs to get its head around. Do we even need record companies any more?

I have watched music go from an art form into an industry. And I have watched it stop dead in its tracks because of the digital age.

No one listens to CDs anymore. Who even owns a CD? I used to bring my CDs to shows, and it was, like, a guarantee that everyone would buy one. Nope! Not anymore.

Music has changed. You can just throw songs out on iTunes song by song; you don't have to do a whole album.

People don't buy records anymore. I don't know how people can support themselves.

I think the cool thing about being alive in 2017 is that you can literally put out music as soon and as frequently as you want to because of streaming services.

I come from the streaming world, so the changing trend of consuming music that way is positive for me.

There was no social media. There's not as many TV shows and magazines and things. Before you would release a single and you would go to HMV and do a signing and a performance, they don't even have HMV anymore.

In order to continue the growth, we have to go back to embracing technology and the way that people choose to consume music.

The world is changing, and the way we consume music is obviously changing. I was one of the biggest CD advocates you will find, but when Apple music and digital options came out, like for everyone else, it was more conducive to my lifestyle.

I had my own label, Rising Force Records, and made records, but had them distributed to the chains, to the retailers, but the retailers are gone - there's no physical sales anymore - so I'm not gonna make the CDs and have 'em put into trucks to go nowhere.

The way consumers interact with music is different now. It's not an albums business anymore; it's a singles business again, and the industry has gone through that before.

Corporate America couldn't be more excited about the demise of the record companies.

I think, as an artist, you definitely have to evolve. I've learned that that's very important. However, you have to stay true to yourself while also keeping up with the trends in music and this industry.