Rhiannon Giddens Quotes

I think that music is still art, even if it's commercialised.

Commercial music, for the most part, is popular music and you always have to keep that in mind.

I think it's a reflection of the music business in general, which to me seems very fragmented.

England's a small nation, and the pop music industry is built on fashion.

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

Pop music I have always loved best. But the more extreme, fascist-led examples of the music business I tend to detest the most.

I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records, maybe you're meant to cater to another market.

There is no everlasting power in the music of today. Everyone is running after record sales.

The most important single fact about pop music in the Nineties, is the number of hours made commercially available increased by an estimated factor of ten.

Recorded music is more a marketing tool than a revenue source.

Well it's because the record companies are pumping away with their commercial stuff. I think it's a shame.

There were a lot of times where there was a great deal of fodder recorded and played, because there was a market for it - just as there is today. And there were more bad bands than there were good bands - I think that should always be remembered.

I think that's the problem in a lot of music. We've got these record labels.

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.

Music and the music business are two different things.

With pop music, the format dictates the form to a big degree. Just think of the pop single. It has endured as a form even in the download age because bands conform to a strict format, and work, often very productively, within the parameters.

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.

The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

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 think the pop industry is still a young man's game.

Nowadays, you have to sell, like, half a million or a million records just to break even.

The biggest problem is always getting hits. That's the one thing that has never changed. The way of delivering music has changed, the way of listening to it has changed, the way of distributing it has changed, but it's always the music.

There are musicians who want to make a living making music. There are listeners who want to listen to music. Complicating this relationship is a whole bunch of history: some of the music I want to listen to was made a while ago in a different economy. Some of the models of making a living making music are no longer valid but persist.

Independent artists and labels have always been the trend setters in music and the music business.

The whole format of entertainment that I did seems to be fading away. The music business of today is completely different when you see the videos and the music.