Paul McCartney Quotes

I don't really set out to please anybody, and I don't think I ever have. I have occasionally been encouraged to try to write something specifically for the purpose of releasing it as a single to get radio play. Those are not my best songs, as a rule.

I don't feel I'm making a conscious effort to go more commercial.

I'm very fussy about how my records sound, but I'm very aware that because of the way they sound, I will never be a big-selling, mainstream artist because the public has gotten conditioned to hearing pop music in a certain way. And I don't do it that way.

Starship was a whole different thing. It was pop rock. It made more money and had more hit songs than Airplane. There was no cultural or social ethic behind it. For me, it was like selling out. I was the only one selling out. The rest enjoyed doing what they were doing.

I have always been a singer/songwriter, and I was pushed in places I didn't want to do, like pop or top forty. I don't belong there.

I don't think it's so hard to be commercial and interesting. Look at Prince, or Neil Young.

I can't just make a song people can dance in a club to... it still has to be real.

I don't make records that way, where I'm trying to please the marketplace or anything. Not because I have anything against that, it's just never been a part of my aesthetic, even when I was with the Pixies.

If one artist sells five million albums, the tendency is for other artists to say, 'Maybe I should do a little of that, too.' That can be tough to resist.

When you make a movie outside the system and it's successful critically or a moderate financial success, you usually have to go back into the system and make a big hit.

Record companies tell me to play something more commercial, but I don't want to do anything else.

I'm going to make the music I make regardless and it's always going to be driven by rhythm and blues and hopefully it becomes popular. But I don't cater to, like, 'OK, I want to make music that's going to fit in this pop world or go on the charts, etcetera, etcetera.' Hopefully, enough people like it so it becomes popular.

We spent a couple of years trying to be what we thought people wanted us to be, what the press thought we should be, doing what the company wanted. Finally we just said 'Sod it. This is what we do best. We're best at making pop records that people enjoy and having fun and entertaining them.'

Writing a play to get to Broadway and have a national tour is a sure way to write a terrible, terrible play.

In general, I love dance-pop music with some soul and a dash of R&B.

'Push It,' to me, was very pop. And back then, you were called 'sell-out' to be pop.

People will always have the desire to make rock and roll records, and they'll always have the desire to sell rock and roll records. Most of the people making these records do it because it is a business, and if someone says, "You can't do this", they won't complain. They'll just keep making records, but they'll get blander and blander. There'll still be rock and roll, but compared to what it really could be or ought to be, I don't think it'll be all that terrific.

In a way, to have whatever people talk about as "crossover success," I think it means you start making bad music. I mean, when I'm flipping through the channels and see the VMAs or something, I don't really see any music there.

I don't think I'd be able to flat-out write a pop song and make it satisfying to me. I'm ready to make a consistent sound in whatever way I can.

Well, it'll always be disco/electro-pop. That's what I first wanted to do when I started out as a musician in 1977. It's only ever been dance-pop that I've wanted to do.

I went mainstream in a major way with the song "Let's Dance." And what I found I had done was put a box around myself. It was very hard for people to see me as anything other than the person in the suit who did "Let's Dance," and it was driving me mad - because it took all my passion for experimenting away.

It'd be negligent to say that I don't want to be at the top of the charts. Of course I do, it's proof that your song is being heard. But I think it's more about the work for me and being proud of what I'm doing in music than what people think about my music. I want to like my music before you like it. I don't want to sell anything that I don't really like. I don't want to sell myself short just to get to the top of the charts. It doesn't feel that great. Feeling proud of your work feels greater than being at the top of the charts.

As I look back, I understand what [the record company] was getting at. They were trying to market a record and make it as commercially acceptable as possible. It hurt me and my credibility with critics.

Christina Aguilera has her own style, so good on her. I don't think anyone's every told her to put on some leather chaps and get her noonie out. She's an amazing singer but a lot of her music I can't even hear.

I've turned down songs that would be much easier to play on the radio that I don't think should be on the album. Maybe I've shot myself in the foot.