Mel Tillis Quotes

The record business has always mystified me. Sometimes there are reasons why things sell or don't sell that can't be understood by mere mortals.

How about no one's ever going to outsell Michael Jackson at selling records because the record industry is over. Game over. There's no more record stores. With no more record stores there's no more pressing plants. With no more pressing plants, there's no more charts.

I think records are irrelevant, but I'm being approached about it all the time. If I could avoid it, that would be great.

People don't really buy records anymore, so record companies won't invest in bands like us. They want cookie-cutter acts.

Because record companies do not routinely release sales figures the way film studios do, the weekly charts in trade publications like 'Billboard' provide the best independent measure of record appeal.

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

I grew up in the era of the concept album. What I do now is pick up on singles, and they are their own complete stories; you don't necessarily have to hear the rest of the album because I don't think albums are created like that anymore. They get songs from all over the place.

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.

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.

D.C. is one my largest audiences. They buy tons of records of mine in Washington, D.C.

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.

Chart numbers can be deceiving. An album doesn't have to sell that much these days to show up really high on the charts.

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

I think the pop chart today is entirely market-driven. And it has nothing to do with public taste. And it has nothing to do with moving music forward. It's simply a market chart.

I'm making music for the people. If y'all love the music, y'all gonna buy the music.

Of course, I want to sell this record - there's no point making it otherwise.

I grew up in the day when the Beatles sold 1 million singles in a week. And all you've got to do now is sell about 10,000 singles and you're in the charts.

My father would make record after record, and he'd be so surprised at what would sell and what wouldn't.

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

When I started playing music, people weren't selling 5 million records. That was not the standard; that was not the focus.

If I had to live on record sales, I'd be pushing up the daisies.

We were lucky in the days of Led Zeppelin. Each album was different. We didn't have to continue a formula or produce a certain number of singles. Because, in those days, radio was still playing albums. That was really good.

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.

Selling a million records used to be a big deal. I guess it's not anymore.