Grandmaster Flash Quotes

'Vinyl' is a good look at the music industry. The script was honest.

Artists were nurtured back in the '70s. Their music was developed by the record companies.

We have incredible record labels in Australia, but sometimes they have a preconceived idea of how to do things.

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.

It seemed record companies wanted bands to be creative because they didn't know how to manufacture underground music. We could do our own thing and go at our own pace. But that changed when major labels started wanting bands that would sell 7 million records.

'Magic' is a word that's too often misused in the record industry.

They say the music you listen to in your formative years stays with you and leaves an impression for the rest of your life. For me, the things that I fell in love with happened in the '70s, when artists were nurtured by record companies and it wasn't about singles.

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

I become more seasoned, it's less interesting to try and compete in the pop market.

This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.

Artist development is something that I've been passionate about from my days at Uptown and Motown Records.

In the early 1970s. 1971, '72. The rooms were closing down, record labels weren't signing acoustic acts any more. Although they had been pretty much been getting out of that for some time before that.

I think the big studios shaped and formed the artists that they put under contract.

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 basically lables were more interested in a Richard Page record than a Mr. Mister record.

I always wanted to run a major label, and I feel like I got the skills to do that. The one thing about me is that I won't sit behind a desk the whole time - I'll go to the clubs and see what's hot.

I was never in the business of trying to put my name out there - I was really focused on music and records and being in the studio.

Doing things in my day was simple: you either signed to a big label or you signed to a very small label, and you worked with that one, and then they eventually signed you on to a big one.

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

There are people who are genetically made to start record labels, and I'm not one of those people. People just have it in their blood and are good at it. Corey Rusk from Touch and Go and Ian MacKaye. These are people who have made their own labels.

When I was a kid and putting out my first records, there was a lot made out of the fact that the '50s/'60s generation was so dominant.

I went through a string of A&R men who all thought I should be doing something different. One thought I should be a dance diva; another thought I should do Rock n' Roll; and one thought I shouldn't even be singing at all!

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.

If it wasn't for the TLC story, many artists would not have smartened up, and you wouldn't have the Lil Waynes and people with their own labels.