Daniel Ek Quotes

My advice to young people wanting to make music and to be in this industry is to really spend your time making music. Make so much music you have no friends. Make music. Figure out what it is you love, and... because if you're making cool art, then everything else will fall into line.

I think there is a big difference between the music business and music. And my relationship is to music, not music business. I think the business will keep changing, but music won't. Music will be there.

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 is the one part of the entertainment business where you can't fool anybody into buying a record.

It used to be that creative music was most of the music that you heard back in the '30s and '40s, and now it's like 3 percent. So, its kind of a struggle getttin' it out there.

I am making good music, and I want people to listen to it.

Sometimes you get so jaded, you don't have those initial connections and emotions with music, because you are promoting your own.

My father was interested in bringing reggae music to the entire world.

Because of things like iTunes and streaming and social networking, it's destroyed music. It's destroyed the motivation to go out there and really make the best record possible. It's a shame.

I guess I've been making records since I was 16, and even when 50 people bought them, I thought that was amazing.

If your music is great, you will have fans, not because you have spent time chatting on social media.

I think music will thrive where it wants to.

It is one thing to record an album but it's a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.

Music is always going to be only as sophisticated as the culture that consumes it.

I started writing music when I was 15 in my bedroom, and I'd post them on MySpace, and from there it shifted to doing covers on YouTube and building my Twitter.

Playing music is just one of the best things. I can't retire.

Napster is great so long as they put out tracks on there that have been officially released. I don't really mind people downloading my music; I also see it as a compliment. And if you are a real music lover, you want to have the original CD anyway 'cause then you feel more connected to the artist.

Distribution has really changed. You can make a record with a laptop in the morning and have it up on YouTube in the afternoon and be a star overnight. The talent on YouTube is incredible, and it can spread like wildfire. The downside is that it's very hard to convince the younger generation that they should pay for music.

The music business is really a spiritual business whether we know it or not.

I'm a lot less precious than I used to be about putting things out, for better or for worse. The result of a public that has a very high consumption rate and turnover rate is people listen to more music but spend less time with individual bits of music.

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.

As musicians, and as people who sell material for people to hear and absorb, it's important that we use that voice wisely.

I don't even listen to the records after they come out. It's outlawed in my house. My wife and my kids can't play any of my music around me. Once it comes out, for me, it's just business. Numbers.

The work I've done through my Common Culture Music series has enabled me not only to share my joy of music at scale but also promote the artists I love.

I have no desire to make money off musicians. I just want to promote them because I want to share music.