Commercial Pressure Quotes

And for the past 10 years I've been in a real commercial setting where people are all about numbers, they're all about that bottom line. So it's nice to step out of that and hang out with a bunch of people who play music just because they love it, as you can imagine.

That's just the way the world's going - everything has to be so instantly commercial that it kills anything that's a little bit underground instantly.

I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep. I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down.

In my music career, I never was interested in working and writing and creating songs based on what kind of rewards I could receive in return - a hit song, per se, is what most contemporary artists have to deal with when they deal with a label.

At the end of OK Computer we were playing big, big arenas and it wasn't right. You can do those things occasionally but at the time it didn't feel right.

When any young director gets hired by a studio to do a $125 million film based on a preexisting piece of intellectual property, they're climbing into the meat grinder. And what you're coming out with on the other side is a generic, heavily studio-controlled pile of garbage that ends up on the side of Burger King wrappers.

Our society and media have lost touch with the job of the artist. The job of the artist has been subordinated to the job of the record seller.

The music business is a crazy game, especially for somebody like me who is really a purist about the art. Trying to balance the pressures of commercialism, it's a tightrope. It's a fine line between sticking to your guns and insanity.

I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.

There are thousands of great artists that wouldn't be doing the same kind of work if there were no music business machine. The ones who are popular would be doing much different work, too. Michael Bolton would be pumping gas.

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 write songs thinking about formats, where is it going to get played, who am I gonna please, what's the outlet for it.

Trying to make a movie like 'Warcraft,' and trying to do it in a unique way... you get killed by a death of 1,000 cuts.

My good films were independent and my bad films were not.

Who really needs a new album from me?

Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces around him rather than artistic integrity doesn't know the guy or the body of his work.

When I'm dealing with Britney Spears and Katy Perry, these massive brands, like, really, very Coca-Cola, you know what I mean? There are certain kinds of standards. There are risks you can take, and there's risks that you don't. And I think I'm interested in taking a little more risk in my own music.

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

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.

I didn't want to be on a major label. I wanted all the attention and the noise to go away because I wanted to be something a little bit more substantial.

Major labels don't want to take chances on cooler, indie kind of things. People only know, unfortunately, what they're being spoon-fed.

I don't want to be owned by a corporation and obliged to make a certain type of album. I want to be free.

I needed to be sexier. I needed to be more hip. I needed to be more edgy and this and that. 'No, don't write that kind of song, write this type of song. No, don't work with that producer, work with this producer. No, don't wear those clothes, wear these clothes.' And I didn't want to be a puppet, you know?

Many musicians will say they don't care about the money yet they must commit themselves to appear at given times and places, and to produce what sells, whether they believe in it or not. It depends on contracts.