Music A&R Quotes

I've never been - I don't think I'm, like, a great A&R by any means. I don't even know production lingo, in all honesty.

I'll never take any credit for Lady Gaga or Katy Perry's success. But I knew within a month that Gaga was going to be huge.

If it wasn't for Al Kooper, there might not be a Lynyrd Skynyrd. He's the one who found us at Pinocchio's in Atlanta, Georgia, and signed us to Sounds Of The South through MCA, brought the band to attention.

There are people that bring artists to me to look at it and it's a question of whether I like their music and their look and if I think there's something they have that makes them different and commercial.

I don't want to be judged next to guys like Suge Knight. I want to be measured next to David Geffen, Irving Azoff, and Clive Davis. Whether I measure up or not, I let my record speak for me. That's how I want to be judged - by what I've done, not by what people like Ice Cube and Dr. Dre have said about me.

My producer, Michael Knox, he's kind of my eyes and ears on Music Row. While I'm out on the road, he's looking for songs, and then he and I will get together and go over songs.

The only biography I read was about Al Bell, of Stax Records. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Al Bell.

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.

There are pop managers, and then there's Simon Cowell, who isn't gay, Jewish or particularly riveting. He's not without interest but he doesn't exactly have the hinterland of, say, Brian Epstein.

I walk by studio heads and they actually look and put their hand out now, like maybe I should be on their radar.

I don't think any of us can compete with Cowell. He is the best at what he does.

Me and Future recorded so many songs that as soon as we did 'Honest,' I liked it a lot, but I didn't see it as a single. But he just kept talking about it after we did it like, 'Man, this is big. This is big. It's gonna be a single.'

I didn't feel comfortable as an executive. I felt comfortable around artists and record producers... and then I found my niche: I gotta find great producers, and I produce them.

Rick Rubin is interesting. He doesn't wear shoes, I think? No wait, he wears shoes.

We don't sign an artist to fill a void, ever. I'll never find a Taylor Swift. You can't find a new Madonna, you cannot find a Prince, a Bob Marley, a John Lennon. You won't find another Kanye West. We simply deal with people as they walk in, and we say we either love them or we don't.

I met Rick Rubin through Cat Collins, a DJ friend of mine that had worked for Rubin at American Recordings.

I want to make sure that I sign dope artists, old and new, just to make sure that we come up with something new and creative.

Dave Fortman really helped me appreciate Rick Rubin as a producer.

What has happened is that to some degree they have taken an attitude where they don't listen to demos of diverse subject matters. They're looking for demos like the record the guy on the left just did.

There's the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: He's supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs you've been recording and then say, 'Guys, I don't hear any singles.' And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one.

My husband works in the music industry and he's always the first to know about great new bands, so I end up seeming really with it because I'll be listening to an up-and-coming band before everyone else hears about it.

He asked my girlfriend if we could come over and sing some of the songs that we had written, which we did. After he heard the songs, he said that he knew someone in the record business by the name of Bob Shad.

Basically, I'm one of the greatest producers ever. And I'm also one of the greatest DJs ever. And I'm also one of the best executives ever.