Music Industry Evolution Quotes

I think the music business is changing. Artists that don't want to tour and just want to collect royalty checks and stay home are not going to be able to do that.

Music is what is going to save me," "On the bad days, when I have to look at the cold, hard facts of life, I see that this is not the music business I came up in and I have to be very, very objective and detached and say, 'what's good about it and what's bad about it?' Mostly, I'm finding it good that it's not the same old music business, because the music business I came up in really didn't advance anything I was doing, and I don't think it was particularly kind to a lot of artists.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

Look at the New Kids on the Block, the Back Street Boys and *NSYNC... all those boy bands happened because of New Edition.

Music has changed. You can just throw songs out on iTunes song by song; you don't have to do a whole album.

Now, with the Internet, you're either five years ahead or you're five years behind, and the music game is catchin' up right now.

Veteran performers are dying off, and new acts simply aren't emerging on the national scene.

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.

To see a lot of the smaller labels disappear or get gobbled up by the bigger labels, that's a shame. It was a bit of a shock at first to see the demise of the record stores.

I feel like I've survived so much, and been through so much. And sometimes I miss the innocence of those times. Life was different. New York was different. The music business was different. I miss the simplicity of it, the naivete of everyone around me.

Our business has changed so much. Do people even want albums, or do they just buy singles now? You sort of feel like you're the last guy manufacturing VCRs... but I really like albums, and so I like doing them. I'll be the last one making them, even when no one's buying them.

I remember when I got into movies, the only way singers could be heard was to through playback singing in movies. Then gradually came the music companies promoting independent pop singers.

Back in the day people made music to go on tour. They didn't make music to make a video.

I think that music has always been restricted to media. The LP is an antiquated form, and the CD is now an antiquated form, and there's no sense grieving. Music is forever, there will always be songs. It's exciting that we're not limited to the media any more. I don't hold a precious view of my work, that it exists outside of social constructs or the confines of a platform.

When I was a kid growing up in the '60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebellion. It was more about individualism. Today it's just like a big business.

The world has accelerated to the point that, as far as the album as a form, I don't know if it's going to last that much longer.

You have to be able to grow and move with the organism that is the music industry. You need to maintain flexibility. Ownership of your own stuff is key and then you're able to dictate on a present-terms basis what would be the most effective way to protect yourself and what you've created. You also don't want to lock yourself into a situation where a major label owns part of your touring and merchandise.

There's a whole apparatus for indie bands now, but back in the eighties it was just getting built. The early people really took it on the chin.

I was part of the first wave of singer/songwriters but I was also in that first wave of singer/songwriters who experienced the music industry when technology started to take over.

I don't feel like the album format is sacred anymore, and things have got to change. I don't listen to music in terms of albums anymore. I've got a short attention span.

When the music business failed to embrace the Internet, I thought it was game, set and match for the industry, and I quit.

I just keep my ear to the street. I haven't read any music books recently, because I figure I read everything I need to know back when I was 12, 13 years old. I know pretty much everything about record publishing, radio stations. The only thing that's changed is you gotta keep up with social media. It's free promotion.

I think right now, you've seen these artists pop up over the last decade who've flirted with branching together a lot of different kinds of music. Some of them have been huge, and sold millions of records. And I think over time it's become a little bit of what the industry can be.

The music business has made a 360. It's a whole 'nother game. It's not nearly what it was. And I fear for it, because, you know, with the advent of the computer and online and downloading and all these things, they have destroyed - that stuff has destroyed the record business, not the music business, but the record business. The music business is well, and it's alive and thriving. Now, I hope something happens to turn it back around to the point whereas it's - you're earning a living from writing your songs, from your work, you know, because it's not like that anymore.

Selling MP3s or physical copies, it's still cool, but I think it's slowly becoming outdated to where people just want to build a culture. The culture's what you're selling at this point.