Niche Music Quotes

We're not really an underground band anymore, and we're not a mainstream band, either.

I never wrote music for the mainstream.

The style of music that we're playing, this progressive metal style, has always been an upstream battle for us. We don't usually get a lot of commercial exposure.

In the early and mid 1990s, every musician I knew was obsessed with Helium. The 'Pirate Prude' EP and 'Pat's Trick' played on repeat at nearly every gathering I attended. And we didn't just listen to these records - we discussed them, the worlds they opened, novelistic and strange.

As a DJ, it's my job to break new music. And instead of it just being the stuff that's coming from the major labels or the big pop records, I've always gravitated to something that's just different, you know?

The online musical universe has become Balkanized, with many sites focusing on minute niches. That works well for reaching very specific demographics, which is wonderful for advertising, but it flies in the face of the common wisdom that people's tastes have become more diverse as music of any description has become a mouse-click away.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

Through the Internet and technology, anyone can now seek out any artist, composer or undefined niche of music they find interesting. All on their own, without even having to stand up or go anywhere.

I don't want to make niche-oriented music.

It's not really into the big mass movement in music that I want to do, you know.

You know, the BBC had not been particularly generous in its deliverance of blues and esoteric kinds of music.

It's very natural for me to sing in English and have a tabla in an arrangement, to have hip-hop beats but sing in Tamil. It's very niche but I love doing it.

My music isn't mainstream music.

I'm drawn to the stuff that's maybe a little bit on the fringe. Part of that is just practical sometimes. We can't compete with the major labels for some acts, so you figure, "Okay, what could I introduce to people, or what do I like that is within my means?"

I feel that the music that I do is somewhat of a lost art and it's not as popular as dance or pop music and people are not as interested in it. But it's something that I believe in and I feel that it's needed, so that's why I do it and I will keep doing it until everybody hears it and gets it.

We've been allowed to operate unmolested on the fringes of the music scene, really. That's where we enjoy it most.

Most of the music I'm into wasn't popular when it was being made.

Dave Van Ronk is not an obscure figure. He's the biggest figure on an obscure scene, playing a kind of niche music that we knew and liked.

When I was a kid, I would go to the record store, where there was a bin of things they didn't know quite how to classify. Those were my choices. That's where you would find Captain Beefheart or an early electronic album.