Record Company Quotes

• You're just one of the guys who fills a suit, and that's what's drilled into you by the record company and the management - 'You're lucky to have it. Now shut your mouth.' I get where that comes from, but it takes time to shake it off.

  

  Ronan Keating Boyzone
  • Management
  • Guys
  • Drilled

• Now, this meeting would have taken place in mid-to-late 2004, over two years after we started recording, and a lot happened between that summit and the album coming out. One of them was that terrible tsunami in Indonesia on Boxing Day. Because of that, the record company got cold feet on Barney’s cover image, fearing a possible media backlash, and Alan Parkes from Warners had to go to Pete’s studio, pleading with him to do another sleeve. Pete was insistent. ‘No, I don’t want to do one. I don’t want to do it,’ but Alan was just as persistent, until at last Pete got fed up and wrote ‘NO’ on a piece of paper, gave it to Alan and said, ‘There’s my answer,’ and Alan went, ‘That’ll do,’ and took it. I like it. I think it’s one of his best sleeves.

  

  Peter Hook New Order
  • Answer
  • Persistent
  • Sleeves

• When I was getting ready to put out my first album, the record company told me my name, James Oppenheim, wasn’t very marketable, and they’d heard of my nickname. It still took me a good two weeks to decide to use it. And all my writing credits on my albums are still my legal name.

  

  Boney James
  • Decide
  • Nickname
  • Credits

• Our managers hadn't had that kind of success - the record company hadn't, we hadn't - and the feeling was that the next record had to be even bigger, and if it wasn't it would be some kind of failure.

  

  Roland Gift Fine Young Cannibals
  • Failure
  • Managers
  • Record Company

• I won't necessarily make new music because when you make a record there are these great expectations on the side of the record company who are going to produce your record, promoters that are going to do your shows. They want you to do interviews, they want you to play shows. I mean, they want it to be a campaign.

  

  Black Francis Pixies
  • Music
  • Interviews
  • Campaign

• It is true that the record company are always thinking of new ways to flog New Order to people.

  

  Stephen Morris New Order
  • Record Company
  • New Way
  • Flog

• I suppose it was karma that Substance would then turn out to be our biggest-selling album ever; we gave away our biggest-selling record to the record company at a reduced cost – for no reason other than they couldn’t pay us for the other ones at the full rate because of bad management.

  

  Peter Hook New Order
  • Management
  • Karma
  • Record Company

• It's always push and pull with a record company.

  

  Mike McCready Pearl Jam
  • Record Company
  • Push And Pull

• The record company didn't know what we looked like at first. They were all excited about our tapes.

  

  Morten Harket A-ha
  • Excited
  • Record Company
  • Tapes

• Our first single wasn't put out by any big-name record company. We had been playing in clubs for a while and we wanted to put out an EP. None of the record companies would have us. They told us that our type of rock and roll wasn't happening. We decided to show 'em they were wrong, so we recorded the stuff on our own and put it out on our own private label, Bludgeon Riffola Records. When it started to sell a lot of copies, the record companies 'suddenly' discovered us. It was strange, but we felt vindicated.

  

  Steve Clark Def Leppard
  • Single
  • Discovered
  • Decided

• As crises came up later on - "Oh, we have to compromise, and the record company wants to do this," I'd be like, "No, I don't have to."

  

  Neil Peart Rush
  • Crisis
  • Compromise
  • Record Company

• The American record company Geffen got so fed up with me that they said they weren't going to release my fourth record unless I gave it some title. So it was called 'Security' in America, and it had no title everywhere else in the world.

  

  Peter Gabriel Genesis
  • Record Company
  • Geffen

• At the record company meeting Paul just kept mithering on about what we were going to do, so in the end I just said, 'I think you're daft. I want a divorce.'

  

  John Lennon The Beatles
  • Divorce
  • Paul
  • Record Company

• The fans like the idea we do what we want. It's not an act. Screw the record company and the beaten path. Without MTV or radio, we still have a huge underground following.

  

  James Hetfield Metallica
  • Fans
  • Radio
  • Record Company

• The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.

  

  Paul Simon Simon & Garfunkel
  • Way
  • Finished
  • Record Company

• I talked to the record company about what I had in mind. They said they wanted something lush. I figured the best thing to do was let them hear what I had in mind.

  

  Etta James
  • Mind
  • Record Company
  • Lush

• Artists and the traditional record company model are at odds. The music business has notoriously taken from the artist. That shouldn't be the narrative.

  

  Steve Stoute
  • Artist
  • Model
  • Record Company