These record label quotes will inspire you. A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it.
Below you will find a collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging record label quotes, record label sayings, and record label proverbs.
Best Record Label Quotes
- “I started my own record label.” ~ Tom Felton
- “You can now be a master of your own destiny. I’m not sure why you would sign up with a record label.” ~ Sean Parker
- “The rise of the Internet has caused the demise of the record labels, and has destroyed the music business of old, but it’s also created new opportunities for young artists.” ~ Judy Collins
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“It is hard, though, ‘cos record labels love to boss you around. I won’t let them do that anymore.” ~ Evan Dando
- “I’ve had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, ‘Your music sucks, you don’t know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don’t know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'” ~ Bruno Mars
- “There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to university, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.” ~ Amanda Palmer
- “We have to wake up early and make songs everyday. I run my record label. You work at hours where your body isn’t designed to work. But it’s fun.” ~ A-Trak
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“I just have so much love for my record label.” ~ Katy Perry
- “I get bored easily, so I need to do a lot. I’ve started a record label, so I get to nurture new talent and talk about music, which is a passion of mine. I’ve written another book. And I get to come to work and do the TV show, which is always really fun.” ~ Ellen DeGeneres
- “I’ve always had a love for poetry and when I got signed to a record label I thought, ‘How odd that I’m doing a record before a book of poetry.'” ~ Jewel
- “If you ever want to know why I’m not on a record label, look at ‘The X Factor!’ Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.” ~ John Lydon
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“I’m going to keep proving people wrong, whether it’s my record label, other artists.” ~ Donnis
- “I had to learn the hard way. There was a blindness, without any education or will or drive. Everything I started in the beginning from skate shops to record labels to a million and one side hustles that I went in without knowing how I was going to do it, a lot of those ventures just went out of business.” ~ Rob Dyrdek
- “It is true you can be successful without [college], but this is a hard world, a real world, and you want every advantage you can have. I would suggest to people to do all that you can. When I dropped out of school, I had worked in the music industry and had checks cut in my name from record labels and had a record deal on the table, and when I wasn’t successful and Columbia said, ’We’ll call you,’ I had to go back and work a telemarketing job, go back to the real world, and that’s how life is. Life is hard. Take advantage of your opportunities.” ~ Kanye West
- “Record labels collude with some of the radio stations, and the radio stations have their playlists, dependent upon what they call the, quote, ‘hits.’ What’s commercially viable gets recycled, endlessly repeated, and as a result of that, the progressive music can’t break-in.” ~ Michael Eric Dyson
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“Record labels today are much less patient: Artists have a bad record, and they’re gone.” ~ Kenny Chesney
- “In theory, when you’re working with a record label, you’re just borrowing their money. And that’s basically how the record industry works, right? It’s like, you borrow $100,000 from a record label, so you don’t make any money until you make back that money for them. In theory, they have you held hostage, so you’ve got to do every little stupid thing that they want you to do.” ~ Patrick Carney , Record Label quotes money
- “Record labels, which used to have complete control, are essentially irrelevant. The process of a band exposing itself to the world is extremely democratic and there are no barriers. Music is no longer a commodity, it’s an environment or atmospheric element. Consumers have much more choice and you see people indulging in the specificity of their tastes dramatically more. They only bother with music they like.” ~ Steve Albini
- “The head of a record label sets up structures, but he also defines the sound of the label, which is to describe what is desirable, what fits and what is quality for that label and then to create an environment where that sound can thrive.” ~ John Kao
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“The means of control that record labels had vis-à-vis distribution no longer exist.” ~ Doug Walters
- “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that there’s no money in it. By that I mean the way the video business works now, the artist and the record label send out a song to a bunch of different directors and say, ‘What would you do with this?’ Then everyone has to come up with an idea and bid on it. For me, it’s like, ‘Hey, you want me to do it? Then pay me. I’m not auditioning for you.'” ~ John Landis
- “I learned how to take other people’s mechanisms of promoting their stuff through me as opposed to promoting my own stuff, as far as getting Snoop DeVilles, SnoopDeGrills, Snoop Doggy Dogg biscuits, Snoop Dogg record label, Snoop Dogg bubble gum, Snoop Youth Football League.” ~ Snoop Dogg
- “It doesn’t really matter to me what the rest of country is doing. I’m not caught up in trying to make a record that sounds like everybody else. That, to me, is a record label’s absolute biggest downfall.” ~ Joe Nichols
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“I don’t get involved in record label politics.” ~ Leona Lewis
- “We drank quite a lot and Tony Harrington said, “We’re thinking of starting a record label at The Wire; how about you do a solo record?” I said, “Well, how am I going to do that?” I thought about it, and I’d been working on a lot of music in the years before, and I was working as a journalist, full time, really, up until that point; in whatever little spare time I had, I was working on music. So I said yes.” ~ David Toop
- “I hate how I’ve had the mantle set on my shoulders as being against the record label. We’ve had some issues, but that is the nature of business.” ~ Sheryl Crow
- “When I first came to New York I was a dancer, and a French record label offered me a recording contract and I had to go to Paris to do it. So I went there and that’s how I really got into the music business. But I didn’t like what I was doing when I got there, so I left, and I never did a record there.” ~ Madonna Ciccone
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“I’d done recordings, little demos, since I was in college, which I used to get gigs. But I never thought I’d have a record label.” ~ Norah Jones
- “I have hundreds and hundreds of songs waiting to get on albums, but I don’t know about the three-month radio tours and if I’ll be interested in that. I haven’t figured it out, but I will definitely be doing music, whether it is independent or with a major record label.” ~ Jewel
- “I’m from Israel, so America has no limits. I started a record label, and then I started managing other artists, like Liza Minelli.” ~ Gene Simmons
- “A lot of people ask me, ‘How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?’ It’s because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they’re gonna say no to you, at least they’re gonna be polite about it.” ~ Taylor Swift
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“I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.” ~ Taylor Swift
- “The history of the Internet is, in part, a series of opportunities missed: the major record labels let Apple take over the digital-music business; Blockbuster refused to buy Netflix for a mere fifty million dollars; Excite turned down the chance to acquire Google for less than a million dollars.” ~ James Surowiecki
- “I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, ‘Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we’ll talk.'” ~ Taylor Swift
- “I have an independent record label called Favored Nations on which I released an album by an artist called Johnny A, who plays an arch top Gibson through a Marshall, but the tone is all in his fingers.” ~ Steve Vai
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“I was signed to a record label at the same time as my friend Elliot Murphy, who makes great records to this day.” ~ Bruce Springsteen
- “I think I’m a living embodiment of, ‘Don’t try to push me around or squash me,’ whether its how I talk to a record label or in my relationships.” ~ Bonnie Raitt
- “I had taken some of my solo music into the record label. They didn’t really care for the direction I was moving in and I found it really disheartening. They wanted a pop hit, which I understand in terms of making money. I get that. But what they were going to ask of me was something I wasn’t prepared to deliver and I felt kind of trapped. I just stopped writing. I just stopped. It was stifling.” ~ Shirley Manson
- “At my second record label, they told me and other female artists that some of us were going on the chopping block. I was 19… and it was devastating.” ~ Katy Perry
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“I hate record labels. They think they know everything. I want to hear them try to sing it.” ~ Jessica Simpson
- “Some record labels want to package you in a certain way and we didn’t want that. Once the record company saw we had some substance and were not a one hit wonder. They got 100% behind us.” ~ Christian Burns
- “Nowadays, it’s a lot more in the kids hands. You don’t really need a record label. You can get the money together yourselves. You can just do it through Myspace. There are bands that are huge, without record labels today. Now, I think it’s a lot more, in kids hands.” ~ Mattew Nicholls
- “My record producer [David Kahne] said the major record labels these days are like dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid. They know it’s going to hit. They don’t know when, they don’t know where it’s coming from. But it’s sort of hit already. With iTunes, and all of that.” ~ Paul McCartney
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“I left my record label, Polydor, by mutual agreement, but I’m going to carry on with my singing career.” ~ Alex Parks
- “The majors, they have to control the distribution, the record outlets, the radio and, in some cases, even the venues. And downloading and pirating have also put pressure on the majors.” ~ Roy Ayers
- “If a record label will sign you in order for you to be moulded into something that can make more money for them, then you should get out of there if you’re that artist.” ~ Matt Corby
- “Even though were not the most punk rock band, the way weve done things is pretty punk rock. Just kinda say it with a big middle finger to the record labels and do it ourselves.” ~ Brandon Thomas
- “I’m really thankful to have my own record label. I’ve always looked up to people like Madonna when she launched Maverick Records. Even Jay Z and Sean “Puffy” Combs, who’s a mentor and also gave me a shot when I was an independent artist in Atlanta. He came to my show, and he said, “I just want people to know about you.”” ~ Janelle Monae
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“If you don’t get substantially what you want, be ready to walk. And don’t look back.” ~ Norman Granz
- “When you become a commodity to a record label because you’re making them millions of dollars, you can take all of your artistic integrity and throw it out the window.” ~ Mark McGrath
- “Fans decide what pop culture is. We can define ourselves. Music and the presentation of art nowadays is totally in our control, with the Internet specifically. You no longer need record labels. You no longer need movie distribution companies. You can just make it and put it online, and it will distribute itself to millions of people. The borders and everything have been broken down. It really is in the hands of the people.” ~ Laura Jane Grace
- “I’ve started a little independent record label called ‘Six String Productions’ and recorded a couple of tunes, and I hope to do some more with some future artists next year. It’s a real passion project of mine.” ~ Tom Felton
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“Knowing record labels and knowing the kinds of things they would object to-they just object to everything that’s interesting.” ~ Aimee Mann
- “My record label, which is a huge record label who represents massive, massive stars – they’ve never done anything like this before, and they were so excited about this idea of an animated character which is singing legitimate music. It’s not a comedy record, it’s a legitimate record. And they really jumped on board. So, we’ve got our Facebook page up, we’ll be jumping on Twitter very soon, and sort of be creating Haley outside of American Dad.” ~ Rachael MacFarlane
- “I’ve always had to deal with being biracial, even in music. When I came on the scene, I’d go to these record labels, and they’d say things like, “Lenny Kravitz. That’s a weird name.” I’m brown-skinned and I’ve got these dreadlocks and I’ve got this Jewish last name.” ~ Lenny Kravitz
- “Every time I meet the CEO of a record label I tell them how they did it in the seventies because they want to know. I tell them, “Sign a hundred people! Throw it against the wall and see which ones stick!” And they frown and say, “Oh, we can’t do that!” and they start mumbling about demographics and this and that.” ~ Tony Visconti
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“I don’t have any pressure on myself. I don’t have a big record label backing me. I’m doing it all myself.” ~ Melanie Brown
- “We definitely needed to spend a good solid year just finding ourselves before anyone would even notice us. We had our fan-base growing around here in Los Angeles, but I wouldn’t even have wanted anyone to come out to see us that was from a record label or something like that at that time, because we really needed to feel ourselves out as a live band.” ~ Theresa Wayman
- “The big, big record labels have so much control. I think too much control that it actually made their artists scared to not do what they were told and then the music suffers because of that dynamic and now there’s the power of the download.” ~ Joss Stone
- “[Jack Johnson] became a superstar and started his own record label, and then he made and produced my first record, he co-wrote the songs on there, and then he let me open up for him for two years all around the world. And that was like the best start I could’ve had, the best way I could’ve started in the music scene.” ~ Donavon Frankenreiter
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“I hear some new artists that sound country but the record labels and country radio lean more toward a more rock feel for what gets signed to a label and played on the radio.” ~ George Jones
- “I was just thinking of Rush. I went to see Rush a few years ago, because my record label guy in the States really wanted to go. We had crazy good seats. It was fascinating watching the crowd – mostly men – who were so moved by these really esoteric lyrics. I don’t know Neil Peart’s lyrics super well, but they’re not that straightforward to me.” ~ Sarah Harmer
- “Willow [Smith] started making music first. I was like, “My younger sister is, like, 4, and she’s making all these fire songs. What’s happening?” Willow was doing all these things, about to have record label deals at like the age of 6, and I was like, “I feel like I’m underachieving.”” ~ Jaden Smith
- “I just got a chance to see strong tenacity and a desire to be on top from some young women who have never seen six, seven women signed at a time to major record labels. But they believe that they can put their footprint in hip hop in a major way.” ~ MC Lyte
- “For me, I guess, just learning that just because there’s not a whole lot of female MCs on the front lines being supported by major record labels doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It doesn’t mean they don’t have the drive and the competitive nature and the will and the way.” ~ MC Lyte
