A Quote by David Berman

In the beginning, because of the Pavement thing, we were able to sell a certain amount of records. We were able to sell not such a great amount of records, but enough to live on. So there was no incentive to do what didn't come naturally.
I don't sell millions of records. As a matter of fact, I'm not even interested in selling millions of records. I enjoy MCing. I make a decent amount of money. I can feed my kids. I keep a roof over my head. I don't have to sell a million records to maintain my lifestyle.
Obviously there was the idea that we could sell more records if we played live, but I guess I didn't care enough to sell more records to do that.
I'm not the cool thing, and I'm not going to be the cool thing for a really long time, and it isn't like I'm not the cool thing and I sell 3,000,000 records every time. I'm not the cool thing, and I barely sell 150,000 records, if that, ever. So I'm obviously working really hard to sustain myself. I'm actually a target to be dropped, because that's just not enough records for a big company.
I make an embarrassing amount of money for a borderline Marxist, just by selling 100,000 records. I don't sell millions of records, and I don't need to.
You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.
We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.
With The Allman Brothers, we made two studio records that were OK, but the first really great album was the live one, 'At Fillmore East.' We were a live band, and it's one of the reasons we were able to stick around for 45 years.
Considering the amount of work I put into each piece, the amount I need to make from it is pretty high. I won't sell for less... but that means I rarely sell.
I just have to sell enough records to continue financing making more records.
I look at John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, guys who had a fantastic longevity, and I learned something from them. They didn't try to sell records. They weren't saying, 'Ok, what can I write, what can I do in the studio that will sell?' They were just doing their thing, and people picked up on it. I like the idea of that.
God works funny so it might have just been meant for me to be an artist that doesn't sell two million records. Maybe my records might change somebody's life rather than sell thru the roof.
I can work with all these different kinds of artists and still be able to come up with huge records. Not just cool records, but game-changing records.
I've heard that Oasis or Coldplay will sell tickets, but they can't sell records. They sold out Madison Square Garden in three hours. And they can't sell albums. I don't know what's going on.
When I put out a record or single I don't allow myself to set up expectations like, 'This song must be a number one hit. Its got to sell X amount of records.'
You have a great deal of yourself on the line, writing- your vanity is at stake. You discover a tricky thing about fiction writing; a certain amount of vanity is necessary to be able to do it all, but any vanity above that certain amount is lethal.
Most artists are making as much money now as they could have made... in the heyday of Def Jam [when the] Beastie Boys would sell 10 million records or DMX would sell 6 or 7 million records. Those records are one thing, but then all the other ways to exploit the emotional relationship between artist and community is so much greater that I would guess that they're making as much or more money than they could have ever made.
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