A Quote by Ian MacKaye

Record labels have enjoyed a 100-year monopoly of selling plastic and now they're up against a different format. — © Ian MacKaye
Record labels have enjoyed a 100-year monopoly of selling plastic and now they're up against a different format.
The record business is an oxymoron. In the 1960s, there was an upside to selling plastic discs so labels took the risk - they paid for the record, for marketing, promotion, publicity, everything it took to make the artist a star. But now we have to go back to the venture capital model. The business is stopping and everyone's complaining but you can't blame labels. It's a shitty business. You do it because you're passionate, or because it's what you've always known. But if you lived through the nineties, nobody is thinking this is great compared to what it used to be.
Honestly, depending on what stage I'm at in my life, my opinion on plastic surgery changes. I've never been against plastic surgery - I'm against bad plastic surgery. I'm against the overuse of plastic surgery.
And once the music is out there, when you're selling a record and selling music and people are going to do whatever they want with it, it's kind of hard to resist certain opportunities, especially in the record market now.
Record industry's not so much against artists, but certain people are just wicked people that sit up in the industry who go against the artist. The thing is, if you're in the recording business, where's our health benefits? Where's the royalties from when you put stuff on labels in different countries? And now, with all these 500 cable channels, you want your mechanical royalties, your licensing. There's so much technology that you've got to stay on top. They always try to tell you, "Oh, don't worry about the business side, just do the music."
I've enjoyed the time I've had working on films. I've enjoyed television movie-of-the-week format. I've enjoyed the few comedies that I've done, and I've enjoyed one-hour television.
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.
I'll put my conservative record up against anybody's record. I have a 10-year career in public service, and I'm proud of the things I've been able to accomplish.
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.
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.
KIND has gone through many iterations as it deepens its social impact. When you're selling a million dollars a year, the impact you can have is very different than when you are selling over a billion dollars a year. Scale has allowed us to do things we never thought possible.
I remember at a very early age ringing up record labels I found in the Yellow Pages, and asking them for a record deal.
I think record cover sleeves really led towards, but at the same time the album as we know it didn't come into being until mainly after the Second World War because record labels realized they'd be able to make a lot more money putting all the singles of an artist onto one album and selling the whole album as a kind of a concept.
The good thing about having a hit record is you don't need too many people. Because now your record is on fire, and I already have a great team around me, so why run to the labels?
Prior to 2015, I had kind of approached every year like, 'Let's hope for the best.' I always made these year-end videos with 100 things I did, and it would kind of build itself up throughout the year. When this year started, it was like I knew the 100 things before I even got to do them.
One of the things I'm proudest of is, on my record 'That Was the Year that Was' in 1965, I made a joke about spending $20 billion sending some clown to the moon. I was against the manned space program then, and I'm even more against it now, that whole waste of money.
I heard a quote once in a documentary about a band that said you're better off owning everything 100 percent and selling 20,000 copies of an album than signing with a record company and selling a million copies. There has never been a truer statement about show business than that.
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