You can't write a song out of thin air. You have to feel and know what you are writing about. ... Talent is only a starting point. You've got to keep working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there. ... Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it. ... The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. ... After you get what you want you don't want it. ... Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies. ... The song is ended, but as the songwriter wrote, the melody lingers on.
Never hate a song that's sold a half million copies.
We sold 1.5 million copies of the 'Abracadabra' album and 26,000 copies of 'Italian X-Rays.'
This book, 'Stupid White Men,' has sold now over four million copies worldwide. Probably about half of that may be in the U.S. and Canada, and the rest, overseas.
Raoul' sold a respectable 700,000 copies without a hit single. It didn't take off. If you don't sell 8 million albums or 4 million albums again, everybody deems it a big failure.
To have a No. 1 with 130,000 copies sold is, you know, I remember when we first started selling records, in order to have a No. 1, you'd have to sell at least a half a million if not more, for the rock side of things.
'X-Force' #1 sold 5 million copies. By default, the second issue dipped and did 1.3 million copies. But the cover of 'X-Force' #2 is Deadpool. It's not X-Force, It's Deadpool.
I was like a wonder kid at Uptown. The first record I produced sold two million copies - and I'd only produced it because the producer didn't show up.
You know, if a band on a label sold a few hundred thousand copies of their record these days, they wouldn't make any money. But if a band can pump out 10 million copies of a record for free, and 50,000 of those fans come to the band's website to watch pay-per-view videos or buy a t-shirt, that's roughly $10 million in revenue per year.
I know acts and I'm not going to name names but these people sold ten million copies the first time and the second album sells three million and it's considered a failure and they're dropped and that's really a shame.
I never want to record something that I'm not proud of just because I think it might be a big hit. There's no positive about that because if you record a song you hate and it's a big hit, then you're singing a song every night that you hate. And if you record a song that you hate and it isn't a hit, then you sold out for no reason.
In 1983 I'd had a number one. I'd sold 6 million copies of Total Eclipse Of The Heart all over the world.
My biggest frustration is the lack of scale in the music industry. The fact that no one has sold 100 million copies of an album is frustrating.
Guys like Todd Bridges never overcame being a child star. You can't have any big failures. I've always felt regular. I played organized ball at the rec league. At 13, they told me I sold 3 million copies. I didn't know what that meant.
I played some shows, but I'm disappointed it didn't do better. I wish all my shows sold out, I wish I had sold more copies, I wish that a song was picked up to be in a TV show - whatever these little benchmarks are. You always want something more.
I was the kind of entrepreneur that never really felt I made it. When Mike Olefield's "Tubular Bells" [Virgin Records' first release] sold 8 or 10 million copies, I suppose, at age 19, I could've possibly retired on the money. Instead, I immediately pushed the boat and took that risk again.