A Quote by Philip Bailey
I'm really glad we came up when we did. When we got started, the record companies were concerned with building careers. They made sure you could put on a live show before you put a record out. And if your first album sold 100,000 to 200,000 copies, they were happy, because they figured you had your foot in the door on a way to a long career.
Related Quotes
The 'Frampton' album sold better than all of the other solo records that I'd had, put together. It was over 300,000 copies, so that was a good signal that we were poised for my first gold record.
Before MTV, if you put out an album that sold 50,000 copies, your band could afford not to have day jobs for a while. That meant you could stick around, put out another album or two. Maybe it would be the second or third album where you'd make the statement you'd been trying to make all along.
I didn't have huge expectations for 'Frampton Comes Alive!' My previous album, 'Frampton,' had sold about 300,000 copies - a decent amount but not mind-blowing. There was talk at the label that maybe the live record could go gold. I was hoping we could do it, but I wasn't sure.
I mean, when we put out our first album, it was 'Gosh, we really hope it sells 100,000 copies. That was the innocence.
My best country record only sold 200,000 copies.
Well, Led Zeppelin IV! That's it really. I'll tell you why the album had no title - because we were so fed up with the reactions to the third album, that people couldn't understand why that record wasn't a direct continuation of the second album. And then people said we were a hype and all, which was the furthest thing from what we were. So we just said, `let's put out an album with no title at all!' That way, either people like it or they don't... but we still got bad reviews!
My best country record only sold 200,000 copies. I didn't have enough money for the band and the arrangements and the costumes and all. I had to move into wider fields.
My contract with mercury PolyGram Nashville was about to expire. And I never had really been happy. The company, the record company, just didn't put any promotion behind me. I think one album, maybe the last one I did, they pressed 500 copies. And I was just disgusted with it. And about that time that I got to feeling that way, Lou Robin, my manager, came to me and talked to me about a man called Rick Rubin that he had been talking to that wanted me to sign with his record company.
It might sound crazy but you put your money up and take out a little every week. You put yourself on a salary instead of getting $7,000 this week, $20,000 next week and $5,000 the week after that. Take a $1,000. You got your toys, you got everything and your money under your mattress. Break it down and have a salary to take care of you and your family and stretch that money.
It's a different world now: Stars come and go quickly, and there are so many of them. I read a statistic that all the record companies combined used to put out around 3,000 albums in a year. Now they put out something like 30,000!
I sometimes think 'Gordon' must be the most bootlegged album in U.S history, since it sold only 200,000 copies in the country, yet 800,000 kids know the words to every song.
It's a blessing and a curse when your first big public album does so well. 'Twentysomething' sold four million copies - I think we were hoping to sell 80,000. And it's still selling. In some ways, you'll always be defined by that.
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.
Record companies worrying more about market share than developing artists - I hear there was a time when if your first record didn't sell 8m copies, you were still given a chance to grow as a songwriter.
When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music... Now, record companies are run by lawyers and accountants.
Of course, a lot of businesses want to reach students, so I funded the magazine by selling advertising. I sold something like $8,000 worth of advertising for the first edition, and that was in 1966. I printed up 50,000 copies, and I didn't even have to charge for them on the newsstand because my costs were already covered.
Related Authors
Bob Marley Quotes
Jamaican
Singer
Britney Spears Quotes
American
Singer
Dolly Parton Quotes
American
Singer
Elvis Presley Quotes
American
Singer
Frank Zappa Quotes
American
Singer
Johnny Cash Quotes
American
Singer
Kurt Cobain Quotes
American
Singer
Lady Gaga Quotes
American
Singer
Marilyn Manson Quotes
American
Singer
Michael Jackson Quotes
American
Singer
Miley Cyrus Quotes
American
Singer
Neil Young Quotes
Canadian
Singer
Paul McCartney Quotes
English
Singer
Steven Morrissey Quotes
English
Singer
Taylor Swift Quotes
American
Singer
Ted Nugent Quotes
American
Singer