Watch MTV and you can see what the music scene is like in England. The Spice Girls? Not a lot of creativity in the commercial area. There are still great musicians in England, but not a lot being heard that much.
— Jimmy Carl Black
Gorgeous Commercial Music quotations
Rock became an incredible commercial success, people just became bored with serious music, and it was forgotten.
I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music.
There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.
The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.
If mass communications blend together harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their common denominator -- the commodity form. The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value, counts.
The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value.
Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
I did my own music videos, my own TV commercials.
I never do anything to strictly satisfy a fickle, ever-changing commercial world. I do the music I like to play. It's the only way I feel comfortable existing in the industry.
I direct a lot of TV commercials and music videos.
Fear is a problem with film music and films;
people want to be conventional, and there's more commercialism today. If you are not daring in your art, you're bankrupt.
Music can save people, but it can't in the commercial way it's being used.
It's just too much. It's pollution.
For all of us involved in preaching the gospel, performing music, publishing Christian materials, and all the rest, there is an uncomfortable message here: Jesus is not terribly impressed with religious commercialism
Every generation wants to be the last.
Every generation hates the next trend in music they can't understand. We hate to give up those reins of our culture. To find our own music playing in elevators. The ballad for our revolution, turned into background music for a television commercial. To find our generation's clothes and hair suddenly retro.
To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.
[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business.... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.
Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music.
Today there's a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it's all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record.
I didn't want to be told what to do. I don't want to water down my music to fit into their formats. I know what rock and roll is to me, but everything's turning into one big commercial.
The only thing that takes away from it is when they steal some music from one of my movies and put it in a TV commercial. I am not crazy about influencing TV commercials. But if I legitimately influence someone making a movie, I think that is really flattering.
There are certainly good examples of incredibly brilliant, beautiful music that has been made commercially available and sold everywhere. But I would say that, for the most part, quantity certainly does not speak well for quality.
Mars is really different, into art. Lydia Lunch is more energy. James Chance is more commercial in a different way, in funk and jazz. They were all doing original things, trying to create their own sound and music. I think they're all great.
That was a time when I did love music, I couldn't get enough of what was going on. Maybe it was Nirvana that brought me back. I guess it was a comfort because something that sounded so right - and non-commercial - had become so influential, so immediately.
At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.
I think for me, the only depressing music is music that doesn't give credence to those kinds of feelings, music that's just written for money or commercial reasons. Sad music can be the most uplifting thing in the world.
Of course the concept is to give people samples to get them hooked, I get that.
But to continuously give away our music, that's the reason why you don't see [many] rap award shows anymore, the reason that you don't see rappers in commercials anymore; because we have allowed our music to be devalued.
When I started making music, I made music in a very commercial space and I didn't have room to really explore things on my own terms. It took me awhile to create a little bubble where I could explore other things, and new things. When I did that, my tools were songwriting and arranging.
I really do listen to all types of music, not only rock, but everything from good pop music - which is usually older pop music - to RB and indie rock. I love indie rock more than a lot of the commercial stuff that you'd expect.
I have a company in New York City producing music for commercials, for radio, TV, features, etc. That's how I've been making my living. And now the company is very successful - to the extent that I can afford to come out and play.
I've heard some tunes in recent years that were pretty close to that same idea.
The idea was you turn on the radio and you want to hear some music and up comes a commercial.
Work in nightclubs was interesting. There were interesting people and places, but by and large, the commercial music experience.
Black music has become a commercial commodity.
Live performances are not so accessible as they were previously. It use to be possible to go to the bar on the corner and hear music. It was available for a fifteen cent beer.
I am very aware now that music is a business, but there is also a way to go about making music that is true to yourself as opposed to doing, you know, just going through the motions and making things that would just be commercially successful.
Record labels collude with some of the radio stations, and the radio stations have their play lists, 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.
I don't worry about alienating fans. I don't think most people these days think of artists as sellouts if they license their music for a commercial or a movie trailer. If anything, fans get psyched when they hear Sleigh Bells on TV or at the movies. As a band who doesn't make money off of record sales it's a great way for us to pay the bills!
[Commercial] radio is absolutely the enemy of music.
They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.
The futility of everything that comes to us from the media is the inescapable consequence of the absolute inability of that particular stage to remain silent. Music, commercial breaks, news flashes, adverts, news broadcasts, movies, presenters -- there is no alternative but to fill the screen; otherwise there would be an irremediable void. That's why the slightest technical hitch, the slightest slip on the part of the presenter becomes so exciting, for it reveals the depth of the emptiness squinting out at us through this little window.