A true artist does not depend on radio for success. A true fan does not let radio determine what they support — Talib Kweli
Music is life, and life is not a business. — Iggy Pop
My music is made for the people who are willing to stand up to change this world themselves. — Tom Morello
Underground dance music - in the nicest way possible - it's amateur. — Axwell
Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive — Chuck Berry
Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting. — Brian Eno
Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized. — David Sanborn
The single best thing that has happened in my lifetime in music, after punk rock, is being able to share music, globally for free. — Steve Albini
The music industry has been hijacked by corporate interests, but the way music affects people and resonates with them hasn't changed. — Michael Franti
My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company. — Sarah Vaughan
Placebo is music for outsiders, by outsiders and our gigs are like conventions of outcasts, which is cool. — Brian Molko
Making an album should be an honest experience. It shouldn't be about trying to gauge where popular music is today; it should be about artistic expression and putting down what you want to put down. — Scott Weiland
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand. — Stevie Wonder
Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it. — John Lennon
Music can change the world. — Ludwig van Beethoven
Music is always changing and the changes are unpredictable. — Billy Sheehan
Nowadays music is as disposable as a McDonald's wrapper. — Jeff Beck
Music is spiritual. The music business is not. — Van Morrison
Music is my religion. — Jimi Hendrix
Music is a safe kind of high. — Jimi Hendrix
Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting. — Brian Eno
Independent Music Image Quotes
Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go through life's journey, remember that the black keys also makes music.
What Music Means To Me Quotes
When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to. — Don McLean
What does music mean to me? I don't think I would really be much without it, without it coming through me. It's my means of communication, my means of growth, my means of transportation from one point in my life to another. — Erykah Badu
What singing means to me, I never did consider myself a singer, I just let people watch me feel music and how it comes through me. I've worked on it and practiced a lot. I mean, music, I dance to it, and singing is just one way of getting it out of me. — Erykah Badu
Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.
Money is just a piece of paper. Money burns. You know what I mean? Money is nothing substantial to me. You know what I mean? It's the enemy of music. — Christofer Drew
San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean you. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. — George Halas
I’m not a scholar or a psychologist, so I don’t really think about why. But I do think about what it means to sing to and with people, to offer music to them, and to ask them to spend time with me. — Bobby McFerrin
The earth has music for those who listen.
I have art. I have music. I have the history, this legacy behind me that I can look up to. This is what I believe in. If you want to call it God or spirituality, that's all up to you. Basically I believe in something that's bigger than myself, and that gives my life meaning. — John Zorn
My favorite music to sing would be my own songs, my original songs, just because I know them, you know I write the tunes, so my favorite songs are the newest ones that I write. That's what I like to sing the most, because it means something, it's real, it comes from me. — Paul McDonald
Everyone can of course take their own meaning, that's the beauty of music and lyrics, but to me it seems like everything is about being attached to the past and being afraid of moving forward, afraid of that big dive or step and losing what was. — St. Lucia
We're gonna keep on doin' what we're doin', and we're gonna get it by all means. That's just what "ruthless" means to me. Everybody's got their own definition, but I'm ruthless with this music. — Ace Hood
What Is Music Quotes
It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness. — Jerry Garcia
I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be. — Chris Cornell
The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are. — Ludwig van Beethoven
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls. — John Coltrane
My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being. — John Coltrane
The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, 'Well done, thy good and faithful servant,' is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal! — Keith Green
Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.
Music is a beautiful thing to listen to. It is not a thing to preach to others about, it’s not a cause. It is what it is-and that’s a beautiful artform. — Synyster Gates
I want longevity; I love music, being a musician is the greatest gift in the world to me, and if I were to get signed to a label, my family and team around me are always gonna be there to make sure they want the very best for me. My fans are what it's all about. — Christina Grimmie
The winds that sometimes take something we love, are the same that bring us something we learn to love. Therefore we should not cry about something that was taken from us, but, yes, love what we have been given. Because what is really ours is never gone forever. — Bob Marley
Life isn’t a music player where you choose whats being played, it is a radio where you have to enjoy whats being played. — Zayn Malik
Indie Music Quotes
It's important to keep indie record stores alive because their unique environments introduce music lovers to things in a very personal way. — Norah Jones
Generally I try to read anything but indie rock journalism or anything about music at all, especially in the summer. — Emily Haines
Indie rock is just as susceptible - if not more susceptible - to all the gross things about people becoming total ass clowns in music, and only worrying about money and image. I'm not interested in being a part of that. — Justin Vernon
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
I'm into indie music. I think indie is going to bring back the spirit in music. There was a time when it was all about accommodating the music business, the music was getting tasteless, but the spirit is back. — Yoko Ono
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. — Amy Lee
I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that. — John Legend
People are like Music, some speak the truth and other are just noise
You really think all of those indie music dorks go to SXSW every year to check out music? They go there to wear their laminates and act important and try to get laid. — Mark Kozelek
Now that the generation that grew up on '80s indie-rock has attained influential positions in the culture, that music is the new yardstick. And that will shift yet again some day. — Michael Azerrad
The American indie underground made music for like-minded people who thought for themselves. Thinking for yourself is intrinsically subversive. — Michael Azerrad
I've always seen myself as the person listening to alternative music and all that - generic indie person. I always tried to be the least pretty I could be. — Jenny Hval
Alternative Music Quotes
Latin music has many international influences - pop, rock, country, Brazilian sounds, and alternative styles. — Ednita Nazario
Yeah, I always listen to both classic and newer folk-influenced music. Singer-songwriter, alternative music. I also listen to more experimental dance music. — Brad Delson
When I hear the word independent I reach for my revolver. At this point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an independent film... Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I'm the Queen of Denmark. I don't know what it means anymore. — Jim Jarmusch
Music is the emotional life of most people.
I think I fall into a lot of cracks in terms of I'm too something. I'm too this, I'm too that. And my music has never really had a home. I've been this floating alternative. I'm too mainstream for alternative. I'm too alternative for mainstream. And I'm just kind of wandering. — K. D. Lang
Every now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music. — Thurston Moore
Nirvana was pop. You can have distorted guitars and people say it's alternative, but you can't break out of pop music's constructs and still get extensive radio play and media coverage. — Kristin Hersh
One good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain.
I listen to a lot of alternative types of music: I listen to a lot of Chinese music, I listen to a lot of Asian music. It might surprise you, but I listen to a lot of Arabic music. And I don't care - music is music. — Timbaland
I'm sure there are a few things in my CD collection that might surprise people. I like classical music, the blues, and I'm a big fan of alternative rock. — Brad Paisley
The thing about me is, coming from an alternative music background and singing for nine years, being basically invisible, I'm so used to writing for myself - and at the end of the day, I do it because I feel like I have to. So when I'm recording or writing, I don't have other people in mind. — Lana Del Rey
I don't think the Bonzo Dog could have evolved in America, nor could the old Nice: because of their musical discipline. This is one thing that British groups do have, a sort of discipline. Sometimes it can get a bit soulless, but on the whole I think it's preferable to the American alternative. — Jon Lord
Independent Film Quotes
I teach at USC. I have a big class of 360 kids, only about a fifth of whom are film majors. I don't just show the Hollywood blockbusters. I show independent films, foreign films, documentaries. — Leonard Maltin
Since Star Wars, that film's success led to bigger budgets, more hardware, that the great movies like the ones I did, which were studio movies, are now independent movies. They range from half a million to several million, and a lot of those have very interesting roles. — Faye Dunaway
Doing that, then doing a lot of theater, which I love. Doing guest stars, did two independent films that are going around to all these festivals. Both of them are going to be at the Lake Tahoe Film Festival. — Austin Peck
Without music, life would be a mistake.
When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead. — Steven Soderbergh
Independent films are where you really get to cut your teeth and have some fun and do the things that mainstream Hollywood doesn't want to do. — Anthony Anderson
You work hard making independent films for fourteen years and you get voted best breasts. — Scarlett Johansson
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain
Independent films in this country are in the same position. Miramax and Fine Line are not independent - they're with Disney! Come on. Or they're with Warner Brothers. They're all with somebody. — Dennis Hopper
Independent film is for actors that love to act. — John Leguizamo
I knew nothing about the independent film industry. I didn't know much about the industry itself. All I knew was how to watch movies, how to enjoy them, how to hate them, how not to like them. — Michelle Rodriguez
The lifeblood of my career has been independent film. — James Woods
Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life. — Bob Marley
Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom... In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country. — Duke Ellington
Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That's what music is to me.” – Janis Joplin — Janis Joplin
Sometimes I observe with curiosity that uninterrupted activity which, independent of the subject of any conversation I may be carrying on, continues its course in that department of my brain that is devoted to music. — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
I’ve always tried to be independent. It’s just my personality. I’ve always been the type to motivate the camp. I’ve always wanted to be the fuel for something—for music, the fuel for my family, the fuel for my best friend. Helping someone with what I’m doing. — Rita Ora
Digital technology has eaten classic radio as we know it. Independent stations with disc jockeys who chose their own music have all gone; it's these huge parent companies that own a hundred stations and then decide what we should hear. — Joe Walsh
Independence has been key to the success and sustained growth of electronic music over the past 25 years. — Richie Hawtin
Appalachia is still, for American musicians, a kind of fountain of youth we always go back to, the old home place to a group of artists who represent the quintessence of American independence, fortitude, genius, and madness. — Paul Burch
In times of totalitarian or autocratic rule, music (indeed culture in general) is often the only avenue of independent thought. It is the only way people can meet as equals, and exchange ideas. Culture then becomes primarily the voice of the oppressed and it takes over from politics as a driving force for change. — Daniel Barenboim
He didn't say nothing. He would just do things. He never said nothing or explained nothing. He just would do it and that was it. You were on your own. You had to be very independent being around John [Coltrane]. — Pharoah Sanders
Being independent gives me freedom to creatively be great. Standing on your own doesn't always get major exposure or support, but because I make music from a pure place, I am more so excited and relieved that it actually gets out into the universe. — Mya
What I like about being independent [in the music industry] is that anybody who does play the album on the radio and anybody who does choose to write in the media does so because they want to, because they like it or because they find something interesting there, not because they have to. — Ani Difranco
So dance music is now pop music. So now, as a dance producer, what do I have to do? So I'm starting to do alien music, because pop is not pop anymore; we need to go alien to be independent. — David Guetta
A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. — Stanley Kubrick
The first time I started listening to Irish music, I had a very strong connection. Strangely enough, there's a great many Japanese melodies and vocal styles that sound very much like Hungarian music. You start seeing all these cross-references and comparative, independent musical cultures. — Tom Waits
I think one of the most important things punk brought back was the whole concept of staying independent and doing things yourself. It made music a lot less boring in any category you can name. — Jello Biafra
I prefer Independent music, in which we have control to our music. — Yukmouth
I am proud that [I was] , , , enabled to guide this great talent . . . towards the superb fulfillment of its individual potentialities, towards the greatest independence. — Alban Berg
I began to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said about things being played three or fours ways, independently of each other, were true because Bach had also composed that way. — Miles Davis
Independent labels take nothing and make something out of it. Major labels buy that something, and try to make more out of it. — Tom Silverman
The Independent Record Store is the reason why i STILL do music...It seems like they're the only ones that Really care about the real music lovers...we need them...they're our balance to all of the music we are FORCED to listen to...they're the only ones that may still suggest something NEW and FRESH instead of just what's popular. — DJ Jazzy Jeff
I don't, really a fashionable person. I'm an actor, so I like costumes. But fashion is very popular now. Really overly popular. It's like New Age music in the '80s, or art. And then independent film. Now everyone's a fashion designer. It's had a big effect in New York, in our culture. — Parker Posey
My goals are to continue acting and also to produce some independent films in the next few years. Music is a passion of mine, so I also want to continue along that path, creating with my friends. — Sasha Grey
When you sing R&B songs in front of an audience, you look out and there's 85% women. I think R&B music is sort of designed for a man singing to a woman. I don't sing it like the sexy thing, but sort of pseudo-sexy. We rally the women together because it's about being independent and things like that. — Jamie Foxx
In changing times, we should all lend our support to the independent retailers. Without independent retailers, many of the biggest names in music would still be undiscovered. They break new artists and movements. We all know the industry is changing, but we can't forget where we came from. — Gorilla Zoe
We are drowning in a sea of Myspace, blather, and too much information. Music is everywhere and nowhere. The independent record store is the solution, a place staffed by friendly (or not) people who are actually paid to weed through this crap and help you find the good stuff. — Dean Wareham
I have friends with deals, both major and indie, and the ones on majors never seem as happy, and quite frankly aren't making music as strong as those on independents. — Raheem Jarbo
The BBC were not playing the music that was happening on the street so we did an independent production because we knew we had an audience. Then we licensed the album to EMI. — Georgie Fame
I publish my own music. I'm creating my own songbook. It works that way for me; I'm very independent. — David Friedman
There is a lot to say about what Bikini Kill and other 'riot grrrl' bands were able to achieve when they first set out. They were not some momentary, convulsive, creative spasm of independent music. There was a very real, relevant point of view being expressed. — Henry Rollins
I think Perry Ferrell put independent music on a very good path with Lollapalooza. — Henry Rollins
My father was a banker, but he was an independent spirit. He was a very good pianist and very much into music. — Yoko Ono
There are three people's careers I'd like to meld together into my own... Jay Z's for his business mindset, Macklemore's hustle as an independent artist, and Bob Marley's impact on the world and how refined and genuine his music is to this day. — CJ Fly
I'm independent so I have the freedom to drop music whenever I want to. I strategically plan everything. I'm a Capricorn, so I'm a planner. I work very hard, but I'm a planner at the same time. I've just been stock piling all this time waiting for the right opportunity to put out music. With me being locked up to a contract, it took years for everything to pass. — Marcus Ramone Cooper
Independence was a big, big thing for me. I saw my voice as a way out - when my parents fought, I'd run up to my room, put on The Sound of Music, open the window and sing out. My voice was my escape. — Christina Aguilera
I've worked with a lot of people and I like to play with people when it's fun, and people that I have fun with independent of music, do you know what I mean? Where you can just joke and kid around, because you can joke and kid around with somebody and when you get in the pressure cooker of the studio then you can it's just something. — Joe Louis Walker
It just took the right time. I was fully confident that I was going to see Sam Phillips and to record for him that when I called him, I thought, I'm going to get on Sun Records. So I called him and he turned me down flat. Then two weeks later, I got turned down again. He told me over the phone that he couldn't sell gospel music so - as it was independent, not a lot of money. — Johnny Cash
I would say "These Days." It was the title song to an album I put out, and it's really this song that you'll hear throughout the episodes and the season in the show. I write all my music, I'm an independent artist so we do it all in-house and that song embodies exactly what the title says. — Mike Stud
Whether it's just the career path of doing independent music, being an artist, however you want to pigeon-hole it, it creates a certain type of character. — Doseone
Even in independent music, people push towards radio. It is very political. — Dawn Angelique
I went straight from high school to Bible college for two years. Then I started doing music right out of Bible college full time. I did independent stuff for three years. — Jeremy Camp
I just love Cape Breton fiddling! I think it's very close. They derive their music from Scottish music. Well, in Donegal we're very influenced by Scottish music as well. Independently the two areas became very alike, because they kind of changed the music a bit from Scotland and we did the same. — Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh
Paste Magazine really embodies all that's left of a true independent thought and expression in music journalism in the states right now. Please support the cause and lift them up to keep them moving forward. — Shawn Mullins
In Conclusion
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