"Everyone disagrees with me but I don't think scale is particularly important. ... I guess the only advantage of scale is that you can put out more records with different pipes into the market but you can (also) get there by being good and growing organically as well." Doug Morris, chief executive of the largest music group in the world, Universal Music Group, in a Reuters interview.

"I’ll put it this way: no regrets, but I wouldn’t do it again." Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish to Nashville Scene about his Burger King commercial.

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"Our newly empowered digital citizenry all over the globe have to grapple with the same sticky questions -- such as who owns what, and who has the right to share content. These are questions that none of us can afford to duck. Content and technology are strange bedfellows. We are joined together. Sometimes we misunderstand each other. But isn't that, after all, the definition of marriage?" -- Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, as quoted in the June 5th issue of The New Yorker. (Thanks, Nick.)

"We miscalculated with the Walkman." -- Sony President Ryoji Chubachi to the Wall Street Journel

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"At best, that record is just quirky and odd and really illegal. I never imagined people would play those songs in clubs. I also think the people who love it tend to love it for the wrong reasons, and the people who hate it tend to hate it for the wrong reasons. I think some people love it for what it supposedly did to the music industry, which was not my intent. I did not make 'The Grey Album' for music fans. I made it to impress people who were really into sampling." -- -- Brian Burton (a.k.a. Danger Mouse, one half of Gnarls Barkley) tells Chuck Klosterman (writing for the NY Times Sunday Magazine) how he views his breakthrough album, The Grey Album.

"The rules have changed. Being on TV these days and getting a lot of push in publcitiy don't mean SH*T. I mean look at The Features. They were on that Jimmy Kimmel show and it probably didn't help them move 10 extra units. That's because these days ANYBODY can be on television. ... It was cool that Be Your Own Pet were on Conan, but I doubt it will help them sell. Television is flooded with people, all trying to make it." -- NemesisBoy in an Open Letter To Nashville Bands

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"This was organic without the major label marketing hype. Lava/Atlantic didn’t pick up the band until the track was a proven hit. This is proof that a great song will break the political barriers….sooooo stop complaining and blaming major labels and starting writing 'great' songs that people actually want to buy." -- Kings of A&R on the success of Buckcherry's new album Fifteen.

"Rolling Stone apparently gave it five stars ... which means it's every bit as good as Mick Jagger's last solo record!" -- A Velvet Rope comment on the new Replacements greatest hits CD.

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"I think what has been a weakness (of hip hop journalism) is because we never had a lot of detachment. There’s not a lot of self-critique about the fact that hip-hop journalism has increasingly become celebrity journalism and [is] falling into the same traps that celebrity journalism falls into." -- Writer/activist/label founder Jeff Chang at an interview at Music Dish.

"For a lot of people in St. Louis, there were two gatekeepers — Vintage Vinyl and KDHX. Now, with the Internet, there are a million fucking gatekeepers." -- Vintage Vinyl co-founder Tom Ray on the market changes since the store opened 26 years ago.

"From the iPod's success to the whitewashed reconstruction of the Napster model to the financial turnaround at Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) would have never happened if not for tens of millions of teens hitting up the peer-to-peer networks for pirated downloads." -- The Motley Fool's Rick Aristotle Munarriz makes a good -- though exaggerated -- argument.

"there need to be more songs with titles like 'blood of the ghost of frankenstien and dracula' or whatever, it doesn't matter, because you can listen to this and do a drive-by, or you can just burn one by yourself, or you can go and put a stake in the foul heart of a child of the night, it doesn't matter because you're still going to feel pretty cool." -- Amazon.com customer review of Scientist's Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires.

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"And when it finally came time for 'Crazy,' the crowd sang along to a version that sounded nearly as good as the version that — with any luck — we'll be hearing on the radio all summer long." -- The NY Times' Kelefa Sanneh on Gnarls Barkley's NYC gig, showing that the iPod just can't quite kill either listening habits or a critic's choice of words.

"Apologies in advance to Mac users (like myself) that can't actually see the thing." -- Phillip Sherburne on his Insider blog at MTV's PC-friendly URGE music store.

"No one seems to disagree that artists ought to make a decent living off their music, but it’s anyone’s guess who’ll cough up the extra dough." -- The Nashville Scene's Tracy Moore on building music's middle class.

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"An interoperable digital rights management standard for music downloads would ultimately be a boost for record labels, recording artists and consumers." Salman Momen, head of media technology at Capgemini Telecom

"Lots of people will miss these olde objects of veneration — even CDs will be missed. The photos and the lyrics, the liner notes, the credits, shout outs and thanks can be perused in a comfy chair while the music plays — you don’t have to be at your computer screen to savor the graphics and text. But downloads could offer so much more. They could be an opportunity to expand the experience rather than a whittling away of the music/image connection." -- David Byrne on the loss of album packaging and the promise of digital downloads

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"In the CD age musicians learned to add their own diversions — skits, interludes, collaborations — to keep listeners refreshed on a journey that might last nearly 80 minutes. In 10,000 Days, the band's first album since the 2001 masterpiece Lateralus, labyrinthine songs are cushioned by intros and outros and digressions. (One of these, "Lipan Conjuring," is 71 seconds of chants.) Unlike LP's or MP3's, CD's encourage musicians to take their time." -- The NY Times' Kelefa Sanneh on Tool's 10,000 Days.

"Who the fuck is Lily Allen? I take one week off from the Internet, and three (3!) fucking bands pop up as the next greatest thing ever. Beirut? Lily Allen? At least I knew I didn't care about Cold War Kids before I left for LA." -- Central Village

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"One of the best solutions is to stop pretending that DRM for digital is a good thing. It helps technology companies, but it’s not helping music companies or artists." -- Yahoo Music chief David Goldberg

"The stars have all been on the rap side, and that is one of the reasons why urban music has enjoyed so much growth." -- Virgin's Jason Flom at the MusEXPO conference

"When I got the 'C' letter grade review in Spin, I heard nothing. Not from anybody. No one ever said anything to me. But whenever I got a good review from somewhere like Tiny Mix Tapes I would get emails about it. It was very clear to me then that all that print media shit doesn't matter anymore. It totally does not matter. I mean, no offense to Spin or anyone like that, but people right now, hard core music people that pay attention, they're online." -- John Vanderslice in an interview with DCist

"She is currently the least-paid member of her graduating class at Wharton School of Business." -- Hits Rumor Mill on on Lynn Hazan-DeVaul and her promotion to SVP Finance and Ops for RED Distribution

"I grew up in Northern California in a house passionately divided into two camps. Half Los Angeles Lakers fans, the other, inferior half Sacramento Kings fans. Oh the fun! Sure I miss Shaq and fondly dream of what could have been, but I still bleed purple and gold. Having said that, I was a Golden State Warrior season ticket holder this year. Ouch!" -- Mike Patton at The Tripwire

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• "...In a blind listening test, you'd be hard pressed to pick this out as the work of a soon to be incarcerated cult leader/mass murderer." -- Aquarius Records review of Charles Manson's Sings on ESP-Disk

• "The key for our survival is touring bands. Bands that don't tour don't sell records. So, what I've learned is to go with youth. Young bands don't mind hitting the road as much and don't mind sleeping on floors. Also, the more they tour the better they get ." Syd Butler, Frenchkiss Records at CMJ.com

• "I can't even begin to imagine the technical terms I would need to make a joke about the level of nerd that loves this band -- and I'm somewhat of a nerd myself. Their fanbase is way beyond taped-up glasses. The nerds at Flaming Lips shows are so nerd that they've come full circle and become jocks." -- A zero-rating review of the Flaming Lips' At War With the Mystics by Vice Magazine.

• "Music was better when we were kids ... When we were young we had tapes, and you listened to every track. You didn't fast forward in case you overshot. And songs you didn't like turned out to be your favourites, because the album became a person. It grew on you. Now, if kids don't like the first few bars, they're gone. You've got to grab them. I tell you what the problem is - it's downloading." -- Danger Mouse in an interview with The Telegraph

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• "Voxtrot are primed for a world take-over. Or at least a Fader cover story." -- an Other Music review of the new EP by super-buzzed indie band Voxtrot.

• "Prog star Lee Burridge has a novel idea: Set up shop in different cities across the world for one or two months at a time, soak up the local scene, collaborate with area talent, produce music, move on. We call it couch surfing." -- Danceblogga

• "...if Ian Curtis hadn’t killed himself a quarter-century ago, he’d probably be tightening the noose right about now." -- LA Weekly's Alec Hanley Bemis on Joy Division soundalikes Interpol, The Editors and She Wants Revenge.

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