Scott Borchetta
When I started the label, I stopped racing. Even though I have a better chance of getting hurt walking outside and falling down the stairs, if I had gotten injured on the racetrack, people would be going, 'What is this guy doing?' So I had to grow up a little bit.
I'm not a politically correct person.
The world isn't all happy, shiny people, and great art doesn't come from vanilla. Great art comes from people with a point of view and are very passionate.
You have to be responsible to yourself... but that doesn't mean you can't have a point of view about something.
A lot of times in a record company environment, it's, 'All right, go out on the road, go get some experience, come back in six months, and we'll see where we are.' I've erased that. Now it's, 'This is what we're working on today. I expect you to come in tomorrow and address this and be better.'
Without naming names, you can take some of the biggest artists of the last 25-30 years and point to those moments where they thought they were going to be movie stars, put the entire weight of a film on their back, and it failed. And some of them didn't recover from that.
Can a label group by itself scale to make a sensible business? I don't think so.
When we grew up, we couldn't wait to get our hands on cars, work with them, change the look of them. Now you see kids being like, 'I'll just take the Uber,' or 'Oh, I don't even have my driver's license yet.' I'm like, 'Ugh, who are you people?'
Winning 'American Idol' really anoints you the opportunity to have a great career; it does not anoint you a career.
You can come after me all day long. I don't care.
So much time and attention has been spent on streaming that we've really gotten away from some of the things that we could have, energywise, put into working together with radio more closely for terrestrial.
Like everything at Big Machine Label Group, the music comes out when it's ready.
It never gets easier to break a new act.
It's just part of my DNA. I love racing.
With the launch of Big Machine Premium Vodka, we are now offering a superior product that perfectly complements the music we take such great pride in.
We have a mantra at the Big Machine Label Group: Start with crazy and work backward.
We came up with all these crazy ideas that Taylor Swift could be the biggest artist in the world - and it came true - and that we could have five labels and become the biggest independent record company in the world - and it came true.
I've always thought we've done our best work when everything is on the line.
Most of our artists are songwriters, so the songs are still central to all this. If you don't have great songs, it doesn't matter the marketing or how many times you are on TV; you can only polish it so much.
When we first started, I had the time to personally live every project. As I continue to build the company, I've learned much better ways to delegate and let the executive team run. It's just as exciting for me to see the executives succeed as it is the artists.
I don't know that you can set out to be a brand. For us, it happened very organically, and we never rushed it or leaned on it too hard. I felt a true culture had started to emerge several years into the Machine, so we started trying some things, starting with simple stuff like cool merch.
The Big Machine Label Group will continue to knock down doors to break female talent.
Sirius and XM went on air in 2001. It's taken 14 years for that to be a real business. It took them combining to be a real business.
I've had so many conversations with new artists trying to figure out their careers.
The facts show that the music industry was much better off before Spotify hit these shores.
I've always thought that I've had a nice gift for putting the right people together.
One of my rules is, if Jesus or Taylor [Swift] calls, I take the call.Collection: Jesus
I tell my assistant “I'm busy! unless it's Jesus or Taylor (Swift) don't bother me”Collection: Jesus
We will have a new Taylor album in October. The record is genius. I can't wait for the fans to hear it.Collection: Waiting