My Favorite Tom Silverman Quote

Tom Silverman of Tommy Boy Records and the New Music Seminar fame said the following at a workshop he held one time. I took down his words because what he said really affected me and has stayed with me over the years...and it is really quite prophetic in it's own way.

I hope you enjoy it...I suggest you read it slowly, and more than once, until it sinks in.

"For the first 10 years I was in this business I thought I was in the record business, but then a few years later I realized I wasn’t in the record business, I was in the ‘lifestyle’ business.

I had to provide my consumer base with what they needed that they weren’t getting anywhere else. So I had to identify not what they had, but what they didn’t have.

This is much more difficult to identify than what people have. Everything is created from nothing. So really the art is to be able to look at nothing, and create something out of it.

The reason why independent labels are growing is that Independent labels are down in the low places, so they can see nothing.

it’s easy to see something, but it’s very difficult to see nothing, and all the good stuff is found in nothing.

The independent labels are going to whip the majors because the majors can only see something, and once they see it they buy it.

They can’t create it, because the majors can’t see nothing.

Nothing is a great thing to aspire to. I aspire to nothing, and it’s really great...I recommend it.”

Tom Silverman