RS: Talking about the lifestyle thing, what about the American lifestyle versus the European lifestyle, and the way music is perceived?
Gary Salzman: The major labels in America never were interested in doing dance music. They wanted to market it. They wanted to have it working with their rock and roll album mentality, and that's just not the way dance music works. It is very different. It works in a mixed format, it works in a single format, although it also doesn't work that way, because the radio stations don't play it.

You have to have a business model and a business plan that incorporates what's going on with the lifestyle into how you sell your music. No one in the business community has really embraced that for dance, not as much as they are now. Now they are embracing it. You hear a lot of rhythm in commercials and in sales, in TV, and you see it in clubs everywhere, so it's not going away. You just have to set your business models up to work that way, and it doesn't necessarily work that way in an album format. That being said, when you do play a dance record on the radio, it works. You can see that from things like Everything But The Girl's Missing and Cher's Believe. I mean, Cher sold twelve million records, that's more than any rock and roll record, and it really did well for an artist who a lot of people had discounted and didn't want to work with. Everyone you talk with will tell you that's a pop record. Well it's not, it's a dance record. It's four on the floor, it's auto tuned, it's a dance record, and it's as much a dance record as any dance record that's ever come out.

It's just been played so much it's become popular. That's also part of the business that people just don't get, that you can't make pop music. You've got to make things people want to buy, that become popular.

RS: Pop music isn't a genre, but it's when music does well?
Gary Salzman: Right. This goes back to what Clear Channel plays, and what other radio stations aren't willing to (play). It goes back to Eliot Splitzer thinking he was going to fix the record industry, but not having a clue – going after the record labels but leaving the radio stations alone. This goes back to all the problems from when Clinton was President and he and Congress just allowed Clear Channel to buy everything. They have a business model and they're working within the framework of the law now, but you didn't have these types of problems ten years ago, twelve years ago.

RS: Earlier you gave an amazing quote, and now I want you to expand on it: "good music is an oxymoron."
Gary Salzman: My biggest peeve is when people say their music is better than your music, or that you're cool if you listen to this music – it's basically trying to get everyone to conform. It's trying to rope everyone in a room, into the same place, and say if you do this you're good, if you do this, you're bad. This is good music, this is bad music. I've heard this kind of thing used so many different times in so many different places. Like, Paul Van Dyk and Tiesto, this is real good music, but KTU was bad music. But that's just wrong, that's just totally incorrect. It's the worst part of this business when you hear, "Oh, circuit music is just circuit music. It doesn't belong on the radio." That's wrong. It's closed-minded, it's just thinking small. And that's why, when people say (things like that), I'm immediately turned off, I don't want to talk about it, because there's no such thing as "good music." What is good music today was considered garbage ten years ago, and what was considered garbage ten years ago was horrible ten years (before that). That brings me back to talking with my mother, when she used to yell at me, "How are you listening to that noise?" Well, you know, your good music is someone else's bad music, and your bad music is some else's symphony.

RS: With your expertise, if I'm a DJ producer and I come to you and say I want to go on the road, I want to start touring, I want to have a career in the music business, what's your first response?
Gary Salzman: I'd send them to AM only. I don't represent DJs, that's not what I do. The first thing I'd do is send them to a booking agent. The second is, I'd ask them if they write songs and if they have a point of view. And I'd ask them if they're interested in making records, if they're interested in developing themselves as an artist. I'd tell them that everyone wants to be rich, and everyone wants to be famous, and everyone wants to be a star. But getting past that, do you have something to say? Is there a reason to do this? And then, do I like what you're doing, and do you like working with me? It's a whole group of questions, and I'm consistently amazed how people pick managers, how people choose what they want to do. It's about being valuable, it's not about getting a record deal. If you make a great record, someone's going to put your record out, I guarantee it. And if you play really well as a DJ, and you have a point of view when you're playing as a DJ, and you're making music that has a sound or a style, you'll be found. (If you say) "this is my music, I want to get my music out, I want to continue to make more stuff that's like this, I want to do this" – that's very different.